Screen Dump 452

Calling your lost dog . . . who isn't lost
as if you need to tell someone
that something strange is about to happen . . .
a stylishly ill-advised moment
walking through the neighborhood
calling your lost dog . . . who isn't lost . . .
The incompleteness hits you on the ride home
and you fashion descenders
where mistakes have real consequences . . .
400 forgeries is nothing to poo-poo . . .
Simplification made simple, yes? . . .
as in the final scene where
the morning's cereal box
speaks to Scorsese's rat crawling
out the door . . .
This day like a few others lately feels rigged . . .
and grocery shopping won't be enough
to fend off the players - extras? - queuing up
at the entrance to your exit . . .
The jigsaw puzzle of attraction
with pieces scattered throughout your dreamscape
prompts you to play the mask
with a rush as diagrammed . . . at eye level . . .

Hannes Caspar

Screen Dump 451

An ultrasound tech . . . presents with pomegranates
small talks the front page
leaning in . . . as if quarterbacking . . .
Moments bespeak moments . . .
The reconfiguration of camera angles . . .
speechless at an open mic . . .
the ride home a hacked password . . .
Why now the interruption? . . .
Friends of friends arrive with leeks
count the take of the toll . . .
A scuffle in the meat department is captured on 36 iPhones . . .
Bigger . . . and BIGGER protein . . .
Is a life lived in faux fur a life lived? . . .
Another interruption . . .
You retreat to a labyrinth of overheard words . . .
grammatically indifferent words . . .
words in yellow vests . . . SANCTUARY . . .
Your impatience with the inanimate
grows with the stick-built . . .
the accountability of staking seedless tomatoes
as artifacts for the impossible . . .
Are the wine legs as they should be? . . .
You know the drill . . . when will you decide? . . .
Self-starters are bused to a starting line
confused by lifestyle changes
and made to consider a cache of meds
with no guarantee . . .
The comedy of monotony informs your late nights . . .
There was a time . . . not that long ago . . .
Take this down . . . breathe in . . . hold . . .
breathe out . . . Here's another . . . breathe in . . .

Ellen von Unwerth

Screen Dump 450

Waiting for . . . then waiting again . . .
Recruiting sandmen for graphical interfaces with sans serifs
brought back as uncommoners . . .
Imagine the confusion . . . the scale sliding
all over the slippery slope of mastery
operationalized as blips in a sea of screens . . .
monochromatic life savers
wrapped in tinfoil . . .
The scene opens with paint-by-number distractions . . .
Odysseyites clamor steamer trunks
when last calls led to back rooms where
opportunists drifted in and out of snowcastles
pocketing nonchalance for iPhone moments
saved to the cloud . . .
gaming tables alive with soup(er) bowls
for aficionados awaiting pat-downs . . .
the halftime show drawn and quartered amid controversy . . .

Screen Dump 449

The physiological component is a tired genre . . .
          - Anon

After which variations on themes . . . enter the frame
goop fogging the brain . . . neural networks and all that . . .
irrespective of how much
you practiced impossibilities
which took time
away from being held upside down until you got your balance . . .
Mosaic faces urge you to monochrome your life
to recommit to sobriety . . . hedge your bets
while odysseyites board short stories
with subtitled cigarettes
inviting you to re-up . . .
Miscounts abound . . .
Most if not all seek this, yes? . . .
Yet somehow, somewhere, there are average nuclear families
living in average nuclear waste dumps
trumped-up with average nuclear happiness . . .
Blond best friends are trying to make a go of it . . .
convinced they are destined to meet
the most famous person alive . . .

Jarek Kubicki

Today

(reposted from Sunday, April 5, 2015)

The world . . . calls to you like the wild geese, . . .
          - Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

to celebrate
I went . . . to the woods . . .
some snow still
the creek's gurgle
the trees
and then above . . . wild geese
return . . .
harsh and exciting . . .

Mary Oliver

Screen Dump 448

It seems foolish to think about ins and outs . . .
the cantomime trying to show how opacity descends upon us
and we skip the freebies
the duplicitous star-struck lovers
their lapse among leap-froggers . . .
fascination shortlisted . . .
You have set your sights on leaving
everything out . . . regretting the insertion . . . again? . . .
the rearrangement some would call louche . . .
You worry fastidiousness will undo you
especially now with your backpack gaping . . .
utensils giggling their inexactitude . . .
imposing drama on the rescheduled reshoot
awaiting revisions . . .
So many continue to be damaged with the dawn . . .
the world as Hawking predicted
becoming uninhabitable . . .
while uncharitables plot the canvas and push paint
to escape the tiresome conventions dull patter sour confessions
moved by boredom from the fringe to critical spotlight . . .
words reigniting mental gymnastics
meriting a trip to the mall
handicapping cluster flies snowboarding dry powder . . .

Colette (2018)

Screen Dump 447

Meanwhile the unruffledness of days splattered with snow . . .
A trio of clowns . . . random in tandem . . .
fresh from a nightmare . . . hand out free passes . . .
to open mics . . . now closed . . .
A time for revision . . . and repetition . . . looms . . .
The unwelcomed clone of your selfie is on hold . . .
choking back backstories of incidentals
to bring offcolor to passersby
exiting kiosks on the unnamed streets
of someone's hometown . . .
You search for links to direct you through the avalanche
of late-night palm readings
by recent converts to mime . . .
Pasta will be passed around without remorse . . .
without malice aforethought . . .
with trial balloons launched without beta testing . . .
It's OK to be remaindered, he/she said, now that the everyday
is signed sealed and delivered without return receipt requested . . .

Lydia Roberts

Screen Dump 446

You are involuntarily committed . . . to something . . . to nothing . . .
to see it through . . . your history of walking
the nooks and crannies of flâneurs
smirking through costume changes . . . and letters of the alphabet
with everyone croaking . . . everyone trying to get soberer . . . and soberer . . .
The lowest common drama will do, yes? . . .
It's all kindling, I suppose . . .
Like the caboose in that strange fairy tale of Bach's motif
tuning slides maxed . . . daytripping across shallows . . .
maneuvering roll calls to bring out the best in Netflix . . .
You assume arpeggiation . . . swoon dyslexics with Bayesian reversals . . .
spiked with the odds you've been messing with on the off ramp . . .
when words of his/her probability . . . mutated . . .
circumambulating . . . and elementary my dear Watson
knowing that castling is the only move involving two pieces . . .

Screen Dump 445

          after and for Anon

The list bloats . . . and your piercings have a curfew . . .
Once upon a yellow romper . . .
around 30 . . . give or take . . .
The script reads several oral exchanges
a phrase linked to homespun . . . as in the winter of our fall . . .
But who directed the run-through? . . .
and who were the sequentials . . . or the catch-as-catch-cans? . . .
Your iPhone vibrates with coconut balm
wondering about the older, regular whose gift was gab . . .
The stop-action . . . disabled, yes? . . .
or, rather, who stop-actioned the disabled? . . .
Looking for Mr. Goodbar elevates to happenstance . . .
I'll see your goodbar and raise you twenty . . .
with Diane Keaton . . . or Telly Who loves ya, baby? Savalas . . .
or any of a number of extras . . .
then downhill . . . through the thick growth at brain drain . . .
But will you see it coming? . . .

puppeteer Ilka Schönbein

Screen Dump 444

A clear intensification of bullshit is underway.
          - William S. Smith, Art in America, December 2018

The rigidity of footnotes stalemates you
on odd numbered days during months that begin with a vowel
when 0.7mm leads proved to be too soft
for jotting memoirs of backpedaling . . .
The inconsistencies overwhelm . . . and increase at an alarming rate . . .
Just in time for the holidays, yes? . . .
With worries of internet penetration at all time highs . . .
Lady Day's I Can't Get Started forecasts a cold front
accompanying a highly detailed index
with entries that - according to the New Yorker's Dan Chaisson -
cover everything from hiking to honeymooning
to beekeeping and braiding,
allowing readers to track [Sylvia] Plath's imagination
as her poems evolved . . .
in a voice true to [her] own weirdnesses . . .
Your reminiscences take me back to an old roster of players -
color-coded . . . and sized . . . for maximum effect . . .
The method is so young it totters . . .
But you've heard it all from attachés who roll with the credits . . .

Gordon Hall, The Number of Inches Between Them

Screen Dump 443

iPhone voice messages echo Stage IV intimacies
(cf. Szasz's Myth of Mental Illness; Braginsky's Last Resort) . . .
But now you can't remember . . . and are being stalked
by a string of declarative sentences
whose hoodies have unhinged the imperative . . .
It's no longer enough to ignore this
or the commodification of life extension
in the dairy section of Warhol's 10,000+ 35mm pics . . .
Many make waiting a career . . .
You saw this yourself in your last trip down breakdown lane . . .
The '50's series Omnibus was telecast live
for crackers in Chelsea Girls
with the Joker's here we go and Frost's you come too . . .
Anatomical World's skulls and skeletons
have decided to go (window shopping) with fish and chips . . .

Constance Jablonski

Screen Dump 21

(reposted from Thursday, December 26, 2013)

The disingenuousness of last minute players
and late starters
and those on the cusp . . .
Return receipt requested . . .
Parlaying the obvious . . . because . . . just because . . .
Looking back to go forward . . .
Like Casals at 96, I'm making progress . . .
Awakened by recalls . . . and by the nudge of those
with the chorus . . . announcing the place
(as Oliver) . . . of your one wild and precious life . . .

Deborah Turbeville

Sno-Cone Joe

It was the summer of the
wiffle ball, 1961, the summer
before October 1st, when a
mild-mannered right fielder
from North Dakota, Roger
Maris, unjuiced, would send
number 61 into the right
field stands, breaking the
Babe’s 34-year-old record;
16 years before Rick Ferroli
would begin holding wiffle
ball tournaments in his
backyard tribute to Fenway
Park in Hanover,
Massachusetts; 19 years
before Jim Bottorff
and Larry Grau would
establish the World
Wiffleball Championship
at College Park in
Mishawaka, Indiana. I was
14, playing shortstop for a
wiffle ball team on a dusty
diamond in a city park
in upstate New York. Wiffle
ball innings colored that
summer’s afternoons,
soundtracked by the
screeches and laughter of
the younger kids in the
park’s pool, whose deep end
was three feet, and where,
earlier that summer, a rat
had wandered into the drain
pipe, causing a mass exodus
of kids whose screams
echoed down Main Street,
three miles away. The
magic of the wiffle ball
held us, rivaled only by a
strange, uncomfortable
feeling that had surfaced a
couple years before, that
seemed to grow daily -
indeed, hourly - and
would eventually eclipse our
fixation on the plastic, white
orb, with eight, 19mm
oblong holes. A feeling for
girls, for members of the
opposite sex, who, that
summer, in tight, colorful
tops and short short shorter
shorts, crowded into the
makeshift stands framing
the wiffle ball diamond. We
tried our best to look cool,
to stay cool, as if, unfazed,
we thought only of the
wiffle ball, of sending it
over the fence, out of the
park, so that we could then,
nonchalantly, commence
rounding the bases and
return to our teammates for
back slaps and arm shots in
that pre-high-five pre fist
bump era, scoring not only
runs for our team but
points with the hair-
sprayed, big-haired, big-
eyed spectators. There
were no dugouts. The
members of the team at
bat would sit on a small
wooden bench or on the
grass, and, most often,
would discuss, not the
statistics of baseball,
but the mystical moves
required to get to first,
second, third, and home
with members of the
so-called "second sex"
whose inscrutability
had us shaking in our
Chuck Taylor All-Star
white canvas high tops.
Every year, a few of us
would master the moves,
advance to the majors,
prepared for what Coach
Johnson called the clap,
the drip, crotch rot,
crotch crickets, in other
words, VD, or venereal
disease, warning us to
guard against it by
practicing safe sex,
using condoms, or
prophylactics, or, more
commonly, rubbers.
And, as if having been
given the green light by
some otherworldly force,
most of us knew where
to get them, the source
having been handed
down to rookies by those
who had scored, by those
who been around the
block, by those who had
in fact gotten laid. The
source was Sno-Cone Joe,
whose ice cream truck,
emitting jingly, happy,
cartoonish tunes, would
daily make the rounds
of the city's parks
throughout the summer.
Just go up to Sno-Cone
Joe, ask for a double
chocolate and three
rubbers. And we did.

Screen Dump 442

Around and around a roundabout . . . tough as 10 penny nails
sporting cerise kicks for your podcast on bipedalism
with an exclusion clause from the Holy Roman Empire . . .
The instability of The Life and Times of . . . TBA ushers you into the finals . . .
blue books blackened with Ticonderoga #2s . . .
Two people lying on a bed of 10 penny nails walk into a bar . . .
Rehearsals and reversals, yes? . . .
Penobscot Bay remains a mystery to the marine life
waiting for Ivy-Leaguers to take the bait
as the world is whited-out . . .
its palpability . . . a big floppy couch
stuffed with ping-pongers . . . exposed mid-serve . . .
abusing over-the-counter bunion cream while awaiting a shuttle to detox . . .
This and other addenda clog . . .
Odysseyites write you up . . . and down . . . over . . . and under . . .
You yourself know this . . . as well . . .

Liliana Karadjova

Screen Dump 441

I've been wondering if all the things I've seen were ever real.
         - Sheryl Crow, Everyday Is A Winding Road

But the dream escapes before you awaken . . .
Somehow . . . somewhere . . . a blacksmith's syncopated beat
followed by a clothesline's hum . . .
It takes a neighborhood, yes? . . .
I am into fixtures, you insist . . . as clouds clutter the sky
and your bag of groceries gives way
to a maze of brochures hawking timeshares . . .
The sun is late . . .
You have forgotten the words . . . the way . . . the gallon of milk . . .
Uberizing your wishes just won't do . . .
Did you actually think you could call it in? . . .
This morning's tap dance was outrageously complex . . .
It's the complexity of the other
floating a hazard . . . the light changing . . .
Monopoly's admonition not to pass GO! . . .
Hundreds were pressed into service . . . before your shoutout . . .
And now look at the crowdfunders buying in . . .
as if . . . as if . . . as if . . .
your lip-syncing will make a dent in the nosebleed section . . .
Thank you . . . in advance . . .
We look forward to your revision
despite the seeming unrevisability of this stream of consciousness
swimming off the page . . .

Sheryl Crow

Screen Dump 440

You talk about pulling what 12-steppers call a geographic
hooking up with an acquaintance from your fire escape days
when rooftops filled with cigarette smoke
and not reading books to children was an outrage . . .
You can't imagine the shapes they come in . . .
So-called vestigial organs play Bach
as if it were your new favorite painting . . . a monochrome
hung eye-level with the sound of someone vacuuming
under a daybed . . . earmarked for the tone-deaf . . .
Young and fresh . . . the composition extraordinary . . .
paired with short stories he/she could not repeat . . .
That was back when we took black-and-white photographs
of each other with a Polaroid One-Step . . .
The detritus of the curb has become a come-on to violists
who are suckered in by the harmonics of international concert pitch . . .
Most have zero in common . . . despite trivializing
the sad and disappointing waistbands of front runners . . .

George Katsanakis

Screen Dump 439

The transition compulsory . . . now that you have cleared
that hurdle . . . and are hell-bent
on driving through the foam barricade . . .
Go-betweens will surely offer solace
as if to say the endgame has petered out . . .
You have arrived at two desires . . .
It's where you want to be, yes? . . .
A big rig simmers with hospitality . . . at the next Motel 6 . . .

Jan Scholz

Screen Dump 438

The violence of the moment . . . and yet . . .
the sensation odd . . . straddling pleasure and pain . . .
a barometer . . . for future hookups . . .
The instability of hiding behind a mask . . .
of ordering off-menu . . .
uncarded . . . without reservation . . .
the dryness of the imagination
and manipulation
with you becoming fixated on a dumbwaiter
as survival tactic
with its ups and downs
passed around . . . and over . . .
to escape through a chink in the keynoter's address . . .
Engaging the odyssey . . . photoshopped . . .
as you perform the obligatory . . .
much to their ecstasy . . .
the mastery of misdirection . . .
of drama . . .
Getting paid to get laid, yes? . . .
Costumed as the other . . .
running the wheel of red and black . . .
blue directing alma maters
of all shapes and sizes . . .
Headlights underestimating triumph . . .
I am . . . like you . . .
Collecting empties on off-days to kick-start returns . . .
You disappear into the pages of a book . . .
tallying the mispronunciations
of book-learning tempered by experience . . .

Alina Lebedeva

Screen Dump 437

You're dribbling memories into a journal . . .
pouting a return . . . the scripted line of best fit . . .
opening a door . . . players jumping out of the scatterplot
of your short story . . . spinning . . .
with the elusiveness of clarity . . . of renouncement . . .
but what are you renouncing? . . . this time? . . .
Soon the wintry dawn will collide with shells
ejected from a chamber . . .
The season begins . . .
as if in a flash a tree is taken down by a chainsaw . . .
by the lines in the chainsaw's script . . .
the mandatory eight . . .
All scripted in the moment . . . a return . . . a regression . . .

Alina Lebedeva

Screen Dump 436

Please meet or turn off your cell phone.
          - Closed Captioner

Trading eights . . . as autobiographical fiction . . .
as one moment to the next . . .
transforming attendees into rubberneckers
misdirected by the odyssey's sleight of hand . . .
A duffel bag's nomenclature . . . fortuitous . . .
Trying to see beyond the outlandish . . .
susceptible to the dropbox's tweaking . . .
Why insist on presenting it out of turn flagging inconsistencies? . . .
Here's your part! . . . à la Miles . . .
The exhibit choked with expectations . . .

Roberto Kusterle

Screen Dump 435

Now you're telling me you're onto something . . .
like a poem awaiting binary coding . . . lines loaded
with flaws and failings . . .
wannabes trading calques . . .
Who needs it, anyway? . . . Did I just say that? . . .
You're not going to play the memory card, are you? . . .
while ramifications claw their way into the morning's coffee klatch
silencing closed captioners? . . .
You'll have time after the interrogation, yes? . . .
Why not try on an idiom? . . . Many do, you know . . .
Fit and finish is always a big deal . . . for some . . .
There seems to be an absence of pretense
shadowing the lazy romantic cliché in your pocketful of melodramas . . .

Jan Scholz

Screen Dump 434

You practiced the score . . . mastered the technique of throat-singing . . .
your tongue forking . . . a dish of eye-candy . . .
suddenly aware of parameters . . .
meted out by someone called something else . . .
happy pretending you had other names . . .
You worry the right shoes . . . the red shoes . . . the shoes born to dance . . .
to dance alone . . . to dance with someone . . .
someone who knows the steps . . . someone familiar with the inner Martian . . .
aging . . . friendly . . . directing traffic . . . your traffic . . .
as if an invitation to the dance on Mars . . .
This was enough . . . is enough . . .
at least for now . . . at least for the watchers at the gate . . .

Ed Freeman

Screen Dump 433

You recall the encumbrances of the self you were . . .
encaustic images in Crayola colors
the docent stumbling over his/her linguistic recklessness . . .
The trip around the block
and then some . . .
summer fall winter spring
numbering the players en passant
as if in a move to check . . .
But what of Emily's nights at a child's school desk
in her white-curtained high-ceilinged second-floor corner bedroom? . . .
It was a very good year, indeed! . . .
On the tour bus to Amherst
the bus driver straight out of High Noon . . .
the discoloration of the rain . . . little matter now
at the wake of the bassist's wife
while the shame-sham-smear-he-said-she-said rages . . .
The butler with the candelabra in the library
stood up by Miss Havisham . . . did it . . .
Because I could not stop for death - / He kindly stopped for me? . . .

Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham

Retracing Our Steps to Utopia IX

(reposted from Thursday, June 6, 2013)

Your accusation is a bit fuzzy
but I'll wear it anyway
like a noisy suit of armor
scarred from battle.
The moment keeps recycling.
Groundhog Day's petty palette of inconveniences.
You could have at least given me the heads-up.
Do you believe in magic?
Of course you do.
My blindside rutted with trespass.
Again? Did you say "again"?

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 432

You escape . . . into the detritus of the penultimate chapter . . .
This of course before the covers morphed into queasy YouTube videos . . .
DJs? . . . How many did you . . . do you . . . know . . . what? . . .

Mariacarla Boscono