Screen Dump 709

You're grappling so as not to forget what you want

to remember . . . a whoosh as if the surf crashes the cliff

with you floating above . . . You have decided

to practice narrowing your focus to eliminate

the superfluous from your walks . . . the day, deftly unraveling,

seems almost to disappear . . . so many thoughts

vying for your attention . . . then this idea of the texture

of it all . . . everything everyone seemingly connected

with tabs for those nestled in the cleft of your memory . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You recount how touch initiates the sense of "I" . . .

how it costumes the body on misty mornings

and waits at the bus stop for passengers to resume their lives . . .

A test email breaks the silence . . .

The number of people passing through the portal increases . . .

And so it begins . . . parsing the engagement

with you in the soup aisle at the supermarket

swiping your phone for texts, checking the message

you took great care to get just right,

elbowing through inundations

amid the wearisome floundering of the spinning orb,

harvesting the future for meaning

while standing at the edge of a cliff for however long . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 707

You leave the gallery and long-limbed bronzes

which is OK since it's being streamed

with gaps for reconciliation

by people filing in . . . as what? . . .

let's call them inadvertents . . .

visiting the exhibition retrospectively,

following Zoomed corridors

through an opening in the text

and into the next scene

of customers at the counter in a diner

rewritten while obsessing the commonplace

with thoughts of odysseyites

going round and round the roundabout

in your old neighborhood

resonating with the rhythmic beat

of a blacksmith's hammer on an anvil

shaping steel red-hot from the fire

as if it were planned . . . 

as if it were the answer to the blue question

glued to the ATM . . . empty, unused

on a one-way street

informing each and every touch of the day . . .

Antonio Palmerini

My poem, The Mathematician's Daughter, was a finalist from among 468 entries from 44 countries in the 2023 Stephen A. DiBiase International Poetry Contest. Bravo to the other poets, & many thanks to curator Bob Sharkey & his team for a super event!

The Mathematician’s Daughter

But what of the cul-de-sac of her childhood?
The slow circling of bases on the dusty diamond,
calculator in hand?
The unraveling of ribbons on warm Saturday afternoons?
Her knack, yes, for movie theaters
and the sheer pagination of her intellect.
Her ability to plumb the depths of bodies in motion
to retrieve artifacts long forgotten
pinning onlookers to the mast with her proofs
as she practiced higher-order equations
on the sweet-smelling turf
under autumn’s orange sky.
Forget as well that she knew by heart
the names of Leibniz’s monads
the mass appeal of transits
the high rise of sorts with the stop sign in front
the vase of freshly-cut delphinium.
I once found her calibrating the pulsating, scratchy music
of stoops, wearing a smile filled with late hours -
hours spent spread-eagled over reams of graph paper
lined with doodles and obscure footnotes
from the sixteenth century -
her first four words as illuminating as ever.
She tried hard to find happiness in coefficients
in the beauty of imaginary numbers
staying the required course despite the odds
instead of shortcutting to the breakfast nook without a word -
an unmade bed, some fast food bristling in the wastebasket
the canned soups in her cupboard
arranged as they were in powers of ten.
In the end, she returned to the lecture hall
where, amid furious note-taking, she had once plotted our future
filling the whiteboard and the air
with intricate drawings of the Interstate at dawn
calculating the logarithmic distance from x to y to z.

Backstory Alice Deposed

Numbers. Their coming-together.

Their commingling. I loved it.

Positive and negative numbers.

Big and small numbers. Real and

imaginary numbers. The purity

of primes. Testing their solitude,

their robustness, their

resistance to proof.

Walking them through the

nightmare of dreams. It was

seductive, addictive . . .

not only on the page

or the whiteboard

but also in the day-to-day.

My days throbbed with them.

I was lost to them. Then

I collided with Dear Luddy.

And I abandoned them.

Just like that. I stopped.

I stopped playing with them.

I stopped sleeping with them.

Nada. But they pursued me.

Their images pursued me,

haunted me. Infiltrating

my fibers. Cavorting

as they did. Yes, there

was a Wonderland of sorts,

but it was finite.

Then the lines began

rewriting themselves

and it was as if I was shoved

through a firewall

into an alternate reality.

The images squeezed

through . . . along with a solo

accordion. I filled my journal

with admonitions . . . not

bothering to correct

misspellings. I began

trafficking in consumables.

Packaged as in . . .

As You Like It. I held

the aces. Controlled the

scene. Flipped the roles.

But always far from the

madding crowd. My height

intimidated them. They loved 

it! Especially after googling

wine lists. Always the same

sluggish words . . . blah

blah blah . . . as if . . .

as if . . . I never anticipated

having to count ceiling tiles.

I always made the most

of a (sometimes) pathetic

situation. Do the math. Run

the numbers. Pair the

primaries! Olly, olly, in-free!

Ready or not, I always came.

Screen Dump 706

Out among the stars testing your balance

swaying, cheating . . . the cut-to-the-bone precision

of the crow's flight . . . Icarus in the cockpit . . .

You practice a disciplined indifference

trying hard to seem not to be trying too hard

plagiarizing Seduction Theory

eyes on angularities

racking up odysseyites for a casual game of nine-ball

in the diamond formation on the subway

where it's all tag-team fashion show

for the clock's hand-wringing . . .

Trying to stay awake amid the blizzard of YouTubes

you reach back for the metric of then . . .

bundles of literary allusions

misquoted misspelled misplaced

in the rare book section of the museum . . .

spending nights alone in a dark room

teaching yourself to draw as if blindfolded . . .

learning to unlearn . . .

the fascination when the game is afoot . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You hop into bed with happenstance . . .

scenes of endearment in black and white

on a doilied Stromberg-Carlson

in a room reminiscent of Miss Havisham's

crammed with memories of home-schoolers . . .

The boulevards distract with light reading . . .

odysseyites await first dibs

their landing craft reassembled

with the same worn colored pencils

from a gallerist's backroom . . .

Renderings . . . mounted in amber

slip past the watchers at the gate

satisfy the elements of someone's style . . .

You google factorials

applying exclamation points

to escape to the garden . . .

head filled with Mahler's doom-laden Ninth

its twenty-seven bars for strings . . .

transcendent . . . a prototypical specter

redacts your clang associations . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 704

Of course one could ask, What options? . . .

Imposing complexity on a single piece of prose

as if the flat darkness

demands a gathering of sorts . . .

You are now here . . . on your way there . . .

The permutations of if drone on

debulking the synthesizers and spandex

of a second Stone Age

at times engaging the rhapsodic

with a view from within . . .

risking enormity with its attendant salads and sadness

yellowed pages of indecipherable scribbles

appear late at night at the foot of your bed . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 703

You favor transmutations . . . real and imagined . . .

passersby cosplay odysseyites

follow dotted lines . . . the consciousness of overcast days

delivering overcast shadows

acknowledging overcast notations

as if in the tunnel of unread words

appearing again and again in dreams

of morning shows throughout . . .

You try to recall days when in the middle of nothing

you were handed a different script

a different unfinished script

winging it with nothing more

than semiotic regurgitations

connecting the dots to an overgrown apple orchard

from someone's childhood secrets . . .

the one your friend let go of when his parents disappeared . . .

The knack of going back intimidates you . . .

as if riding through storm clouds of white chickens

on a red wheelbarrow . . . overly-anthologised

beyond recognition . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 702

A diorama shadows your blue-penciled autofiction . . .

The day wanders through snowflake-dotted buildings

leaning against one another

as if the whole world is about to entropy . . .

You enter a wormhole

parlaying archival footage

for an afterlife with benefits . . .

the deck stacked with thumbnail sketches

of odysseyites seduced by Sirens of Dissonance . . .

The eons avalanche . . .

there are so many you've lost track . . .

A downsized news anchor holed-up for days in her room

bangs out magic on an ancient ribbonless Remington

over and over and over . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 701

The instability that looms . . .

like arriving at insight through revision

so you keep rethinking the path

and it turns out to be illuminating

even when you feel on the brink

or fear going over the edge . . .

the stick-to-ittiveness . . .

Sorting through old photographs . . .

your past lives . . . your past choices . . .

the anything as everything . . .

regrets at the last station . . .

doubts . . . insinuations . . . 

ghosts recapping playthroughs

dance across rooftops . . .

How often have you been slammed with less

despite costume changes promising more? . . .

despite the correct passcode? . . .

I know you know this from past table reads . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 700

You're dicking around with comma splices

trying to flesh out the ambiguity of appositives

checking prices of navel oranges and fuel oil . . .

The books on the shelf in fracture mode

stare you down, threaten to open . . .

There's a diagrammable certainty to all this

but you're having trouble putting your finger on it . . .

It's just so intricate and deliberate . . .

like winter's grip . . .

Traffic at the tray feeders jams

dislodging with a bright palette

the ennui of second-growth trees . . .

This could be about me, you, or someone else . . .

This hodgepodge of injecting meaning into the day . . .

the value of your words plummeting

given the seeming insouciance of event parking . . .

The relapse is about to relapse

with its refusal to countenance

any change in policy governing rules of grammar . . .

No doubt we'll hear more about this . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 699

A dropdown menu of grayed-out options

is about to announce your seeming willingness

to engage theater as theater . . .

After all, it’s all theater, yes? . . .

Even the garnish on your takeout . . .

So how about a share plate of edibles

selected with care

by your favorite chef-de-cuisine-du-jour? . . .

enough to dampen the gratuitous hostility

of your joystick with the rag-dolled strangers

backstage urging hardtail fat bikes

down gravel paths with night moves

going meta . . . stretching like taffy

along the yellow brick road of imagination . . .

Everyone memorialized in the softcovers

cluttering your backroom

is a person of disinterest

kneejerking golden rings in fables

transcribing the blank pages of the novel

you inhabit . . . while you reach

for your autofiction trying to forget

what you saw, who you were,

fashioning orphaned marionettes to retreat

into the theme parks of your fragmented mind . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 698

Many were inexperienced . . . time and again

misinterpreting hand-holding as condescension

revisiting the cul-de-sac with the passcode

at the wheel of your nightmare . . .

So you would proceed . . . slowly . . .

encouraging them to ask questions . . . take notes . . .

The strangeness of the encounter . . . a given . . .

both of you stepping out of your comfort zones

as if shooting with a green screen . . .

And what about postproduction at the tea shop

with work-a-day costumes oozing hilarity in retrospect? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 697

Voices from the air elbow in with the insistence

of Crayolas pocketed from the early days

when naïveté colored your renderings

with eyes wide shut

dumbing down the circumstances

for palatability's sake . . .

A breeze through an open window

with images of past lives

swells thought bubbles into the full catastrophe . . .

You as confused as I . . .

Yes, add that to your write-up . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 696

Seasonal hymns carry you aloft

the small print assuring you that the exaltation

in the fuzziness of the rearview mirror

is evidence of your coming-of-age . . .

Reams of prayer repurpose happiness

on the street where you live

and alter the topography of your brain . . .

You day-trip backstory practice

mimicking the chamber group in Pictures at an Exhibition . . .

the momentum enough to spearhead you into the beyond . . .

Isn't it magical? . . . intimacy's joggle? . . .

The candles flickering their excitement . . .

puzzling amusement . . . dynamic

in their medievalism . . . in their ability

to quell supermarket stalkers

comparing notes on extended techniques

with odysseyites dabbling in noise . . .

The snow is indeed over the top

but, look, the wonderment of this winter wonderland

is a dotted line to the divine

prompting players to sort through their collections

of unfinished symphonies

sorted on imaginary number . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 695

Odysseyites curry favor with Johnny-come-latelies

homeless in email . . . palming handouts

and a free pass to the Lone Star Steakhouse

where buy-ones get-ones feature . . .

A Shakespearean interface perplexes you far and away

your memory skewed by the cacophony

of the signal-to-noise ratio

filling the first movement with incomprehensible snow . . .

You have come to appreciate nautical wherewithals

and manage to navigate the second movement

mindful of the snow whose melodic drifts

you later learn was what everyone

had slogged through the snowstorm to hear . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 694

Sometimes in her sleep Albertine throws off her kimono and lies naked.

          - Anne Carson, The Albertine Workout

Hence, your fascination with sleep

and with Proust's Questionnaire

alluded to in the opening scene . . .

This, of course, made to seem inconsequential . . .

Alone now in the wilderness

in a blizzard . . .

OK, a good start . . .

Tweak it a bit to fit

into the Islets of Langerhans . . .

That can't be right . . .

Nonetheless, continue . . .

Act Two is much the same

prompting your comment on the formulaic . . .

The cluster fills with posers . . .

That it works is insidious, I mean, incredulous . . .

Are you sure you want to proceed? . . .

If you do, you'll have to walk us through

the proof specing falsehoods within

a narrow margin of error . . .

Think an endangered Snow Leopard

in one of the most remote areas on earth . . .

You are with yourself

you are within yourself

not unlike the unnamed monster

in Mary Shelley's novel

with Victor Frankenstein near death

on an ice floe relating his terror

to explorer Robert Walton . . .

this excursion into horror

by an 18-year-old's nightmare

two years after she became pregnant

with her first child, also unnamed . . .

The monster like all seeks love and recognition

but suffers misunderstanding, rejection, hatred . . .

Enter TikTok:

a world out of balance scored by Philip Glass

whose teacher Nadia Boulanger

arguably the greatest music teacher of all time

fueled his one-upmanship

with fellow composer Steve Reich . . .

and so the world as House of Crazy

forcing us to dip our quills

into rose-colored liquid

to palatabalize appropriating a one-way ticket

to elsewhere . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 693

He has left nothing to say about nothing or anything . . .

          - John Keats

Images of your former self fill the air with commiserations . . .

Videos spiral into collages of departure

and go viral . . . assembling words to say something

about something you know something about

but then stop . . . This happens, yes? . . .

It's as if you were told about the last time . . .

It's as if you were told this will be the last time . . .

It's as if you were told this is the last time . . .

Imagining the confusion when the code bombs

and regs are swapped out for neologisms . . .

You have tried to set the record straight . . .

There will be no setting the record straight . . .

Who told you you would be able to set the record straight? . . .

The record is gone . . . last seen entering Hannaford . . .

You have tried to pick up where you left off . . .

Just where did you leave off? . . .

Too much information . . .

You have submitted the paperwork, and rejoined your age-mates

who pump air and will continue to pump air

into the silence of anechoic chambers . . .

It's as if you were glued to YouTube . . .

It's as if you knew all along you would be muted . . .

It's as if you were recognized for who you are . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 692

Maybe they're coded into the graphic versions

of Stephen Hawking’s Time

hawked by junkyard dogs and other ne'er-do-wells . . .

Or Proust? . . . maybe Proust? . . .

Regardless, time passes . . .

Fashion plates spin . . .

Turntablists go on record to transfuse vinyl . . .

Anything to keep out of hock . . .

Anything to stave off the due date . . .

The life of a court jester juggling, what,

five, six, seven balls

in the days of bungee jumps

accelerates the metabolism

sets loose change jingling

pockets fluttering with delight . . .

This is good, yes? . . .

Dishpan dilemmas melt away . . .

You wake in a Beckettian diorama

locks unchanged, doors ajar

showcasing reticence, ambiguity, and

humorous deflationary counterpoint . . .

Who said that? . . . Did you say that? . . .

Dusty volumes doze on podiums, awaiting magic fingers . . .

Everyone is in fine fettle . . .

And after? . . . Who knows? . . .

At the very least you’ll be penciled in

somewhere ages and ages hence . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 691

You do your best to weather a strange ineptitude

the discoloration of the senses

that follows a fragmented conversation

but before you know it

a triviality arrives

with its own list of demands . . . 

Later, several strangely-costumed leads

appear seemingly on cue from installations

and reappear one by one

as if in an infinite loop

offering monologues and soliloquies

odds and check-out times

well-wrought and well-received

thorough in their encryption

yet lacking in payback . . .

while outside an out-of-sorts vehicle

makes its way along the narrow one-way street

depositing memories

on one chipped stoop after another . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 690

Long haulers reconfigure goodbyes . . .

There is no other life . . .

Promises are scanned . . . some shredded . . .

Irrevocability is tabled . . .

The difference jolts you awake

in the middle of your soliloquy

filled with hounds

nipping at the darkness . . .

Your lines recall with impunity

late night walks through scripts

costumed in OCD . . .

baiting your next subject . . .

reporting the outcome to the moms and pops

infiltrating the neighborhood

after word got out

that the sidewalks are paved

with deleted TikToks . . .

The world fills with dubious auditionees . . .

 

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 689

You're onstage translating blue book innuendos . . .

Graffiti artists recruit Zamboni drivers

for the latest in homespun contortions . . .

Every day you write down a color for emphasis . . .

It sometimes works . . .

especially with underdeveloped photographs

and smokeless candles

from Bed Bath and Beyond . . .

You admit to appropriating yourself . . .

About the dog's dutiful permanence

within the purview of the cat's tall tail

wedded to your spot-on translations

you reluctantly relinquish reserve . . .

The day is recalled for safety violations . . .

Knowing full well desire's amplitude

fuels your compassion

for one-armed bandits with performance anxiety . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 688

The day quibbles intensity

climbing in a hot air balloon . . . belching symbols . . .

the same 32 symbols with few exceptions

scribbled by ancients on cave walls . . .

Your visions incubate playoffs

as odysseyites seek shelter

from misappropriations . . .

A free ride with Thanksgiving looms . . .

There is something about something, but . . .

the dumplings, ah, yes, the dumplings

continue to steam . . .

You return remarkably from your incision

into hubris which unchecked

could forego Chromebook's immensity . . .

Blueness strolls elsewhere

while a disaffected second assistant director

toggles a capacity

for resilience against despair . . .

He too will . . . eventually . . .

Rinsing your mouth after using a puffer

impresses a starlet known for her brake pad bails . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 687

You're using a random text generator

to fill in memory gaps . . .

How back from  elsewhere in blue suede shoes

you loitered to grab caffeine

with a camera obscurist lost in plate tectonics . . .

Misplacing the memo

you practiced night sweats

with a minor leaguer

who had to follow an instruction sheet

for stonermasons . . .

Fast forwarding 40 years you find yourself

among the original cast members

bloating come-ons for moving-up day

in a city of somnambulists . . .

The sky cloudless (which here means nothing) . . .

Memorable hamlets . . . and ink . . .

quid-pro-quo under the skin of a woolly mammoth

mooring across a Russian novel

with a grandmother inviting you in

for voodka and borscht . . .

Your high heels catch-as-catch-can . . .

your hemming and hawing

make it into the finals

with a jump shot paradigm shift

while sniggling softly in tantric rapture . . .

Antonio Palmerini