Gastronomy 101

The charcuterie-loaded menu piqued your interest. You took the lift to the loft where it was all about to happen - a tough reservation, but well worth the wait staff who had been trained in various mid-Atlantic states of service. A carousel stood in for the usual round-robin. You lost yourself in the cutlery but then repaired to the foyer where a well-seasoned foodie held forth with tales of tails from exotic eateries. Your esteemed colleague failed to show . . . again.

Wolvesmouth's Craig Thornton

The Dream of Ringlets . . . Again

You fail to anticipate the superfluousness
of the run-through

and run home to check your notes,
channel-surfing for answers to the 20 questions

hanging around the stoop.
Your dog uses a Kindle to calibrate loneliness

then texts the stationmaster
who reassures all that there are still only three colors

and a partridge in the pear tree.
Someone arrives on the 11:05

and begins dismantling the prose
cluttering the entryway.

Who was that masked man/woman?
Have you checked in with your sponsors?

Perhaps they can spare the change
although it's unlikely that the 12-tone mini-u-et

will carry the burden of absence.
The viewers are sure to expect more.

You know this despite the fatigue
pestering your keyboard.

It's time to come clean.
Not a big deal. Never was. Never will be.

Vally Nomidou

Lately, the Bottlenecking

Your GPS is working overtime trying to avoid a turn for the worse as if a solitary moment will wrap its arms around you and guide you to the reference desk where tentacles of connections await your gentle probing. How often have you channel-surfed only to find that the best buys are unwilling to participate in your Glass Bead Game? Your hair was longer then, wasn't it? Everyone's was. I can't say that I remember The Elements of Style but I do remember that it was a long, strange trip, one we failed to duplicate though we tried several times with a collection of cosmopolitan cocktails. We even contacted the Watermelon Sugar Man who was nice enough to direct us to a pickle patch. With mixed results, I continue.

Satantango (1994)

Woman XXXII

Standing next to her
in the elevator
I am enveloped by her scent
and miss my floor.

Charlotte Gainsbourg

That's Not Going To Happen

Especially now, with the cat out of the bag
the holiday season ready to pounce
and your latest tête-à-tête simmering in the atelier.
Listening to covers while journaling
will buy you the anonymity
you've convinced yourself you need
and enable you to resume your place in line.
The Persian rug in the room is gone
as are the white beaches
with the beached iMacs.
You've been fortunate enough
to live the life of make-believe,
and get away with it, for the most part.
I'm surprised you were never called
to the front office, that strange transfer station
populated with mannequins
of questionable character.
If only you had described the beauty
of the algorithm you wrote that tied it all together,
you could have redeemed the coupons
downloaded in anticipation.
That would have been quite a coup.
Too late now. Too late for most things.
Enter your username and password
then click the box for Remember Me.

The Turin Horse (2011)

He Said She Said I Said You Said

Even adultery has morality to it.
          - Laura Dern, We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004)

You lose yourself - or try to lose yourself - in things,
in music, in ideas, in people
but the aesthetics keep poking through -
The aesthetics?
Yes, the aesthetics. -
keeping you up at night calibrating the angularities
the curvatures
mining the immense vocabulary of the body,
the immense vocabulary of the other.
Something about jettisoning the detritus.
The 12 steps out the window.
And, what, you thought that was it?
Oh yeah, repainting the entryway was a great idea.
A therapeutic tour-de-force.
Revisit the scenes, this time in 3D -
the added dimension is sure to make a difference.

Francesca Woodman

Woman XXXI

She takes in the exhibits
with Modigliani's eyes
unslinging her SLR
to capture the intimacies
in the maze of back galleries.

Running the Changes

You skim the dog-eared blue-lined notebooks
lying next to your bed
for new words, different words
to ease the ache of repetition,
the ache of the old.
The hour arrives at the wrong address,
laughs, lingers, and you forget the difference
between high and low drama
the loss surfacing after closing
as if it mattered to the rent-a-magician
left waiting in the Green Room,
wand in hand, as generators,
prepped to weather the nor'easter,
exit through the gift shop.
Again, the rehearsals proved futile,
frustrating, the French horn player
running the changes
through his backward-facing bell
making it new, until, in an eyeblink,
it was old, boredom seeping in, abracadabra! -
the furniture, the cat, and you, gone.

Alice's Last Last Ouija Game by Paul Grand

Spoiler

You see her in a mirror, in a wedding gown.
That scene from Seven Minutes in Heaven
with the trains running late
but they're going ahead with the auditions anyway
and ordering takeout.
When you least expect it, she calls
for a costume change
and it turns out to be good.
Tweaking the scene, too. Yes, this could be it.
And then you hear her begin: Evidently, . . .
Regarding the ending?
Let me get through my fish and chips first.

The Pluperfect Storm

You have your heaven, it said, go to it.
          - William Carlos Williams, The Hurricane

The White Rabbit is late, and Snow White is yellow. There's enough time on the meter for one checkmate and enough water under the bridge for one week. The Ghosts of Christmases Past are here, conferencing with the Three Bears. Goldilocks has had her roots painted for a photo op as Shepherdress of the Moment. The Energizer Bunny has snuffed out the Green Lantern and squirreled away fresh batteries and doughnuts. The books to be read are nestled all snug in their Kindle.

The Turin Horse (2011)

Insert Audiodisc 3

Begin anywhere.
          - John Cage

You seek solace in idioms and run smack into a blank stare.

The exigencies of Helvetica provide little comfort

as you consider the caveats of typographers

and the roadworthiness of long distance truckers

who are here for the free ride.

A typeface with élan will spring you from ubiquity

and into the world of graphic comics

where a curve is a curve at your beck and call

and the moon ready willing and able to deliver the latest

in fashionable footwear.

And you thought perhaps this was make-believe?

A pretend-pudding if you will?

Buying into that sort of thing could spell onomatopoeia 

and a trip to the mall rivaling Rimbaud's A Season in Hell.

The Shoes on the Models of Eastern Europe

. . . when [a person] is capable of being in uncertainties,
mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact
and reason.
          - John Keats

You're lying in the grass
studying the azure map of the sky

comparing it to the veins
on the back of your hand

which lately have been speaking to you - in tongues -
to-and-fro, to-and-fro.

Perhaps you've arrived with someone else?
Or, better, as someone else?

The tingling ebb and flow.
The trials and trails?

The excitement of then, yes?
Aha! You mean I'm excused?

No one's excused.
A few bucks. Just a few bucks,

and you'll be off and running, again.
Sort of.

What brings you here?
An election year?

Filled with unspoken conversations? And negative space?
Let us not forget the place of negative space.

And negative capability, for that matter,
which, for your edification, offers an alternative.

To what?
Your dreams of the Old Country, and its accoutered models.

Be nimble. Be quick. Jump over the dowsing stick.
Yes. Yes. And yes.

Woman XXX

She reads Rilke before counting sheep
splits wood in the afternoon
can change the oil in her pickup faster than Jiffy Lube.
I open an account at Carhartt.

Into the Arbitrary

Blender's render pipeline supports rendering to UV
texturemaps ambient occlusion, normals, displacement,
color, shadows, and full render can be baked.
          - blender.org

And you're swept into the arbitrary.
Those moments when the rational kicks in
creating the illusion of symbiosis
and you feel the connection, and think, This is good.
Walking fast. Texting. You know the deal.
Your world filling with texturemaps, . . .
and normals and shadowy displacements
fully rendered and baked.
I'm not convinced about that last part
especially now with things heating up:
He said. She said. I said. You said.
It calls for robustness with a narrow margin of error.
Tarjay had a special on those not too long ago.
We could all use a break.
From the ins and outs, the ups and downs.
You mean trancelike?
Yeah, that'll work, as well as anything, I guess.

Madame Tutli-Putli (2007)

Missing

You find sentences with missing words,
words with missing letters.
Someone texts you about a field
of orphaned puppets.
A chamber group plays the same piece
over and over
overlaying the day
with misty undertones.
Extras appear at opportune times
knowing this too is simply a run-through
for the real deal
which you've heard is being touted
at local landfills.
Instead you decide to fill in the blanks
fill in the gaps
with what you think they meant
with what you think they want to hear.

Madame Tutli-Putli (2007)

Restorative

You drag your old apartment through abandonment

imagining the surplus of activities segmenting the days

reaching back to capture the elements of then

fragmented into painful shards.

The players at the foot of your bed await direction

again overwhelmed by the onlookers

brought in to witness your de-accessioning.

The wood stove crackles with befuddlement.

It has been cued, as have others, from childhood memories.

This has happened as predicted

choreographed by backers as a concession

to the chamber group whose notes have taken to the air.

The Grateful Dead

Trillium

It's as if you've entered a dormitory of disbelief

the tunnel of days welling-up

you thumbing through images of yesterday

looking for the waterfall

impregnated with silence. This will be my escape,

you've emailed friends,

certain that this time some sort of resolution

will occur. The last time was a bust,

neither here nor there,

and you without the foggiest notion.

Not to worry, they've told you. This is quite common.

You laughed, but knew the moment

was careening toward you. The make-believe moment,

the pretend moment, the moment that most of us

have to face, even with the deck stacked.

Francesca Woodman

The Street of Crocodiles

Chet Baker's My Funny Valentine fills this day of rain. You wander through Elegy, based on Philip Roth's The Dying Animal, turn away during certain scenes, your casualness shaken. There is nothing casual about death. Someone says something about the inability to string a narrative. The inability to do what? Whatever. Call in the Script Doctor, yes? There's havoc in your bullpen, and in your playpen, and in your world. Again, you have walked out during the crucial scene. Wait, you're telling me how screwed-up Chet was? At least he had what Ray Carver had. And you, too.

The Street of Crocodiles (1986)

Woman XXIX

Silk blouse askew
hair wilding
she is Everywoman
moving
with the ease of a danseuse
along the row where I sit,
mummified.

Marcus Ohlsson

Available Upon Request

The time is past for going back.
          - A. E. Stallings

You've test-driven the tops and bottoms
weighed the pros and cons

put in for a hiatus from drifting aimlessly,
a far cry from the old days

when you were a pronoun-in-training, and
domesticity was a bargain-basement forget-me-not.

The boatman awaits.
Let's talk about your future

and the hellish commute to motherhood,
fatherhood, sisterhood, brotherhood.

Mourning inconclusively is a no-no.

Learn the lines of your face. Learn them well.

As resident cartographer of your double life,
you are within (X years of) your element.

Roberto Kusterle

The Beauty of the Null

Everything I know is from a book.
          - Joshua Mehigan

You're juggling impressions, trying to make it home
before someone asks you a question.
Even the guy in the 7-Eleven looked ready.
And where were you when you caved?
You resolve to study epistemology,
especially now with the neighborhood Velcro'd
to detractions. Ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls, children of all ages.
Yes? Was there a message in that?
Something we could latch onto perhaps?
Parlay into a vacaciones during the null center
of the holiday stream when most wade in
and are carried along by current events?
I suppose we could take the alternative out for a spin.

Roberto Kusterle

Return Receipt Requested

You take what Lyn Hejinian calls a pathetic leap and land,
surprisingly, on your feet, scattering newly-fallen leaves,

the scene soundtracked by Giacinto Scelsi
who was here, there, and back. Your fortune cookie

has promised smooth sailing. Just do it! Savor the coziness.
Know, however, that breakdowns are inevitable,

and acceleration will lose its glamour.
Mousing the future, too, will eventually become tiresome,

even as the options swell, and, in what seems a nanosecond,
you will be returned with blank pages to the gated community.

Ivona, Princess of Burgundia (Opole Puppet Theater)

On the Street (Where You Live?)

Next time I'll rehearse more, dissect my lines, diagram them, as I did decades ago for my Latin teacher, a young woman in full habit, who held me in thrall: You've got to change your evil ways, bay-beh. I never got there, and never would, which demonstrates something, I guess. Oh, by the way, I was riveted by the immersion and wherewithal of your coveralls as you mobilized yourself to meet winter, which will doubtless arrive amid a volley of head butts, attempting to escort you into oblivion, not unlike the killer whales on last night's Animal Planet, who took out a gray whale and her calf in full view of boatloads of whale watchers stunned by the realization - as professed by, among others, the late Stephen Jay Gould whose student evaluations at Harvard reputedly proclaimed: He knows everything about everything! - that the world of the wild is not a peaceable, ethical kingdom.

The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks

A Piece of Nothing

That's all there was to it. No more than a solemn waking to brevity.
          - Mark Strand

And then, again, you decide to look at the sketches of domes in cities you've never visited, and probably never will, the domes having insinuated themselves into your reading and into your life. You don't even know the names of the cities and towns but they're pleasant to look at, and spark images of travel. There are moments when the armchair you're sitting in by the window overlooking the park seems to lift off and float above the canals in the cities. You strike up conversations with strangers in languages you don't even know. This could be a wish, or a piece of nothing, connecting you to the world.

Some Disenchanted Evening

Another late night of books
and you slip on a stanza
spilling the words you've been squirreling away
for your next encounter.
The assignment calls for recommendations
that can be folded into your disembodied days
of garden salads, protein shakes, vitamins.
Do you have the wherewithal
to recommence your life
as artifact, clattering along rooftops,
peering into windows,
scrambling to hide emails under the rug?
There are benefits, of course,
as spelled out in the attached addenda.

Ivona, Princess of Burgundia (Opole Puppet Theater)

With Airtime Limited

But no one can prove that your life means anything either: on a good day you feel able to keep on living it, . . . following a plan when a plan seems to fit, but otherwise making it up as you go.
          - Stephen Burt

Backing into a parking space, half-smiling, earwormed,
the dime-store alchemy with its godless sneer
playing hide-and-seek in the darkening, overgrown garden,
you decide to break the mold, breathe,
the small script saying something about sincerity.
Intimidations aside, it couldn't have been avoided.
Of course, once you stepped into the ring,
the bell sounded the beginning of the round,
and before you knew it, you were rocked by a left,
glancing above the timekeeper's toupee
for a clue to the full catastrophe: the ride over,
backpacks unpacked and returned to the back room.
This time there wasn't time to rehearse.
This time the experience was framed, matted,
and on the street in a wrinkle to be picked over
by disinterested parties who scattered
the unwanted, while, all the while,
the mimeograph machine, posing new questions,
awaiting the verdict, commiserated with sleight-of-handers,
who, ill-advised, convinced you
that this was not what you had paid for.

Rosalind Solomon

Degrees of Freedom

Emails bottleneck at the back door
dangling profiles and memory hooks and terms of endearment
setting off smoke detectors
with lines like You are always on my mind
shifting irresistibly in Aeron ergonomic chairs
(permanent at MoMA)
the meter clicking off degrees of freedom
between you and whomever
your knees weak from the algorithm
you've been tweaking from the get-go.
Everyone has flirt options
especially when cloud banks dictate seasonal rates
and we riffle through closets for long sleeves
only to default to comforters.
The plot thickens.
Spare me the cliches, please!
I'm Kindling into you and your root cellar.
Do we have enough food and drink to weather the weekend?
To weather the sparring?
Bassoonists insinuate themselves into my dreams
retreating into anonymity when I look behind the curtain
and find your handwritten notes.
The drama of reading not unlike puppetry.
Pulling the strings, yes?
Where will you be on the night of October 12th, 201_?
The loneliness of the high seas.
And of course Job qua Ishmael:
I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Ivona, Princess of Burgundia (Opole Puppet Theater)

Woman XXVIII

Slam-dunked
by her ___*
I am struck speechless
unable to call foul.

*aureole/beauty/glare/indifference/look/smile/words

Joyce Tenneson

Moving

We all have reasons for moving.
          - Mark Strand

No, no, don't lose yourself in the rear window.
Keep moving.
Isn't that what Patti Smith said?
Rewrite the script
run it past a few street corners
and you'll find yourself in the produce section
happy as a parking meter.
Maybe it was Bob Dylan.
I'm sure it was one of those two.

Back to You

You begin telling a funny story then stop
insisting your delivery is off a few cents
as if you were comparing musical pitches.
You assume tomorrow will arrive as scheduled
with makeovers and callbacks and returns.
Not unlike most of us, yes?
Bring the car around, it's time.
Shall we continue into the second stanza
which was left flopping around on the wet sand?
I can't believe it's you
but in fact it is
looking small yet provocative
for the part you've chosen from scraps of paper
blowing around the gazebo.
There was a time. . . .
Forget it. That was back when timetables
ran the show and the button
signifying the next move
was visible to all, even those in the nosebleed section.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Intact at Daybreak

Yet we insist that life is full of happy chance.
          - Lyn Hejinian

You run into him/her in a parking lot.
Words tumble out, collide.
Screens refresh. Images avalanche.
The pain of updates.
Later you escape to Netflix,
before descending into a maelstrom.
Again, you can't believe what's happened.
What's happening again.
Too much at stake?
You had trouble last time, yes?
Why put yourself through this?
Why go there?
The honesty? The openness? The honesty of openness?
Surely, you can conjure a better reason.
Something more palatable with . . . ?
With what? The heart as lonely hunter?
Crack the window, will you please,
it's getting a bit stuffy.
Fortunately, they will be here shortly
with gossip from the four corners.
Irrelevant stuff, most likely, but therapeutic
when you're down and out
to your last roll of paper towels.

Francesca Woodman

A Night at the Opera

Aida opens with questions about the king salmon baked in rock salt with wild fennel gratin, and about the out-of-towners arriving by tram, a bit late, perhaps, but so what?, her angularity a stop sign, a natural for window shopping, open mics, shy interludes, late-night walks - a bit of fabric held between fingertips, watching movies together as one, hiding behind a spectrum of proclivities, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. The pit crew sporting Desert Storm footwear and J.Crew blazers - What's with that? - demands special accommodations for members of their extended tribe entering stage left with picnic baskets and perfect bound programs wet with autographs and Venetian doodles, tuning out the world, again, and again, and again, bathed in the cool breeze of this late summer evening. The lights flicker. Valets exchange glances. The monitor lapses into a display of stock quotes, the audience, lost without translation, carried aloft by mellifluous arias in the original.

A Night at the Opera (1935)

Day by Day

Your flights of fantasy nosedive into three squares which you concede is an odd number for the health-conscious. Gym rats continue to derail your train-of-thought with offers of sidebars and makeovers and junkets. You have been carved out and readied for the last coat. There's nothing to do but wait tables. Your failure to make eye contact with the old neighborhood has raised concerns about your suitability as a soulmate. The ball is at the top of the pole. The track is clear.  The conductor raises his baton. The first movement begins. You are on your way.

Dancing on the Roof

You sleep with jealousy and run red lights
bronzing conjugations of fornicate
trying to give the impression of laughing through intersections.
Scribbles aside you paddle to the middle
and sketch the shoreline.
The sun sits between timeouts.
It's all about staying the moment
finding a script with starting blocks tailor-made
then moving online for subtleties.
You got rid of most of her at the transfer station.
But some things are difficult to part with, yes?
Sticking to your fingertips
when a storm approaches for example.
Seeing them in your rearview mirror.
And now, she's dancing on the roof
the angle making it impossible for you to let go.

Andy Hartmark

Begin Again

Reconstruct your mud hut with notes from a concerto.
Philip Glass?
Yes, you like his style his style his style.
A quick recap?
I think not. The sun has moved, and left no forwarding address.
Of course, we can examine the damage
but that won't change anything.
You've been relegated to imitations of life.
This is where we're at, my friend.
It's called moving on.
You've got the U-Haul and the shepherd's  pie
and enough Willy Lomans to fill Ebbets Field.
But it was a good day in Flatbush, yes?
You Are There was being shot.
With Walter?
Navigators had been flown in to reconfigure watering holes.
Back to Nature placards everywhere.
Marilyn kicking a soccer ball.
And you thumbing a ride to the next Station of the Cross.
Wait, you're mixing metaphors.
OK, so I mix metaphors. Could be Bensonhurst.
You spend your days in an adjoining room,
courting free associations.
Hopefully, getting my bearings.
I try to avoid that usage.
Irrelevant, as far as the polloi are concerned, Your Honor.
The question remains, just how far?
I'm way off the beaten track, wherever that it.
But that's what we want, yes?
All the way from Flatbush to the Pine Bush to the Pine Barrens.
And then some?
Yes, you'll find yourself within every evergreen.
Will I know it's me?
Probably not, but keep moving and they will come.

Ebbets Field Opening Day 1913

John of the Dear Johns

The scene opens with you
popping out of the wings
costumed, quixotic,
rarin' to go
to the ends of the earth,
the four corners,
the wherever
to do the thing right this time

and for all time
as scripted, of course,
amanuenses readying their quills
to capture the permutations
and combinations
of an intimacy
that will become
a matter of public record.

You have been feted
and called sexy man.
You are the current placeholder,
your predecessors jettisoned.
It is tomorrow, yes?
The sun has come out.
You have bet your bottom dollar
without a tip sheet.

Alcandre and Amanuensis

The Coordinates of a Move

Undaunted, the U-Haul speaks volumes.
Have you been here before?
Your appearance bodes well for the extended forecast.
Were there enough corrugations
to keep the pachyderms occupied for the duration?
The shore can be therapeutic, yes?
Especially the white sand tickling your piggies.
It's not just that though.
There's something else, something I can't put my finger on.
This has been happening a lot lately,
and I fear it may become par for the course.
Bette Davis was one; there have been others
but she nailed it, and it's stood.
Did you think you could forestall the inevitable?

Bette Davis

Woman XXVII

She opens with a quote
closes with someone else
uses a compass
to stay en pointe.
I flip through my Rolodex
for her stats.
My paradigm shifts
into overdrive.

A Room (of One's Own) with a View

I remember the cadaverous approach to happiness
and something about a Gold Coin or Golden Coin
or Man with a Golden Arm.
The scene with the last supper was not the first.
Foodies! Always foodies - thinking a world
of impastos and gouaches, a world
where mistakes can be sent back to the kitchen.
These were a few of my favorite things:
John Coltrane at the Village Gate:
BE: Before eBay and confusion
and scads of DVDs coloring the silence
of conversations with (significant) others.
Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes,
the air salty at the outermost house,
the Pilgrim Monument's 100th.
Replaying the obvious for the off-center crowd.
And, of course, the scripts, always the scripts -
to consider to edit to create
grounded in small (under 100 notes) electronic compositions,
a few improvised or composed on the fly.

Noodling on Bamboo

August, and blackberries
the green wood thick
with yellow jacket,
Japanese beetle, horse fly, toad.
Deeper, deer and fox
and coydog.
Deeper still, bear.
Li Po here too
wind from pine trees trickling
on his bare head. Joy
in the mailbox I replaced, and
in the tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley,
and in this finicky piece of bamboo.

A Descent into the Mundane

In matters of the heart, logic is out the window.
          - Anon

The late night texts with pics of orphaned silos qua nurseries
strike a chord with those questing after the mundane
after the elements of the everyday
the elements heard but not listened to
seen but ignored.
You try intellectualizing it
but end up at a taproom sipping cosmos.
Chekhov's Uncle Vanya doesn't help
though Cate Blanchett gives you a second wind
and a cheatsheet on the symbolism.
We're all visitors here, anyway, yes?
Passing through, so to speak?
Isn't that part of the agreement?
Part of the understanding?
Retractions? Forget it, crows have eaten the bread crumbs.
When was the last time you saw him/her?
Before or after the pratfall?
And now so much to discover.
So much to rethink.
The train leaving the station, passengers waving
to their delicate lives backstage,
their delicate lives brief and undeniable.

Cate Blanchett  and  Richard Roxburgh  in Uncle Vanya

Fall Collection

Winsome though they are,
it was not enough.
Something kept nudging me
through the time trial,
keeping me attuned to the weather channel
with its reverential esplanades
stretching far and away.
I tried to make-do with the items you left.
No luck. Fragments of then
kept falling out of place.
I imagined Venice instead of the usual,
its narrow convolutions
just what the doctor ordered
forgetting of course my fear of water
which reluctantly I must admit
had a lot to do with it.
That didn't work either,
and I was back at Barnes & Noble
where this flirty little blond
in hot pink jeans
and Louis Vuitton knockoff
got into a musical chairs thing
with a plainclothes IRS guy
and ran the gamut of acceptable insinuations
all of which were carefully documented
by her incidental associate.

Woman XXVI

Her every sentence is a mini-pose
as she fills her eyes with world-weariness
while twirling her vintage-y skirt.
I record her narcissisms,
and can't wait to get into her archive.

Kate Bosworth

Your Next Gelato

          for Bets Smith

The inkman is on his way to the next match(up).
He has proved himself an unreliable witness.
The supporting actors, too, are figments of something,
and that something is filing past as we speak.
(Don't you just love the colors?)
You're trying to imagine how things will turn out.
Me too, I'm in the same boat.
I've gone so far as to pilot the endgame - the real endgame,
not this interim havoc with the clocks stopping and starting,
the menagerie's bedfellows heating up.
I'm sure they find humor in that. We have.
And the spectators, always opportunistic, jostling their way
to the parking lot with its freshly-painted regulations.
You'd think they have a mall to confiscate.
Oh, I almost forgot, have you closed?
Isn't that what it's all about? Closing?
Practicing the senseless script
so you can regurgitate it verbatim on the ride-along
with Miss Goody Two Shoes (size 11)?
There are so many ways it can go - no hints here, yes?
Of course you can speculate
which is what I assume you're doing
(your eyes have that pottery glaze look),
the mountains looming as if they were propped up
by stagehands whose tears are drying in the atelier.
(Incidentally, the atelier is a nice touch.)
Perhaps we should have argued more vehemently
with each other or for a rewrite at least
but you were in the thick of it
your mind racing across the palazzo
filled with images of Morandi's blanched vases (or vahses)
thinking about the next gelato to cross your tongue.

I Cook Rather Than Starve

Do you like to cook?
          - Dating site survey question

It's like listening to yourself
wrapping your arms around your own consciousness
(for the first time, perhaps?)
profiling your soul for a prospective mate
classifying your style
as egoistic or altruistic or both
or neither
the morality of the street
in five easily-mastered lessons
unencumbered by the cheering of the sandlot crowd
as you (or your clone) round second base
on the shadeless, macadamed ball field
carefully adding ballpointed tattoos
to your forearms between innings:
and now ladies and gentlemen
stepping up to the plate: Finnegan Beginagain
sunshine springing eternal
as his beautifully spotless mind
embraces the spectators
backpack filled with life's lessons learned
(a tad light, if you ask me)
the true (north) meaning and why it matters
comfortably ensconced
in a goldleafed pyramid scheme
which, if followed sacrilegiously, is guaranteed
to tag the long ball of happiness far out of the park,
the pearly gates agape
with peace, love, and all that jazz.

Cupid and Psyche by Antonio Canova

It could?

How long (has this been going on)?
          - Paul Carrack (Ace)

Nonchalance. Then trying something else. As mediocre.
OK, exiting after the thunderstorm.
That was a good start.
Capturing the moon in the emptiness between two branches?
That was good, too.
The conversation jump-started with you
bringing up - again - Woodstock.
Why did you keep returning to the image of a church?
There was no church. Ask around. No church.
And the hamlet?
Peaked about 25 years ago. Ask.
By the time we got there, the fences had been trampled,
and they were talking people down from the towers.
Yes, I heard you mention the thunderstorm,
and remember some guy doing acrostics.
The Star Spangled Banner.
The act ending mid-stride with you trying to sort things out.
Forget it, you found a silver (sand) dollar and a fob of sorts.
A dawning? Who knew?
He said it was about a band member
but that's not the way it's been written up.
So what does it look like to you? In retrospect?
A younger version of the reader disentangling the writer?

Woodstock

As Per

The task of the researcher is to disprove the null hypothesis, or the claim that there is no difference between, for example, two levels of something. Since it's usually impractical to inspect all instances of something in a population, we select a sample which - if valid - is representative of the population at a level of confidence that we are willing to accept (typically 95 percent). We run the study, come up with findings, and report that we are 95 percent confident that the findings we came up with by looking at the sample are the same findings we would have come up with if we had looked at the entire population. Alternately, there is only a five percent chance that the findings we came up with would have appeared if no real difference exists between the two levels. Further, when we say a finding is statistically significant at the .05 level, we mean that if we were to run the study or investigation n number of times, we would come up with the same finding 95 percent of the time. Level of confidence is kind of like the amount of reasonable doubt we are willing to accept.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Woman XXV

She medaled in conjugation speed
and the javelin throw,
and holds advanced degrees in episodic aimlessness.
Her latest pin is ancient alphabets,
and she's been spotted at the deli counter
practicing cursive.
I forget why I'm standing in line.

Corrado Amati

The Gypsy Girl’s Guile

          for Catherine Mary Connolly (1969-2012)

The practitioners of inner peace
clamor for recognition
offstage in the wings
among the jugglers and other resellers
of souls worldwide.
They insist on being heard
and resent the assertion
that the end is in the beginning.
Many are puzzled
and await word from above.
It will come.
The gypsy girl knows this.
The gypsy girl knows the Secret
of the Dance as well
which she guards with her guile.
She has used her guile many times
to get what she wanted.
She would have it no other way.
Neither would those
seeking her gifts
word of which has been spread
throughout the land by fireflies.
They come for a glimpse
of her painted toes.
They do this with abandon
and without regret.
Offshore, a vessel lurches
trying to make headway.
The sea enjoys this sort of thing.
The vessel will arrive on time.
The gypsy girl can see this too
with a clarity
that would put most to shame.

Greenhorn! and the Art of Imperfection

Me. And me now.
          - James Joyce, Ulysses

I hadn't heard that expression since Cork Hill.
Half a century ago.
My grandfather and his cronies, sucking suds at the corner saloon.
Polish fellas. Words unminced.
You betta get the hell outta here!
C-130s. Touch and go,
bringing fame and (mis)fortune.
But now, from a couple of fogeys in The Bellevue.
Might as well have been the psych ward.
Might as well have been spring.
Black clouds rolling in over last night's ninth-inning call.
These are the Majors,
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
Conundrums amid homemade specials.
Farm fresh. Indeed!
A summer stew. Bland. Soy sauce? Sorry.
Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck . . . out!
Friends in another booth telling my daughter and me
about the berm in their backyard.
To quiet the road noise.
Berm. Another term I hadn't heard in a while.
Thirteen years, if you must. (And, of course, you must!)
A house in a new development.
With berm to quiet . . . the madding crowd.
Down payment and all.
Here we go! à la Heath Ledger.
(Where DID he go? Better: Where did WE go?)
Significant other #2 morphing into insignificant ex #2.
I suppose it does take two to tango.
Or, maybe three?
The rice bowl with crack.
The Wabi-sabi(ness) of it all, yes?
There must be some kind of way out of here,
said the joker to the thief, . . . .

Steamboat Willie (1928)