Screen Dump 471

The skeletons in your closet gloat their Harleys
as a bobber dips below the surface
and you imagine a plate of crêpes with an old friend
in a seaside town
catching up on interpersonals
the who what when where whys
of your collaborative one-acts . . .
You consider skipping the chapter
(you've done this before with little consequence)
but step down . . . tiller glued to your palm
as if guiding a sloop through a narrow canal
within arms reach of kids fishing off the pier . . .
The clock flusters
wringing its hands which must resume
their pantomime of stuttered signage . . .
words infinitely looped to storm ignorance . . .
Again the palette complicates . . .
Perhaps you should use ultramarine to color
the major and minor keys
soundtracking your tête-à-têtes
on rain-soaked afternoons . . . in rain-soaked sidings . . .

Fabio Chizzola

Screen Dump 470

La Traviata speaks to you subliminally
at Glimmerglass . . . while a summer breeze
directs the wind section . . .
the churlish conductor having become expert
at rewinding graphic novels
whose magic realism spins gesticulations
that levitate a group of prestidigitators
enjoying a month in the country . . .
Lakeside, naysayers badmouth
a visual cliff . . . It may have been Chaucer's
Widower's Tale . . . the pothead dialing in
your height at Stewart's . . .
his accomplices re-reading the backstory
of Joe Green Investment Strategist
who flips houses for émigrés qua enablers . . .
as the morning's comeuppance
tilts the pinball machine playing footsie
with footloose mannequins brought in
out of the rain to decompress . . . Coincidentally,
the townhouse's address . . . These are a few, yes? . . .

Corinne Winters as Violetta

Screen Dump 469

It was the lowest common denominator . . .
A safe harbor of sorts
odysseyites waiting for the right moment
ship-shape and what have you
interested parties with protein drips . . .
How did we lapse into forgetfulness? . . .
The bar set higher . . . and higher . . .
only to see it through to the next chapter
if in fact that . . . The sprockets
jammed when the games began
with return receipts requested . . .
Too much to expect a banana plantation
or a blue lagoon for that matter . . . managing the scene
as if players opened wide for the next transit strike . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 468

You worry the pot boiling over . . .
fallen arches . . . tick-borne illnesses . . .
gingivitis . . . while
the Snellen Chart at DMV
broadcasts your password to DUIs
drying out in cursive . . .
Eyeballs eyeball you up and down
wasting time . . . waiting . . .
in the waiting line . . . with wait staff . . .
There is little chance to buy into it
with this blind date
who seems engrossed . . . and then some . . .
but what to do, yes? . . .
A minute ago a disinterested party
slipped through a portal
inadvertently left ajar by a do-gooder
who will be written up . . .
docked perhaps . . . as a one-act
in the local theater group . . .
Is it wrong to remain non-committal
at this archaeological dig
cluttered with dusty appendages . . .
to hesitate ramping-up the ho-humness
infecting the meadow? . . .
You have a full box of Crayolas
waxing philosophically . . .
somewhere . . . over the rainbow . . .

Screen Dump 467

Banging on the keys of an ancient Remington
you try to craft poems immune to dissection
yanking words letter by letter like teeth
from your own River Styx . . . the boatman quietly urging his Evinrude
with yelps from the middle of an estuary
igniting the survivalist in weekend L. L. Beaners
stringing franks alphabetically across a fire pit . . .
They make the six-o-clock news . . .
Does this help? . . . I mean . . . what is it? . . .
I mean are you ready to dazzle with a minor French ditty
within walking distance of the Arc de Triomphe
the flight over . . . scrambled . . . lowercase letters
with smartphones gag-ordered? . . .
Odysseyites living in yurts in the 'Dacks . . .  undergo drawbridges . . .
drop blurbs like bread crumbs . . . invent metaphors
for trees whose bent limbs backstory crepey skin . . .
I'm with you all the way . . . though truth be told . . . I'm having a blast . . .
though I couldn't think of a proper go-between
so the induced quail from his poem was summoned . . .
You seem unaware of your whereabouts . . .
the voices from the air as loud as a triage of cats . . . soliloquies
with ancient cuneiform symbols kayaking with ice bats
which Carson . . . superstarishly influential enough
to assume the mantle of dabbler . . . was quick to say don't exist . . .

Mario Sorrenti

Screen Dump 466

The caption read stick-in-the-muds
with Happy Hour promises color-coded for Slim Jims
with night vision . . .
the participants . . . again . . . flipping houses
location . . . location . . . location . . .
the psychodynamics of water coolers
tweeting yesterday's easy access . . .
But the last coat overlaid the patter . . .
backstroking towards Brooklyn . . .
the words rearranging themselves
to fit the scene . . .
several gym bags, backpacks, what have you . . .
You studied the script . . . waited . . .

Marcin Szpak

Screen Dump 465

One after another . . . after another . . . one . . . after . . .
the scene opens . . . jump start a late-model coupe? . . .
Trying to stay focused on the endgame . . . lately, always the endgame . . .
The months . . . One month later: enigmatic, if nothing . . .
You had to jump start a late-model coupe . . .
Ring it in with the weight of water . . .
Scene after scene . . . filling with water . . .
Of course, that was then . . . of course . . .
Illogicality and intentionality . . . strange whodunits . . .
Traverse, as in, I traversed the pristine moment . . .
The innate structure of the moment when you, for example, encounter
the other . . . adrift, alphabetizing . . . hitting the pavement . . .
drip-dried . . . as if off the end of Pollock's stick . . .
after which he/she took it on the chin in a pop-up panopticon . . .

Steven Meisel

Screen Dump 464

Reenactors reenact the Battle of Woodstock '69 . . .
It was here . . . The happening was here . . . George C. Scott . . . again . . .
First, do no harm, yes? . . . despite the hiss to litigate . . .
We're off . . . while someone somewhere is sequestered . . .
Is this how happenstance happens? . . .
You have been approached to put together a skit for retirees
who worry the fixed sitcom's bottom line . . .
This is only the beginning of cats in Aviators . . .
The free throw line chows down . . . as if in another life -
your other life - the overture degrades to dissonance . . .
The afterimage of your ticket to go beyond . . . in the metro window? . . .

Katerina Plotnikova

Screen Dump 463

How else could he know what I know?
          - Maya Angelou

You windowshop for a one-way ticket to immortality
as the bell opens Round Seven
to a color field measuring eight-feet-by-six-feet . . .
footnoting the 600 square feet  Rothko reneged on
while Vivaldi's Four Seasons follows
the two-point-five mil as it disappears
into someone's backstory
demonstrating for arts majors the phenomenon
of the Rothkovian blur . . . Lady Macbeth's
Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts,
unsex me here . . .
Enter, stage left, Somnambulist 1:
I jaywalk out of a lobotomy . . . I mean, c'mon . . .
with lines like this? . . . Soliloquize me! . . .
A woman wrote Shakespeare? . . .
But didn't we already know that? . . .
Perhaps the archives bubble with happenstance
and Little Miss Whatsherface shadows the Bard's ghost . . .
This too will be stuffed into a time capsule
as soon as . . . Enter, Somnambulist 2:
I texted "Taming of the Shrew" Katherine
who blurted "My tongue will tell the anger of my heart . . ."
The boxed set wins, yes? . . . especially
in those moments of fine-tooth combing . . .
the beach at best . . . the least we could hope for
in dawn's early flubbed lines . . .
Whoa! . . . here's Somnambulist 3
with Othello's Emilia: Let husbands know /
Their wives have sense like them.
You trace the circumference of the argument
centuries later bolstered by hard-core gas canisters
spewing death . . . the exits sealed . . .
the moments lapsing into forevermore . . .
The bell ending the round? . . . Of course we knew . . .

Screen Dump 462

You enjoy nuance . . . worry that neither
science nor religion adequately explains the world
as you think you know it . . .
the simultaneity with its information overload
kicking players to the curb . . .
The concert of minimalist parentheticals
made for an interesting respite
with its backstory on the inner life of trees . . .
And here comes the anxiety over broken links
catapulting you into a message room of sorts
where you try on different what ifs
following each to its logical delusion
which is a must . . . if you must . . .
Perhaps the augmentation can be repaired
effecting no less than a faux tectonic shift in paradigm . . .
If only life were a smidgen more palatable
especially in those moments
when the rubber fails to meet the road
and warmongers load their styluses . . .
Meanwhile . . . a bed of flowers . . .
spirited away by the porosity of sleep . . . a portal
to past liaisons . . . your mother offering to pay your way . . .
a phone call . . . grays-out the options . . .
dreams of indifference eventually elbowing in
as you review the video of summer's fiber deployment . . .

Sia and Maddie Ziegler at Apple Launch

Screen Dump 461

The matinee chides your hypothesis
bulking the theorem into oblivion . . .
Early arrivals arrive . . .
captured on security cameras . . .
he said . . . she said . . . they said . . .
sample bags brim with notions from ATMs . . .
fingers finger finger food . . .
count doubloons . . . worry
the quivering idiocy of disintegration . . .
Instead of pampering the chef, perhaps? . . .
By the time the opposition dismounts
the case will have been opened and shut . . .
The alleged victim . . . vis-à-vis
camera-shy sommeliers . . .
It's all in the sealed indictment . . .
at least according to Wikileaks . . .
Perhaps we shouldn't go there? . . .
Yes, let's not go there . . .
Perhaps we should relapse into past roles . . .
play it safe . . .
play the parts as written . . .
Of course you remember how much fun we had? . . .
You could have been a consumer . . .

Screen Dump 460

Of the world's estimated 7,000 languages, one dies every two weeks.
          - K. David Harrison, Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages

You hawked the installation with misunderstanding . . .
a French press with a migraine . . .
while your cross country junkets cameoed on Facebook . . .
intriguing tongues . . . trying to fit into the holes
dug into the script by a misdirected director

whose profile you later learned had been lifted
from a table of contents . . .
Pasts spilled out . . . time borrowed . . .
You began dropping clues with the insistence of a night out . . .

This happened, yes? . . . and continues . . .

After the alphabet, abutments were tuned to a minor key . . .
Roundabouts tried to round you up
but you loaded your brush with paint and insignificance . . .
You were told it had all been written down . . .
every last nuance . . . every misappropriation . . .
every identity theft . . . circling like a flock of kites . . .
The sketches you made in a ledger went undiscovered for over 150 years . . .
Undisclosed players hung out at a neglected ball diamond . . .
falling into the wrong chapter . . . losing face . . .

Marcin Szpak

From the Docudrama: Can't Blame Them, Can You?

(reposted from Tuesday, April 30, 2013)

I have no idea what you're talking about.
No idea what the reader is reading.
I don't understand.
I should be able to understand.
I don't like it.

I ordered the special, and expected enough for a takeaway.
It wasn't easy ordering in the middle of this chaos.
The wait staff can't hear us.
They can't hear what we're ordering.
Everyone seems to think that's OK.
It's not OK.

Grow up! Life is not a takeaway!

But I love to start the day with a takeaway!

Someone just texted me: take your time.

Yeah, OK. I'm always on the clock. We're always on the clock.
Is there an innocent bystander who could take the hit?
Doubtful.

Everyone's trying to hide
not necessarily to shirk their duty (isn't that a cool word?)
but maybe because some feel untrained and humbled.

(A statue of a police officer appears.)

Now what?

You're becoming curmudgeonly.

I'm becoming curmudgeonly? Is that a Maslowian stage?

Yes, the cardboard people on stage are paintballing the audience.

On top of that many are being stepfathered in.
Everyone is Facebooking like crazy.

And that surprises you?

From Alix Pearlstein's Moves in the Field

Screen Dump 294

(reposted from Tuesday, May 31, 2016)

You step into an autofiction
having taken a lateral to customer service
the engagements
just out of reach . . . by the practitioners of deviant art . . .
chattering incessantly about their memoirs
on and off clipper ships . . .
You have written up many . . . in the wee hours
detailing their feigned interpenetrations
in the common room
and bedrooms of your third chapter . . .
Several fade on their own
Facechatting others
worrying unannounced site visitors
who insist on rummaging through cupboards
for late-night munchies . . .
But what's the backstory? . . .
There is no backstory . . .
The backstory doesn't matter . . .
There's just this bubble into which we are dropped
and it goes from there . . .
A temporary job chalks up years . . .
and before you know it . . . you know . . .
Please excuse me . . .
I must continue recording the dreams of insomniacs . . .

Alina Lebedeva

In April's Chronogram:

Woman XXXIX

She says she wants to ride
and pulls up on her Harley.
I roll my Schwinn
back into the garage.

Screen Dump 459

You wake to a confused alphabet and into a diorama
with a cup of coffee following those who had stepped out . . .
and vanished . . .
The day sunshines snowbanks into hiding . . .
Today's lecture on the Gerty episode in Ulysses
held most but you found it formulaic . . .
old guys getting off at the sight of young skin . . .
There was a moment a bit ago when you had almost
thought it through . . . or thought you could think it through . . .
but that passed with Kindle's eInk . . . backlit and all . . .
You look at yourself . . . and at the trees
cavorting . . . preparing to give it another go . . .
the clockwork gearing loud and exciting . . .
Isn't it something how we grab ourselves and GPS our location . . .
following directions into the next scene . . .
which may or may not play out as hoped . . .
but so what? . . . In some strange way it's all good, yes? . . .
lowering yourself into the cockpit . . . words belted in . . .
another boldfaced expedition with you celebrating
the flash nonfiction of Li Po
in the mountains on a summer day . . .
You share it . . . then google the follow-up
which comes in at just under three minutes . . .
How to explain the pencil portrait in the corner . . .
the resemblance to Facebook sketched in someone else's hand? . . .
You continue with one hundred and eleven -
Maggie Nelson's, The Latest Winter, . . .
the whole thing coming back to your draft
and how even before the bell ended Round 12 you had managed
to skip the three chapters assigned for extra credit . . .

Screen Dump 458

Hired hands hand in school colors . . . in the nick of
the full shortage . . . if you know what I mean . . .
Incidentals brim the showroom . . . vet orphanhood . . .
The newly-hatched are cumbersome, yes? . . .
but then you like the length of autofictions
fabricating homeland depositions . . .
some remotely . . . with strings attached . . .
What did you mean by that anyway? . . .
Summer showers continue to be inducted
into a Hall of Fame of sorts . . .
the lawn . . . awaits the morning's drill . . .
Aceing the final, you are relieved of motion sickness . . .
remembering the era when slide rules became the go-to
for theme parks . . . every week strolling
amid stopgappers . . . bobbysoxers
packing incidentals on their way home . . .
anguishing over choices made . . . crow's feet plummeting . . .

Liliana Karadjova

Making All the World's Wrongs Right

The middle of the night blisters
with a phone call from the one left behind
whose head is a bobber
on a trout stream in the Adirondacks
while another fills out a health proxy
for police officers sporting body cams now that
hell to pay has checked in . . .
Luka still lives on the second floor, yes? . . .
thinking about the half-filled cup of coffee
at Tom's Diner . . . where a woman
with an umbrella studies her reflection
in the window in the bronze moments
of morning . . . before the rain . . .
K. H. Brandenburg tweaks an algorithm
for compressing audio files to birth MP3s
using Suzanne Vega's a cappella
of Tom's Diner . . . You return to the paper . . .
and to the paperless world
of the Ringling Brothers chatting up
the rhino poacher
who was stomped to death by an elephant
then eaten by a pride . . .  Karma? . . .
It's all about NPR's Tiny Desk Concert . . .
with Nichiren Buddhist Suzanne's Luka . . .

Just don't ask me what it was . . .

followed by . . . the sounds you can get
out of a guitar when you know how
to touch it properly . . .
The older . . . time-warped . . . blows curfew
color-coding unicorns
in the Land of the Discontinued:
He was 12 minutes late . . .
but the Great Train Robbery
had glued us to our seats in the Hippodrome
where our formers
saw Erik Weisz aka Harry Houdini
escape the Chinese Water Torture Cell . . .
He never got back to Bess . . .
She checks herself out of detox
chugging rubbing alcohol and hand sanitizer
and into an ICU where a voice says
You're not going anywhere . . .
but to a psych ward
and a 28-day program . . .
and the Monkey rides shotgun
through late-night streets
with James Corden's Carpool Karaoke
covering Zero 7's Destiny . . .

Soon I know I'll be back with you . . .

She flips through the paper
to William Holden's drunk stumble . . .
closing the book on one of the biggest
box office draws of the '50s and '60s . . .
his strange chemistry with delusional
Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond
in Sunset Boulevard . . . shuttled around town
by Stroheim's Max in a monster
of a town car with leopard-skin seats
and open chauffeur's compartment . . .
Little wonder the bookmaker
around the corner with the black Tesla in front
is encrypted . . .  and time-capsuled
after Grand Rounds
with a drug cocktail touted to make
all the world's wrongs right . . .
lip-syncing Childish Gambino's This is America . . .

Suzanne Vega

Screen Dump 457

Your wake-up call went south
bubble gum breathalyzer
Did it lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? . . .
back to sleep
with news anchors of pileups on the Interstate
following the dotted line . . . again . . . and again . . .
picking up pieces of spam
interspersed with recipes
and promises of misappropriations
and guest appearances
on late-late-late-night talk shows . . .
The House of Crazy is open for business . . .
speeding along . . .
with feigned nonchalance . . .
but you knew that, yes? . . .
as the Queen of Redaction . . . a bowl of protein . . .
can't get enough! . . .
Photo albums bloat . . .
the way it was . . .
the way they were . . .
the way we were . . .
overdrawn bank accounts and selfies . . .
pockets stuffed with aftermaths . . .
they were game for anteing-up
the pot speaking a dead language . . .
Pity there wasn't an unfinished symphony
for the sawtooth ensemble to finish . . .
and now your phone is dead . . .
and you're sweating indictment for buying a burger
to get your kid into an ivy league school
and you're ready to accept submissions for your 24-hour meltdown . . .
Subsequent tête-à-têtes to air on Netflix . . .

Krzysztof-Wyzynski

Sometimes After the Alphabet

(reposted from Saturday, April 9, 2011)

Sometimes after the alphabet I would rewrite the script.
Sometimes after being thrown under the bus I would lip-sync.
Sometimes after being taken to the cleaners
I would text a random phone number.
Sometimes after preparing a meal I would eat out.
Sometimes I would wait for the light to change.
Other times I would follow the yellow brick road.
Sometimes I would sit on the bench for the entire third quarter
shouting out differences between evergreen
and non-evergreen growth patterns.
It’s all in the ring tones, I was told by an impartial opportunist
the draperies of her gestures
immobilizing me momentarily with blueness
after which I would make my way
through the throng of extras
flown in as expert witnesses
to engage an unemployed harpist caught unaware.
I’d heard of the tampering, of course, the tintinnabulation
of shutters and shudderers
but thought it best to continue with rehab
which had left me with a facial tic
and a strange indifference to Netflix
that I seemed not to care much about.
Sometimes after letting my fingers do the walking
I would check for lifting -
areas that had been damp when the first coat was applied
areas that on other pages in others books
would have been overrun with brown baggers
on lunch break feeding pigeons from forest green park benches.
This is not rocket science; it is someone’s bailiwick,
a smattering of unknowns reminded me
with the effortlessness of a man at the end of his rope
tossing his iPhone into a river
watching it sink slowly out of sight
sans disclaimer, sans influence, sans alternative.
Sometimes after channel surfing
I would dream of a life filled with recipes.
Sometimes I would dream of a life filled with blank pages
the unspoken rush that spreads from head to toe
upon being unfriended on Facebook.

Screen Dump 456

And I need you more than want you,
And I want you for all time.
          - Wichita Lineman (1968)

Indeed . . . the blurbiness of blurbs:
I write you . . . you write me . . .
bundling software for coders
as the night twinkles with bug juice in trash cans
lined with garbage bags . . .
I am become . . . a lineman for the county
splicing telephone lines . . .
as an aperitif . . . an insinuation . . .
the enthrallment of the table read
with you costumed
for yet another audition
the runner-up benched on fouls . . .
This will be a night to remember
a Titanic-ramming-iceberg night to remember
and you're buying into a stairway to heaven
to the magical realism
of a room filled with mirrors . . .
gorging yourself on ample food
at the wolf's table
the-wolf-with-groping-paws-table
before engaging the matrix
of permutations . . . and combinations . . .
the morning's ride back to the future
as time clocks Round Three . . .
and the gappiness of cubicles
mimics The Shining's snowy maze
while Freud and Jung
arm wrestle for your backstory . . .
the doubtful guest insisting she is Anna Freud
at the free-throw line
during the madness of March
which some documentarian chortled ain't much . . .
Daily we review takeaways   . . .
the guns and roses . . . and guns . . . and . . .
the bowed heads of aftermaths
squeezing through metal detectors
into three-ring circuses of misdirection:
you can't go home again! . . .

Mario Sorrenti

The Generous Logic of Friendship

(reposted from Tuesday, July 12, 2011)

Little pieces of us fall away
as we move along
through the same doors
down the same hallways
into the same rooms
sitting in the same chairs
at the same tables
using the same utensils
enjoying the same meals
the same bottles of wine.
Some across bodies of water
to float to distant shores
others through tunnels
still others into wood.
Coming and going
appearing
disappearing.
Nothing demanded.
The held hand slowly slipping away
until years later
sitting on the back porch
on a warm early summer evening
we reach for our glass
and find a piece
innocently clinging to our open palm.

Egon Schiele

Screen Dump 455

But then you find that the sensation diminishes
with repetition . . . Proust's disappointment
with his second and third swallow of tea . . .
the banality of it all . . . a constant . . .
Memorializing the parties of the unlined and bushy
slipping tongues nonchalantly
as if the clock had indeed been stopped . . .
No need to calculate the obliqueness now . . .
wait for the commercial break
when you can stretch and raid the fridge
and adjust the cushions
out of earshot of the contrarians at the gate . . .
An unstrung marionette finds words
in the redacted script . . . the basement trashed
by cleaners sent in to do the white thing . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 454

The late-winter cookout in the backyard
with everything growing silent
riding the elevator into the snow-filled basement
categorizing Kondo's declutter:
clothes, books, papers, komono, mementos
sparking photographic memories
of late-night talk shows
the predation . . . and willingness
to report that it was a joke . . . it was plastic . . .
keep your hands raised . . .
It becomes second-nature . . .
icing on the endgame . . .
the snow without surcease
as you sweep flakes into the palm of your left hand
a shopping cart out of control in a parking lot . . .
You are sprung to joy on the treadmill at the gym
while on the wall TVs
feature muted images of raised hands . . .
The color-coding continues despite warnings
that elevated bowls may cause bloat . . .
You tend to take things in stride . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 453

Armchair vacancies rant the airspace . . .
retire their uniforms in the middle of the game
and leave . . . to dissolve . . .
in the current . . .
The facsimile life . . . the well-oiled facsimile life . . .
aborts the highway . . .
curtailing alternatives with bipolarity
for archivists on coffee break . . .
How did you know the dancer
was about to attempt a villanelle? . . .
Bystanders capture moments . . .
before and after . . . after and before . . .
and again . . . but remain glued to the well-trodden . . .
And you? . . .

Hannes Caspar