Screen Dump 493

It's all about degrees of freedom . . . costumes, angularities,
shadings . . . navigating an intersection . . .
midday . . . odysseyites treading water . . . again . . .
people spinning . . . accoutered with options . . . nothing makeshift . . .
private messaging their own doom . . .
highlighting with regret the ones that got away . . .
the clanging metaphor . . . laughable . . .
The colors of the day trot out . . . elsewhere
tendings accumulate . . . recalling morning breaks
and the rigmarole of the starting line. . .
iPhones punching in . . . around water coolers
with recaps of news items
that come and go . . . come and go . . .
Eking out a cover as if line-a-plenty were key to the labyrinth . . .
A practical guide . . .  at least according to some passersby . . .

Jan Scholz

Screen Dump 492

You wake to a migraine of skates, draw a rink . . .
Your brain clots false binaries . . .
worrying the next of seven levels
knowing gropings and reversals have their own weird logic . . .
iPhones snap up your moves . . . exquisitely . . .
escaping overcooked Facebook chatter with elasticized joy . . .
Someone somewhere is about to walk into a room . . .
Again, the past . . .
Odysseyites make house calls with action figures
resurfacing February's frozen pond . . .
Schools of fish swim a snow day . . .
The understanding is white coral
interspersed with coffee breaks and fine china
and magicians - yes, magicians - with brown paper bags
brimmed with magic dust . . .
You continue to finetune your moves . . .
fueling the excitement of masked goalies with ulterior motifs . . .
Your mother kept the piece, downsizing a dream come true
for those dissecting the afternoon's fallout . . .
Transfixed, you enjoy bus stops that jolt you into journaling
your life partying with snow angels more often . . .

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 491

The day reeks of snow . . . and lines from Gatsby . . .
borne back ceaselessly into the past . . .
The Stutz Bearcats . . . unsuspecting . . . put upon . . .
dabble chatty bangs . . .
runners up . . . misinterpreted . . . and late . . .
Daisy's white roadster appears . . .
as players are benched . . .
harvesting evidence for review . . . with a smile . . .
decades hence . . .
You arrive with Crayolas . . . the walls of your room rearranged
to better escort the inexperienced . . . drifting into invisibility . . .
into the land of prematures . . .

Mario Sorrenti

Screen Dump 490

You're paging through . . . spelling redemption . . .
sinking a bunch from the free throw line . . .
eyes on the key . . . the steroids in the back room pushing big iron . . .
amused . . . you miss a spot . . . go back . . . and back . . .
back to your OCD . . . in fuchsia high-tops . . .
receptionists-a-go-go filling in the gaps
with furniture music from a hilltop factory spewing polyethylene . . .
shout-outs to the hyperventilating . . .
You propose a scavenger hunt with nanoseconds
the door ajar to a room festooned with period costumes . . .
The length enticing . . . the game continues . . .

Screen Dump 489

You miss the exit . . . and begin transcription
the backseat drama unfolding . . .
an overabundance of footnotes . . . trolls following the dotted line
into backroom bookshelves . . .
but this is what you wanted, yes? . . .
Thinking salutations . . . sulkily, you become a minion
searching the trash for disclaimers . . .
mapping the terrain of the argument . . .
If only odysseyites had proofed the pudding . . .
nosebleed sections deconstructed, labeled, reassembled . . .
Guiding the hands of players . . .
this from your notebook jottings
embellished with promises from would-be martyrs . . .
Removing transitionals from how-tos made it seem almost real
with more than enough space for everyone . . .

Wendy Bevan

Screen Dump 488

Those least suspected moments are real page turners . . .
A blank space appears. . . teasingly . . .
Each night grayed-out . . . the same . . . the same . . .
I could be wrong but for all intents and purposes . . . frozen solid . . .
The unreliability quotient . . . quite obvious
in the face of things . . . as laid out . . .
Stopped and patted-down . . . you no longer matter . . .
as if one road rage led to another . . . and another . . .
with letters of introduction missing . . . from the alphabet . . .
Some debaters bail, decked out in madras thigh-highs . . .
no doubt to spark controversy . . .
Insignificant patter fills the aquifer . . .
adding insult to injury . . . just for the heck of it I'm sure . . .
After Dear Johning entry-level supplicants
pedaling backstory emails, you wallow . . . encrypted . . .
It's the kind of thing some would translate
but certainly not anyone from our neck of the woods . . .
Twelve stone four something . . .
The takeaway piss-poor . . . perma-grinned . . .
Allegations of usurpation shadow you . . . making it into the finals . . .
The square root of a chessboard? . . . If only . . .
Whoa! . . . That was . . .

Screen Dump 487

The hem of your story is enough
to color the afternoon . . .
but then you run . . . out of the blue . . .
eliminating the need
which becomes a metaphor
for days that pass
like false starts
on cold winter mornings . . .
You mumble cardio . . . and leave for the gym . . .

Anne Carson's Antigonick

Screen Dump 486

Your words hurry past auditioners at the gate
sidestepping bus stops bottlenecked
by Academy Award Winners Emeriti
facebooking once-upon-a-long-time-ago performances . . .
A dress-down Friday with garbled voicemails . . .
Lifespans rarely exceeding Jack Benny's 39 . . .
Unlikely sex disguised as unlucky sex . . .
Of course those who acclaim the best is yet to come
are hit with a pie in the sky . . .
You commence yet another together-once-again meal . . .
community bowls brimmed with re-stuffed fortune cookies
a train chuffing at a station
a clock running with scissors
scriptwriters blocked
keyboards smoldering
insinuators banging on the back door
demanding revisions for lapsed best sellers
whose monochrome covers speak to the mundane
and want nothing to do with blurbers
from some sideshow that blew through town
when most were out to lunch . . .
Did anything resonate with the party of the first part
whose fuel filter seems to have been clogged from Day One? . . .
Talk about backseat deadbeats
with one-way tickets to Whereverland . . .
Beginning again . . . and again . . . and again . . .
Forget about reading the palm . . . as scripted . . .
There are rhymes-a-plenty waiting for you
somewhere over the rainbow . . .
A recapitulation of the ins and outs of Eurydice
might work . . . might be just enough to jettison the one-tricks
cluttering your walk-up and maybe help you pick up
where you bailed in the opening scene of tomorrow . . .

Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice

Screen Dump 485

To ritualize the moment . . . possibly code it
for a performance piece that includes excerpts
from poems by Anne Carson
the Canadian poet who teaches
Ancient Greek for a living . . .
Silence is important . . .
In her translation of Antigone, Carson
took inspiration from Cage's 4' 33"
who said he built it gradually
out of many small pieces of silence . . .
An insinuation backburners
the whole thing . . .
When you return to it months later
you begin to obsess over line breaks . . .
An old friend calls
and you meet for drinks
at a small neighborhood bistro
filled with actors who have just finished
a dress rehearsal . . . Can you imagine? . . .
A dress rehearsal? . . .

Lilian Oben in Anne Carson's Antigonick

Screen Dump 484

Drive-by do-it-yourselfers BOGO alternate lifestyles
harking back 40, 50 years to the Age of Remotes
when you would hang with bipolars and pay homage
to the big-haired . . . Did you feel intimidated? . . .
articulated? . . . Today is not . . . it never was! . . .
Return to the eight-day grandfather clock . . .
I mean the line has been crossed . . . many times . . .
so many times in fact that the queue has begged to differ
from costume mavens nitroglycerined with dreams of Fulbright's . . .
I Want To Hold Your Hand? . . . Seriously? . . .
Making do with the cunning psycholinguist
whose foot was caught in a sidelong glance . . .

Paolo Roversi

Moments

We do not remember days, we remember moments.
          - Cesare Pavese

In Room 401, a woman takes her last breath.

Elsewhere a surgeon positions a square of mesh to repair
a patient's hernia.

A maintenance man in a supermarket scrubs the walls
of a restroom.

Cows' breaths fill the air as a farmer brushes snow
off a trough . . .

and fills it with feed.

A young girl inserts a DVD of Wuthering Heights
into a Blu-Ray player, puzzling over the author's
pen name, Ellis Bell.

A tiger cat scratches litter in a litter box.

Kittens squeeze into a cardboard box that contained
12 bottles of Pinot Noir.

A homeless person arranges a cardboard box over a
heating grate.

Snow continues to fill the gray morning as cars
chance slick roadways.

In a dream a pinstriped mannequin enters a fun house.

A short-order cook whisks two dozen eggs.

A cellist works through Bach's Prelude.

Construction workers seated at a counter remove
their winter headgear.

A waitress refills cups of coffee, mentally reviewing
the material for tonight's mid term.

A children's book author enters rehab.

A shooter racks his handgun . . .

and fires into a crowd of shoppers at a mall.

At 4 AM a snowplow driver gets behind the wheel
of a snowplow.

A politician delivers a speech written by his staffer.

An actor rehearses lines.

An addict snorts lines.

An ER nurse worries her son's DWI.

A pregnant woman brews tea.

A pregnant woman is hurried into an emergency room.

A college president applies Anbesol to a painful tooth.

A nursing home resident cleans his dentures.

A platoon leader opens a Kindle.

A painter sits in front of a blank canvas.

A personal trainer leads a group of elderly trainees
through several aerobic exercises.

Hikers pitch a tent in a heavily wooded area.

The sun sets.

The sun rises.

A crash slows traffic to a crawl.

Someone dies.

Someone else dies.

A pediatrician delivers a baby.

Kids take turns sliding down a slide.

A couple enters a restaurant.

A man and a woman play chess.

A skier begins a descent.

An elderly person thinks back.

A potter throws a pot.

A pitcher throws a slider.

A batter swings.

A line cook preps vegetables.

A vegan orders off the menu.

A conductor raises her baton.

A drum majorette twirls her baton.

A motorist falls asleep at the wheel.

transit by Korner

Screen Dump 483

The barking that began four years ago has moved
into supportive housing . . .

declaiming the Fine Art of the Tin Can which came
and went and is back again

at your back door in leotard and pointe shoes . . .
The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in

a French Foreign Legion film has gone missing . . .
along with Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes

reshot on the moors of Ellis Bell's Wuthering Heights
with Roger Ebert's 4/4 rating . . .

European River Cruises are again flooded with
escapees . . . and deservedly so, yes? . . .

the day-to-day has gotten crazier . . . and crazier
and everyone's packing . . .

Did I say that or are you quoting the cereal box's
morning diatribe on fiber optics? . . .

YouTube'd beyond the glacial evergreens of your latest
inscrutable ruminations . . .

Give it a shot . . . nothing to lose . . .
How did the audition go? . . .

Trying to finish the book
before the culvert gets your goat . . .

We both saw that in the cards
last summer on Commercial Street . . .

Kyoko Kishida in Woman in the Dunes (1964)

Screen Dump 482

This morning's bowl of Instant Quaker Oats
tried to warn you but you were busy Photoshopping
the crepey-skinned blue-penciled up-close-
and-personals shadowing you in the mirror . . .
You continue to pine for present participles . . .
the -i-n-g forms . . . the phantom-limbed future
participle . . . parsing the past . . . reviewing
rejected scripts submitted for your approval
by lesser-known wannabes from your old
neighborhood . . . To reject out of hand is a ploy
you use at last calls . . . trying to retrace your steps
to Utopia . . . pinned with a Rolodex of past players
who want to be friended - and more - on Facebook . . .
their arthritic lines as out-of-sync
as their costumes . . . You thought you'd enjoy
a respite but interlopers have begun bullying
noodles with chopsticks . . . demanding
takeaways . . . imagining the seven levels
of Golden Books . . . as if eating spaghetti
with a spoon . . . Ring Around the Rosie
soundtracks this latest craziness . . . boardwalk
castaways . . . nailing lines . . . adjusting camera
angles to entice the forgotten . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 481

You paraphrase delusions on street corners
for pocket change . . . The eyes of beholders
diagram the angles of seduction . . .
A steam locomotive stalls mid-steam . . .
sizzling something fierce in concert
with a pig roast where locals unravel
their histories of . . . Hooliganism,
I suppose . . . in throwaways . . . Is it? . . .
channeling Stevie Nicks's Gypsy . . .
outtakes left as gratuities by troubadours
passing through backwaters . . .
Bookbinding . . . the art of chance
for personal trainers with perfect form
qua function . . . The plot agape
as she leans in with a tearjerker
about her deadbeat dad . . .
a concert violinist from Siberia
who knew the score only too well . . .
mapping the lonely corridor along
cholesterol clogged arteries festering
coronaries . . . The monologue . . .
soliloquy? . . . speaks nonsense to partners
in loco parentis as they appear . . . trailing
incomplete sentences . . .
A show of hands indeed would . . .

Stevie Nicks

Screen Dump 480

You raise the stakes . . . then flee to CVS for ibuprofen . . .
ignoring tabled warnings . . .
emergency room regulars triaged . . . color-coded . . .
A big-shouldered cybertruck roams rotaries . . .
and the rules of the game are about to change
as the pizza arrives . . . and Act 2 begins . . .
You know you're trying to dress the part
with insignificance . . . but the clock shouts-out
circumstantial evidence from the inquiry . . .
and we're out of the gate, stuttering and stumbling . . .
retracing our steps to Utopia . . .
Inner ear hair cell damage from gangster flicks
with pals De Niro and Pacino and Pesci
and another epic conversation . . . conversion . . .
on the streets of Everytown . . .
shrink-wrapped and UPS'd to an offshore laundromat . . .

Deborah Turbeville

Screen Dump 479

You worry Wonderland . . . and free shipping . . .
beta testing mantras on moonless nights
when peeling windows in SROs
look out onto playgrounds of orphans . . .
Boulevards drip off the edge of the canvas
for odysseyites tricked-out as centenarians from empty malls . . .
You surf YouTube for blue ribbon grilled cheese sandwiches
and think a field drill of sorts might help flip
the double-wides popping up in your lower 40
where answers in search of questions pester pensioners
who pine for the palisades of their entry exam
when they arrived late with bags of bags
sporting the endgame into the second
of five openings culled from a dog-eared how-to manual . . .

Anka Zhuravleva

Screen Dump 478

In nomine Patris mixes with pinot
the whole thing out of whack
sadly phenomenal with
Frankie (Relax) Goes to Hollywood
as if opening a door
and you wish for a silver bangle
to dispel the ennui so reminiscent
of comedown mornings
at archaeological digs
before being earwormed back
to the present with scenes
from Body Double tweeting
your climb up a silk rope
in some club du jour . . .
Hostile (eye)witness accounts
blur the truth . . . but it's there . . .
it always was . . .
in invisible ink . . .
under yellowing legal pads . . .
diagramming disclaimers
from headstone rubbings . . .
letters of the alphabet randomly
regrouping into images
of your odyssey
as your selfie pouts,
loses footing, tumbles headlong . . .
he said . . . she said . . . they said . . .

Body Double (1984)

Screen Dump 477

Your costume walks out in the middle
its voice climbing to falsetto
as the mechanisms of relationships reach that point
where yesterdays audition for tomorrows
and you begin to lose track . . .
pining for buybacks
reposting blank pages
leaving everything to the imagination
while outside an Uber driver lays on the horn . . .
The table of contents grows silent
despite the book's shortlisting . . .
its labyrinth gutted . . . replaced by a dayglo condo . . .
Sideshow castrati are again using . . .
can you blame them? . . .
You know all the 3x5" index cards by name
and are smug in the commonplace
but not sure about the mapping
or where the choral group left the planchette
for the ouija board . . .
You agree to become a Ticonderoga #2
to have a go at drafting an intro
for the next installment . . . of your life . . .
Meanwhile you lose yourself in cascades
of coloratura . . . Who are we to deprive
the outer limits where players stationed elsewhere
engage overheated proofs
meant to placate the giddy? . . .
This too as if the body were a deliberate portion
charged with finalizing the recorded remarks
of those with magic lanterns
tattooed on their triceps . . .
The momentary arrives and will be with us shortly
its voice not unlike the cathedrals
of childhood where every nuance was bronzed
as a piece of the puzzle . . .

Wendy Bevan

Screen Dump 476

The inability of all the king's horses and all the king's men
to stay within the lines of code . . .
the lines . . . encrypted . . . taunted . . . tainted
by a rainbow of Crayolas . . .
Insensitivity defaults inept players . . .
and landscapes . . . and peoplescapes . . .
as frontal lobectomies mix dread with inconsequentials . . .
Bezos's Are you lazy or just incompetent? . . .
continues with It's really nothing . . . refusing
to be taken down to the sea
with the Ahabs . . . of Coney Island . . .
as if the shoe has yet to drop . . .
laboring . . . again . . .
under the conundrum . . . 8 / 2 (2 + 2) = ? . . .
Procrustean? . . . Daniel Day-Lewis's My Left Foot . . .
The lines as written . . . are drawn . . . delivered . . .

Mathematician Emmy Noether (1882-1935)

Here's my winning entry in the Hudson Valley Writers Guild Dear Herman Contest, celebrating Herman Melville's 200th birthday. The four winners - Susan Carroll Jewel, Mark W. O'Brien, Dianne Sefcik, & I - will read our winning entries Saturday, October 12th, from noon to 2 PM, at the Melville House in Troy, NY:

Melville's Sister

I'm talking with Melville's kid sister
a scrappy towhead
with eyes like deep water
who signed on for a tour of the high seas
with her brother
but ended up here
in New Bedford
pierced, inked, in mauve coveralls,
slathering mustard and meat sauce
on footlongs for hard hats
from a shiny aluminum vending cart.

She communicates with great whites in trees
tends a small garden of hooded flowers
whose petals hold charts of whale migrations
collects harpoons she uses as pokers.

She talks about her brother
writing a novel about a mad hunt
for a fearsome whale
in a room on the second floor
overlooking distant mountains
in a farmhouse
on 160 acres in the Berkshires
that he named Arrowhead
after the relics he dug up
with his plow.

Her eyes darken as she mentions his demons
the locks on his writing-room
his pacing to escape the mind’s maelstrom
the ungodly boredom
his endless digressions
his obsession with privacy
that led him to destroy nearly all his letters
his dislike of photographers
(“to the devil with you and your Daguerreotype!”)
the so-called “failed” scribbling –
“The Whale” . . . too ambitious, too long, a leviathan –
despite its marks of “unquestionable genius”
the accusation of madness
prompting his postscript “I ain’t crazy.”

She chuckles as she tells me
how much her brother likes to watch
the farm animals eat,
especially taken by what he calls the “sanctity”
of the way the cow moves her jaws.

I too am taken, with this strange woman
whose costumes mimic the South Seas,
whose toenails match the color of noctilucent clouds
whose hands are music.

Off hours, she fulfills fantasies

her voice like billowing sails
guiding Ishmaels through narrow canals
spellbinding them
with the sounds of humpbacks
note for note
measure upon measure
before releasing them
drained yet sated
into the morning commute.

Herman Melville

Screen Dump 475

A kid on a red Stingray pops indifferent wheelies . . .
hits the ground with a three-point
far back enough . . . bulges the slot . . .
Did she say 40 percent . . . uniformed domestic violence?. . .
Netflix? . . . Unbelievable is unbelievable . . .
Milton scribbles in Will's margins . . .
in a Lost and Found Department . . . in Philadelphia . . .
Let the guy in booth #4 finish his two eggs over easy
while the monkeys of impeachment
get juice . . . for the miles to go before we sleep . . .
and you can forget about targeting the streets
with pinch hitters . . .
The count . . . three and one . . .
and the lopsided scales step up to the plate . . .
A memorial service . . . a wedding . . .
a bus making a left turn . . . stopped . . .
at an intersection . . .
a car speeding through . . .
and the scene shifts . . . precipitously . . .
The color of the year? . . .
Naval (blue) . . . Sherwin-Williams . . .
First light (pink) . . . Benjamin Moore . . .
Didn't they intimate as much
while you were locked on
Carson's The Beauty of the Husband:
So why did I love him from early girlhood to late middle age?. . .
Beauty. No great secret. . . . Beauty convinces. . . .
But what of late middle age . . . and beyond . . .
The falling leaves drift by my window?. . .
Let's open to Chapter 19 . . .
You'll smell land where there'll be no land . . .
And on that day . . .
Elijah?. . . Moby Dick?. . .
The movie . . . in the movie . . . not the book . . .
YouTube it . . .

Merritt Wever and Toni Collette in Unbelievable (2019)

Screen Dump 474

Your oversized straw hat smirks innuendo
as it tunnels through an off-key dream sequence . . .
Hard work . . . when you can get it . . .
Can you imagine the mixup
highlighted for future reference chomping along? . . .
The rest was nothing much despite the normative inflation
which of late seems to have become your thing . . .
as if strengthening your core
curriculum with tacky math problems
and anti-static sheets
will translate into an anaerobic Dean's List . . .
The placeholder . . . confrontationally aloof . . .
pontificating in a faint, hippy-ish voice
that makes it hard to tell if he/she is joking . . .
It's kind of like repeat after me
as the concrete gargoyles refuse to dry
and this after the rigmarole of YouTube . . .
Time and again . . . something or other . . . Which is it? . . .
You have become adept at reconfiguring passwords
into anagrams for the keto set . . .
Here's that mountain of prejudicial evidence . . .
At one time funeral parlors, yes?. . .
Driving through a downpour, pinging . . .
Again . . . what's your IP address? . . .
Just checking to see if you have incorporated the go-betweens
into your bid for bluebook collectibles . . .
Ribbons and bows . . . of course . . .
and pedal-to-the-metal instances
when playing Spin the Kiosk with neighborhood pranksters
who know enough to wait in the wings . . .

Screen Dump 473

Everything seems to be happening out there . . . not in here . . .
the life of your interior monologue
sucked dry by the black leather overly-zippered motorcycle jackets
parading the catwalk . . . the pretend-pudding pop-up
all augmentation . . . the recipe shouting out ingredients . . .
Trying to please uniformed players . . .
free agents force-fed the how-to manual
while side-stepping backstory politics (Unfair?) . . .
You were back-and-forth for a while . . .
juggling schedules with having-to-be-there-then . . .
tripping over the dynamics of being in-the-moment
while regressing to the convenience of taking dictation
with rubberized accoutrements . . .
finally escaping to the Cape for what some would consider
a ploy . . . but the logjam was such that
the entries were botched . . . and first-responders were on break . . .
You could have at least called it in
but that would have in effect amounted to an admission of something
as the sloop slips through the harbor . . .

Serkan Alpsar

Screen Dump 472

Color-coding the alphabet is a nice touch
with your dreams tweaked to fit
and the marina stacked with tall ships . . .
The method . . . as demo'd in the studio . . .
Decades since you assumed the position
leveling the playing field
pulling down the visor
to use the mirror to apply lipstick . . .
your forward-facing eyes spelling predation . . .
on a sweltering August afternoon
all ribbons and bows
(at least for some)
welcoming auditioners with downward-facing-dog . . .
The day written up and played with gusto . . .
I'm sure it meant something . . . to someone . . .

Jan Scholz

I Continue To Get Older (Performance Piece)

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older   

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older

It's not fair
I'm losin' my hair
First it turned gray
Now it falls away
Each and every day

Other hairs appear
Uninvited
Unannounced
Unwelcomed
In unexpected places

They've begun to colonize
My ears, nose, and eyes

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older   

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older

I can't see
what I'm doin'
I can't taste
what I'm eatin'
I can't hear
what I'm sayin'
I can't say
what I'm thinkin'
I can't think
what I'm sayin'

My nose grows
My chest is recessed

My teeth decay
They fall away
Gum has become a verb, OK?
I don't go out to play
Much anymore

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older   

I continue
I continue
I continue
To get older

I can't get it up
I can't get it down
In bed
I'm Bozo the Clown

I shrivel
I shrink
I piddle
I stink

My crepey skin
Is all done in
It’s a sin, a no-win
This shape I'm in

I can't see
I can't pee
There is no glee
Left in me

My wrinkled face
Stares into space
My final frontier
Is here!

i c u by Tom Corrado