Screen Dump 850

Pistachio trees in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon

insinuate themselvs . . . the exhilaration with a profusion

of stringed instruments in the opening scene

with helicopter and huge boom . . . multicolored

costumed extras snack on pistachio seeds . . .

There's a call-and-response kind of mood to the day . . .

the comings and goings . . . the turbulence . . .

the drivebys . . . You consider Rent-A-Documentarian . . .

A journalist tapes her interview with a photographer

on a small 70's style reel-to-reel tape recorder . . .

She hopes to frame what she calls a normal day,

which some are lucky enough to enjoy while others

have perfect days, as featured in the film about

a janitor finding beauty in the world cleaning public

toilets in Tokyo . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Semantic drift leaves you stuck mid-thought

on the slippery slope of your backstory

with corners folded . . .

In the lost scene you redact emptiness

on the deck of a steamship

ferrying steampunkers

to an island of breakdown lanes

echoing a polyphony for multiple voices

when midnight matters little . . .

Particulates contaminate the River Styx

with the pushback taking on a life of its own . . .

Soon a moment of silence . . .

Have you tried using AI in a sentence? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You're filming the in-between moments

with a hand-held camera . . .

You're pretty sure they mean something . . .

The power grid of your memory

is not a black hole

nothing like that at all

with crumbling facade along an overgrown path

sprouting shoutouts of Data Breach

expecting somersaults at inopportune times

begging for an unpacking of subject matter

thrown out in the last downsize . . .

It's the in-between moments, again, yes? . . .

the in-between moments

that have to be filled

with something, anything? . . .

How about the box of loose ends? . . .

The latest opening was cringeworthy

made more so by the late start . . .

You were perfect for the backlot scene

before you went underground with hobblers

following a trolley loaded with ho-hums

reimagining how it might have played out

if happenstance hadn't happened along

with innuendoes roaring over you

like an unscripted mudslide . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Outtakes

(reposted from Friday, June 15, 2012)

I am not now that which I have been.
          - Lord Byron

You befriend a Chinese Puzzle Box,
walk through scenes of over-rehearsal and exasperation.
The (mis)direction is good for both of you.

This time without the backdrop.
You begin to lose interest, yes?
Nonetheless, proceed as if smearing paint on canvas.

Forget the image. There is none.
Wing it.
Let yourself be enveloped by the drama

of the moment, the spontaneity
of the lens, the elements of time captured.
Bemoan the loss.

Again, this time with tension.
The method is beside the point
resurfacing as binaries

which down the road will have their say
striking a chord with many.
(Pretend an audience.)

See how far you can take it.
The surprise will be costumed in the next chapter
however oppositional.

Antonio Palmerini

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The edge of a conversation

a word here a word there

trying to piece together the fragments

trying to follow . . .

Then in the courtyard

somnambulists exchange dreams

but again you're out of the loop

so you retreat to the next chapter

of an instruction manual

filled with asemic writing

but the way in is the way out

adding to the mixtape

with tattlers exposing Easter eggs

for ventriloquists

in the throes of a talkout . . .

It's the same old same old infinite loops

from the first act breaking stride

sending the dappled engagement

off on its own golden goose chase . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Has reading between the lines helped? . . .

What about the blank page? . . .

Is it the intimate interiority

of a different life floating in

at all hours . . . covered with snow

that keeps you young, yes? . . .

keeps you moving across

the mind's moors . . . visiting

metaphysical what-ifs, haystacks,

brick-and-mortar clock towers

the inevitability of the postponed

as you try to fit into place

the last piece of the puzzle . . .

The dropdown menu of possible endings . . .

The wherewithal coming into view . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Can anyone die without even a little bit of poetry?

          - Mark Strand

A sudden anticipation . . . this routine of words

portending immortality . . . however fantasized . . .

A dialectic with obscurity and belatedness

participating in various dreamscapes . . .

weather mounting . . . offshore . . . rain moving in . . .

Apollo clutches Daphne . . .

You clutch a mug of morning coffee

and you get it, yes? . . . this parallel dimension

where you appear . . . unannounced

in dress rehearsals for your present waking life . . .

Kelly Boesch

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The rustic earworms of your fantasies

storyboard Paradise Found

as you review choices made

in your past shuddered life . . .

eroticisms whispering Etch A Sketch images

infusing your DNA with new ways

into your days . . . without which

but that would be what? . . .

impastos unshackled? . . .

the clock continuing . . .

this unnecessary cupping of hands, yes

awaiting a sign . . . on this snowy night

traveling through the secret air

down the steep, down the stops, down the deepenings

until asleep . . . dreaming . . . mirrors, faces, all . . .

Kelly Boesch

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The answer in question awaits

costumed and ready . . .

There's little sense

in mapping the route

or in reconstructing the argument . . .

The cat has escaped the bag

with dissertations

waiting in the wing

to move in and have at it . . .

Just look at it differently . . .

Kierkegaard's rotation method, yes? . . .

You have passed the Driver's Test

and are finally roadworthy . . .

Advisors are at your beck and call . . .

Soon you will be off and out . . .

No need to be squeamish . . .

Kelly Boesch

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An unkindness of ravens stalks you

with forked-tongue misdirection

pulling labels, stalling the machine . . .

You fear for your inertness,

intimidated and defensive . . .

the question, How Should A Person Be?

drops with forged watercolors . . .

And now word salad is being served

as placation . . . but the bigger story . . .

yes, the bigger story . . .

Abecedarian assemblages are no exception

with beauty the answer

and not just that . . .

so thoroughly disrupting

the urge to impose,

through a sense of your evolving self

despite the irrepressible narrative . . .

Sheila Heti

Screen Dump 841

A closed timeline curve plasters walls

with canary flyers opening to the fluidity

of dreamscapes . . . Everyone is inked . . .

in solidarity . . . the word out is beyond scary

looping back onto itself . . . painstakingly

slow black-and-white panning

squeezing scripts to fit the moment . . .

the experience . . . a thousand voices . . .

You raise your hand and are dropped . . .

Kelly Boesch

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Painting with a muted palette . . .

the foreboding promiscuity head-butting

to tempt happenstance

but how to do it

without intentionality, yes? . . .

Trails groomed by AI . . .

Objects of desire vanishing . . .

There is no joy in Mudville . . .

A Magic 8 Ball rolls in

with Ask again later . . .

Now what? . . .

Are you ready to click Resume? . . .

OK, maybe go with the cosplay? . . .

but what if a much of a which of a wind

{in fact} gives truth to the summer's lie? . . .

Kelly Boesch

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Getting the words out, yes? . . .

the joy at the level of the sentence

despite hallucinating chatbots

with you touting your next iteration . . .

long lines followed by short lines

saying the real say

a window into the why . . .

Is it alive? . . .

away from the non-presence

of philosophical yadas . . .

the kinship among the disillusioned

pushing the disembodied space

into something else

energized by nature’s calisthenics . . .

You can do this . . . you know you can do this . . .

Serge Barbeau

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So what's a little queasiness? . . .

This is what you wanted, yes? . . .

this staging of the ethics of representation:

who was there? . . . who wasn't? . . .

the magic . . . what sustains it? . . .

what snuffs it out? . . .

The engaging motleyness

emerging from somewhere deeper

than rationality . . .

trying not to be judgmental . . .

the menacing collage

the porosity of stalled time

the bucket list leaking indecipherables

into your playpen of dreams

the rate of polymer degradation

awaiting your inner film preservationist . . .

Implausible . . .

Would you rather something else? . . .

How then pharmaceuticals

in the throes of ecstasy? . . .

Deep discounts? . . . of course . . .

Repercussions bouncing around

the breezeway at all hours . . .

Throat singers trailing scripts, yes! . . .

And now the day . . . with coupons . . .

Can you wait it out? . . .

Blanche Sewell

Screen Dump 837

Filling in the blanks . . . especially the urge

to drop your story

doing your Shangri-La with wait staff

unselfconsciously . . . without worry . . .

shredding the shell game . . . under glass

a peaceable array of mock-ups

gradually falling in sync . . .

The outermost dunes of imagination

with character studies for those in waiting rooms . . .

You have returned in your favorite backstory

as an elementary guide

through the valley of bass clefs . . .

The moment-to-moment on the tenth yard line

with eye sockets appended to enjambments

as if ideosyncracies managed to get through secuity

without the usual discomfitures . . .

This is good . . . with you without remorse, yes? . . .

Marcin Szpak

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I suppose that's how it began . . .

odysseyites worrying the crossing

with Facebook friends 

roadmapping next steps to happiness

morning rounds interrupting

the magical mystery tour

promised by the maître d' . . .

But the sign-up sheet? . . .

Forget that, it was a misstep . . .

But you mentioned a vague disquietude,

a vexation totally unexpected? . . .

That too was part of the excitement . . .

Apparently, you didn't get the memo . . .

So many do not want to be bothered

opening Door #3, fearing what,

identity theft? . . .

You mean tweaking? . . .

Not a big deal . . . bringing

something new to the table

should help you navigate the unknown . . .

Marcin Szpak

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Stop making sense.

          - David Bryne, Talking Heads

Is it worth the effort to bring home the bacon

or release the stops and replay the collision

of fancy-pants words for odysseyites-in-training? . . .

Of course, the ramifications, allegations,

the daytrip to the photo-shoot

with clothes-horses astride the aforementioned . . .

An abundance of light . . . or delight, yes? . . .

You were promised a free ride but then what? . . .

The ventriloquist's dummy lost its voice

after speaking in tongues to residents of Utopia . . .

There was no turning back . . . the River Styx

if that's what you're thinking

or are about to think about . . .

Akin to moving into a loft to excavate

grainy black and white footage

from a foot locker earmarked for extraction . . .

before the scene in which briefs are filed

at a unknown law firm is dumped . . .

But that won't explain everything

being light years away from any sense

of street reality . . .

It's simply an idea . . . not unlike any old idea . . .

enamored as you are of the contemporary art scene

brimming with new or outlandish notions

in a culture punishing outsiders . . .

Mattias Bjorklund

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A playlist, yes, that’s it, a playlist . . .

rewound between scenes

and in the distance . . .

Can you believe the intermixes

of ensouled sediments à la Annie Ernaux . . .

memories the stuff of experience

confirming life's fragmentation

and the belief that one belongs

in a graphic novel? . . .

Try that on . . .

Oh, OK, to occlude the looming gloam of death

beyond the parameters of age

as if the sound of a train

steaming along the shore

will arrive with installation instructions

for your next next . . .

This is too far-fetched, isn’t it,

too ill-fitting

the range of options a word salad? . . .

You have to admit though a certain exuberance

so exuberant in fact that it applauds missteps

with A+s . . . nonsense, but yes

you can see it as well as I

and I have to admit I'm enjoying the garble . . .

the magic . . .

Annie Ernaux

In Anticipation of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein

          for Mary Shelley

The powerful engine reanimates the commonplace
and transports you to Doug Adams's Galaxy
where you shop for food and tend the fire.
A little red helps wipe out the nightmare.
You thought solutions would drop from the sky
but instead squirrels on drifts ignite messages
from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
You recall taking off in secret,
traveling incognito around the countryside,
not unlike Torquato Tasso,
whose alleged schizophrenia rescued him
from a life without love.
Did Percy too stir with an uneasy, half vital motion
when you were out at all hours
with soft brush, dark crayon, and rice paper?
Were the rubbings a hit in the cabin on Lake Geneva?

Bernie Wrightson

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It was like that, yes? . . . like the obtuse angle

in a math problem posting the past

with an escape route to explain why

as if Tears for Fears:

Welcome to your life

There's no turning back . . .

Prisoner in a trap of disbelief

choreographing rewrites that clutter

your mind's forgotten transfer station . . .

Why the passport makes no sense

in this pool of adjectives backstroking

the aseptic elegance of angularities

extends into extra innings

making it almost seem worthy

of the nonsense syllables

transcribed onto a faux scroll . . .

This maelstrom of bittersweet streams

is nothing new . . . nothing you did not master

in the stairwell of the apartment building

where you had set up shop so to speak

for your clients

that has since been razed

to line the pockets of wheeler dealers . . .

Your habitual scribbling about one-trick ponies

with empty sockets

suffers a conclave of nostalgia . . .

troubling knowledge of what will happen . . .

the time opportune for boilerplate logic . . .

Antonio Palmerini