Slipstream

You ignore the sermon, then think, Everything's riding on this.
OK, that was over the top, but what did you expect?
Waking into a dream saying, You can have anything you want?
I think not.
Distract yourself next time with befuddlement (if nothing else is handy).
It was so thick you befriended a minor player in a minor drama
played out in starts and stops.
And now look at the wake: eenie meenie miney mo!
Fragments floating by.
Forget the freebies. You were psyched out by them.
Yes, you'll have plenty of company when you crash and burn!

Dariusz Klimczak

Pretending Otherwise

1
It's as if you're driving with a rain-soaked windshield.

2
How to get close?

3
Why not others?

4
Climbing into a dream.

5
Losing count.

6
Climbing out of a dream.

7
The imagination, a progenitor. Grappling with bookmakers as if there were a window.

8
Dogs curled in the driveway.

9
Where the hell is this?

10
She was fond of the term irregardless and used it regardless.

11
Now, every dream begins with a caveat.

12
Not much to do about that.

13
Hunker down as if life depended on it.

14
And then strolling the aisles, fascinated by the stamped cartons of everything.

15
Well, maybe not, but still.

16
OK with me.

17
Tell you what. With everything blemished or soon to be, we could pretend otherwise, look the other way, begin again, only this time with a metronome.

18
I'm thinking herbivores, doubtless because of Anne Carson's intros and outros.

19
It wasn't meant to be?

20
A Month in the Country. He shy, she faithful.

21
She couldn't handle the pretense. Does that make sense?

22
I got it. Next time follow the instructions.

23
But even so!

24
The happenstance in the trees is so captivating that you won't hear the other shoe drop.

25
This times 20.

Dariusz Klimczak

I Take That Back

Subtleties aside, the grounding should have made a difference, the verisimilitude coloring the encounter, releasing the amplitude from those cheap enclosures. What's your experience been like? A crap shoot? How about the documentation? Does it continue to brittle, as the museologists said it would? Interestingly, the path, once overgrown and impassable, welcomes us with benefits no less, some of which are far too outlandish to even consider. As it should be, I guess.

Dariusz Klimczak

 

The Fine Line Between

What is it then between us?
          - Walt Whitman

And so we engage in distractions
in deadpan reticence
in loose-elbow canvases with splashy palettes
boarding the airship
waving bye-bye to the good, the bad, the ugly
to those near and far
to those costumed for the haunting regularity
hands held high
the music a light summer rain.
The curiosity welcomed, celebrated,
upholding the meaning
preserving what is done
and what will (or could) be done.
The windiness of cities
of passersby with eyes locked
or heads bent
that this could be otherwise
scripted in good company
without indulgence
without insouciance
or concern or worry
with nothing lost in translation then or now.
The entire palette sprung
all colors
some identified by the stenciled name of another
applied with the transport of an ode to joy.
In the final scene an ice storm dialogues
limbs bend, break, fall
viewed as spectacular
the curtains still'd
the music muted
the congregation assembling
to review the packet of algorithms
signed, sealed, delivered
by a company of like-minds
who now (we can only hope) will see it through
settling on the iced leaves of grass.
Perhaps we should email one another
touch base
make sure the network is up
and only then resurface
duly recognized and accepted
without qualm, without condition.

Dariusz Klimczak

A Vast Someone

The rudimentariness of our arrangement
a coherent jumble
the laws of attraction misconstrued
which you insist is OK.
A vast someone has reappeared
with a memorandum of understanding.
I dawdle, hem and haw,
find too much air in the sonatina
soundtracking the flights of dirigibles.
What am I thinking?
You make a mad dash for your new hairstyle,
your new look, your new persona,
jotting notes in the margins
translating some obscure writer as if
the time is opportune to think about what
we thought we had wasted, I mean, wanted.

Anja Niemi

Runoff

And wait to watch the water clear, I may.
          - Robert Frost

Evidently, things changed while you were gone,
while you were out,
while you were opening channels for the runoff.
I know what you mean.
Something about the water rippling along.
How it seeks whatever it seeks,
while others present their offerings, then step back
and wait to see what happens.
And wait to watch the runoff.
Not a casual thing.
The devil-may-care attitude. Inscrutable.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Say What?

You know full well what I'm talking about.
The run-through was a disaster,
with all roads leading to a sidebar,
which in another time and place
would be tantamount to reruns. It happens.
And it's happened again.
But this time the reset button was disabled.
There was no turning back.
No backpedaling.
But we do have a window.
So as Mr. Bowie suggested, Let's Dance.
Or, at least distract ourselves with the remote.
Channel surf to our heart's content.
Your entourage - whomever they are - is stalled in traffic.
They may never get here.
Everyone's walking on eggshells.
What recourse do we have? Let me think.

Say What? by Tom Corrado

Woman XXXVI

Like Carl Jung on the racquetball court
she drops archetypes into the airspace between swings
eyeing me through the handcuffs
of her pink-tinged goggles
while adjusting the shiny black Lycra tubes
encasing her cardio'd and tanned thighs.
I am singed by a sizzling serve,
bug-eyed, hyperventilating,
and down for the mandatory eight,
sucking a vitamin-stuffed antioxidant energy drink
laced with enough omega-3 and ginseng
to keep all NFL linebackers
for the next 50-plus years
happy and healthy and erect,
as the bell steps in to save me from total annihilation.

At Higher Elevations

Layering is important
but not so that one abandons anti-realistic fiction
or the eyes as pools of desire.
The refusal to let go refuses to let go.
You block out time without a second thought
and reconsider re-clapboarding as a career.
It's enough for some.
Think momentary suspensions
and the offer to remake the self as a weekend project.
There are far worse things.
High cholesterol, for example,
or inconsistency.
You probably feel the same way, yes?,
strolling as you do down the avenue at dusk.
I for one want my writers blocked.

Gotham Chamber Opera's production of Eliogabalo

So Soon?

The late season snowfall nearly imperceptible.
Turning, you realize the door is locked
and, as you watch, it morphs into a wall
which you scale to no avail:
The view is gone.
Not the first time.
You've squandered elements of then to barter for what?
Cue the ventriloquist: But this is how I see it!
Bravo!
Crouched like a scaredy cat on the deck of a ship
with Dylan singing, I'm sailing away, my own true love.

Anita

Turn

Again your delusion bicycles through the old neighborhood
blabbing to those curbing dogs
some costumed as silent film stars on holiday.

Tying up loose ends was never your forte.
Loose ends? 
Come clean and you'll advance to the next level.

Why so serious? asked the Joker.
I have many to-dos on my plate, so there!
And then?

Look, help me out here. I mean help me out of here.
There are several noncommittals choking your version.
Some reluctant to return overdue library books.

I find that appalling.
Chill, already!
In no time chores will begin piling up on the loading dock

and you'll be spending all your spare moments rehearsing,
cheered on by those in absentia
whom you enjoy texting at all hours

thinking yourself a cinematographer of the inner orphan.
But Garbo insisted she said I want to be "let" alone, yes?
Picking nits.

Regardless, turn the page and begin coloring your world
of ifs, ands, and buts.
A world of objects with shadows, smudged and faded.

But, sadly, that's the way it is.
Really? Check the pub date of your coloring book.
Things have changed.

For better or worse?
Dunno.
Peel back the label to widen the imaginary surplus

and in no time you'll be on your merry-go-round way.
Give or take a few understudies
who are chomping at the bit to begin rehab.

On Good Friday

Fifty years ago, a friend and I
walked 15 miles
to the Shrine of the North American Martyrs
in Auriesville, New York.
We did it just to do it.
The road was dusty and salty;
the day warm enough
so that we stripped down to t-shirts
as we climbed the Hill of Torture
to sit on a bench
overlooking the Mohawk River.
It was a beautiful day.
Five-hundred years ago,
Issac Jogues, Rene Goupil, and John LaLande
came here from Canada
to convert the savages to Christianity.
They were tortured and killed.
A large round church commemorates them.
Inside, an altar is surrounded by 1500 candles
which can be lit at the touch of a button.
I picked up a pamphlet
titled Mangled Hands
describing the barbaric torture -
his fingernails torn out
and fingers gnawed
until the bones were in splinters
before his thumb and fingers
werecut off with a scallop shell -
and death - from the blow of a tomahawk -
of Issac Jogues
whose zeal was so great
that he ignored possibilities
of escape.
The pamphlet was well-wriiten.
In the gift shop, I bought a small plastic bottle
of blessed ravine water
drawn from the ravine
where Issac Jogues buried Rene Goupil
to give to my grandmother
who was good at slipping me a few coins
for ice cream
which I used instead to buy cigarettes.
I bicycle to Auriesville most summers,
to sit at the top of the Hill of Torture
and enjoy the view
of the Mohawk Valley.
A couple years ago they moved the bench
several hundred yards to the right.
I have no idea why.
The view is not as good.

The Hill of Torture at Auriesville

Tweaking the Algorithm

Tell me again about tweaking the algorithm
so that streets turn into symphonies for ukuleles
and roller coasters line up to spin us
though the old neighborhoods
where our past sells lemonade curbside.
There are moments of madness in each of us
that some can't say enough about.
What do we talk about when we talk about us?
Everything? Anything? Nothing?
The tide turns just when we think
we are home free, when virtual hills
challenging our identity flatten as one who knows
about things cardio has told us.
Regardless, let's give it a shot.
Who are we to downplay the Hallmarkian tentacles?
At this stage, it doesn't matter.
Perhaps at an earlier stage we thought it did
and were trumped into thinking out of fashion
and that has obviously made all the difference.

Anja Niemi

People First

He could give two shits about her lack of legs. . . .
          - Jeff Niesel

And then there's this scene in Rust and Bone
where Alain and Stephanie go to the beach
and Stephanie begins swimming away from the shore,
and you think, Here we go.
And, as expected, the camera begins panning
those on the beach, and you wait for the reaction,
but there is none.
Stephanie is out there,
enjoying the water, and the day, and Alain.
And you think, Yes, dammit, this is good, this is good!

Armand Verdure and Marion Cotillard in Rust and Bone (2012)

Tubbing with Ziploc'd Kindle

Maybe it's nothing more than addition and subtraction, the artifacts from kiosks visited in times of dissonance, the incidentals clomping around in UGGs off-season clamoring for spectators and for those dealing from the bottom of the deck with stashes of empty cereal boxes tucked under both arms. You could have picked Door #2 but instead went with your hunch and ended up with a one-way ticket to Palookaville where nights over chessboards get hazy and strangers lean in with offers of whatever your little heart desires: summer days with nothing to do but catch rays on the back deck.

Josef Tornick

Leaving the Airport at 5:30 AM

You keep replaying the opening bars to Chet Baker's All Blues
from The Last Great Concert
recorded two weeks before he fell out of a window in Amsterdam
because you can't stop,
because it's hard to imagine how anyone could have nailed it so perfectly,
but he did,
because it's one of the closest things you've encountered, and,
for a few moments, nothing else matters.

Chet Baker

Step Page 3 of 12

Can I bum a smoke?
          - Anon

He/she has refused to sign for your autobiography,
and will continue to chip away
at your ice sculpture until opening day,
when the winners will be announced,
and he/she will disclose - to the world, I might add -
your innermost workings.
Brush-hogging aside, the light has changed,
so get going. You don't have all day anymore.
You have bummed your quota.
These small facts are not canonical
but, once vetted, should be enough
to secure a small stipend to tide you over.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

The Calculus of Togetherness

It's as if someone turned on the light,
and you awoke,
and the book you were reading before you fell asleep
fell off the bed, and you lost your place,
and now the image is running down the street,
broadcasting your dreams.
The fundamental theorem of incompleteness
out the window, yes?
No need to re-do the math,
to revise the derivative. No need
to walk single file along the path through the trees.
These small victories have staying power.
These small victories are the real deal.
Pick one of those days when the sun
peeks through the clouds
and people are chattering as if it mattered
because it does.
One of those days when the bends are out of earshot
and Little Miss Muffet is at the bus stop,
with curds and whey, waiting.

Robert Frank

In Snow

The crows are saying something,
something about Rothko's rooms,
how the rearrangement made a difference
and he continued, and how they
continued. You need this
or something like this.
So you cancel your appointments
for a still life. It's quiet.
The crows seem to know.
Far off, a snowplow suffers a concussion.
The flakes, indifferent, continue.

Crossing Against the Light

Floating down the condiment aisle
you take an exacto knife
to a jigsaw puzzle
then kick back in your cork-lined study 
and examine the refractory periods
of passersby in your dream.
It's not the first time.
Your hope of rehabbing yourself
was pre-empted, the stalled vehicles
edging into the crosswalk.
You've received accolades for revamps,
revamps that will fail to deliver
as if the last actor on earth
is auditioning for the part of you.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Separation Anxiety

You present with symptoms of naiveté.
A late-night phone call. Texts. An early-morning phone call.
And, voila, you're seduced
by the immediacy of the overheard conversation
the immersive apparatus engaged
knocking the corners off the foundation.

But. But. But. But, what?
But the symmetry is off.
So? It doesn't take a Sherlock.
Why should the party of the first part party?
A minimum of two, or three, or five? You're kidding, yes?
Perhaps not. Perhaps the disingenuous are hardwired
for tolerance or at least stick-to-itiveness.

Regardless, take a hike.

The evergreens, frosted, await your passing.

May I Have a Word With You?

Your passion has yet to be downsized or frozen in amber.
I too have been away from it all
the opening dialogue an experiment in plenitude.
At least that's what I tell them.
And the loneliness? A gambit
that should you wish can be spun into silver -
not unlike the earrings -
with a tap of a magician's wand.
Reminiscences aside, you trickle forward remarkably well.

Anja Niemi

The Whole Nine Yards

Several weighed in but are still out.
As irksome as a waddling equid.
I guess things have improved
especially since the restructuring.
Circumlocution as earworm, yes?
Filling in the blanks
with nonsense syllables.
Trumping away at revisions.
Could be fun.
But will it fly, she interrupted?
Little matter.
Even buses tune in
and tweet their little hearts out.
A few endearments, please.
They sometimes do the trick,
and certainly can't hurt. Tell me
about the cute anchor
with the ink.
Wait. You want out
but you're not sure from what?
Nothing new.
Review the nominees.
We'll see what happens.
I'm sure you can't wait to get going.

Joyce Tenneson

The Befuddlement of Enjambments

I cannot make it cohere.
          - Ezra Pound

Your co-dependency index jumps off the charts.
You no longer care or feel obliged to write your own words.
Collaboration as crooked smile.
To make ends meet you take up origami
and deliver e-meals-on-wheels
to the marginalized and semi-marginalized
who will feature at Friday's open mic
along with the cigar-chomping Viennese neurologist
you freely-associate with.
He knows - or thinks he knows - the secret of the Sphinx.
For him, everything is a cigar.
It's as if there are no connections -
only superficial encumbrances
whose patina changes with the seasons
and can transport you to the Land of Oz
where the good doctor spins aphorism upon aphorism
underwritten by neurasthenia and by people like you.
Soon you will be carried to distant shores in a tiny ship.
Say nothing. This will be your 15-minutes
of a new and everlasting covenant.

Roberto Kusterle

Close Listening

          for Lola Montez's rubber tarantulas

You decide to unloose fractured narratives
stipulating headphones for audiophiles winked into submission
fearing cognitive overload will alienate thumpalongs
who - let's face it - are in it for the freebies.
All this and a Joanna Newsom look-alike.
Your Rolodex demands an upgrade
and recognition for the abstractions lining the water closet
where insiders will most likely meet bimonthly
to trade secrets.
You've heard this before, yes?
Good! That's the first of 12 steps
novitiates must maneuver
along with a moonlight tour of the outer reaches or branches.
You are now one move away from the symmetries
as fearful as feared.

Lola Montez

Lovestruck Valentine

Roses are red
Roses are red
Roses are          red
Roses          are

Martina Hoogland Ivanow

Life As Speed Bump

Discovery consists . . . in having new eyes.
          - Marcel Proust

Forget the discarded profiles.

Their iterations will suck you into a maze of mirrors

reflecting your miscalculations.
You don't want to go there again, do you?

Life as speed bump, yes?
A marionette in his/her hand

costumed for the role
bemusement your mantra.

Perhaps journaling the speed bumps
the alterations and altercations

the incidentals in the remains of a day
will give you new eyes.

Perhaps it will help make the accoutrements
of your discovery

as manageable as a connect-the-dots topographic map
of a path disappearing into the woods.

Roberto Kusterle

Woman XXXV

She eats waffles

with a cartographer's

exactitude

mapping each piece

with the compass of her mouth.

I become lost

in her topography.

Mere Players

You googlemap the directions from here to there
and find seven minutes -
seven minutes that could make or break the diorama,
the other players arriving out-of-turn,
unannounced, at all hours,
sometimes with bags of groceries
which they unpack and shelve
as enthusiastically as new hires,
later flopping down
on the couch, grabbing the flicker,
channel-surfing,
leaping intuitively to the ending they must have,
these mere players,
playing their many parts,
their table-reads off the grid,
between the lines,
improvisational, winging-it,
flying by the seat of their pants,
creating havoc, scenes colliding, mounting to confusion.
And then the ungraspable somewhere.
The moment to moment.
Drafting the incense of homecoming
as you follow the directions,
follow the rights and lefts,
climb the stairs, and review your notes,
one last time, outside the locked door.

Anja Niemi

Woman XXXIV

She paints pyramids and
calls out to eat in
underlining lines
in the movie she's watching
with the color of sand.
I grab my pail and shovel.

Roberto Kusterle

Outsourcing

The ramifications snowball with indifference,
the blue-lined notebooks
fat with FAQs sideswiping you
as you again test the waters
the default set to stream.
Perhaps you should buy time at the kiosk,
the one with the the Buy One Get One
of pics of your former selves -
some then some now -
picking up fragments of what might have been.
Perhaps you should rethink your lines -
the read-through pristine yet unconvincing,
as if the bell lappers knew all along
when to retreat into the background.

Anja Niemi

Out-of-Sync

The snow is the least of your worries.
Fill your pockets with pebbles and see if that helps.
Do you recognize any of these facades,
some new, some rehabbed?
Where are you, anyway?
There are too many people here
talking at the same time.
Are they getting it down accurately?
Do you think you should ask?
Have you ever asked?
You'll never know, you know.
These last two weeks have been trying
to get into the picture,
pushing and shoving, trying
to insinuate themselves onto your to-do list.
When did sharing go out-of-sync?
Continue to review the dailies
and build digital snowwomen until spring erupts
with warm breezes and open windows.
What else is there to do?
Why do your footsteps betray indecisiveness?
Did you think he/she still cared?

Anja Niemi

Hazarding Extinction

The spooky genius in you again hazards extinction. Has the inevitable contact with its inevitable uncoupling allowed you to pass through without knowing why, without clicking I agree, without committing to the restraining posture of the unchartable, the words squeezed, the outcome windswept? Does the alternative, laced with spirals of forgotten, seem out of reach? Why bother? No idea? The rehearsal to get it right, alone, without collaboration, is enough, you think, to confess to, again and again and again?

Anja Niemi

Easier Not Easy

The subsequent pleasure, a map for the less-traveled.
This is not a fluke.
The tick-tock tick-tock surcease of sorrow.
Perfunctory, yes?
What of those without ambition for catharsis?

Is this why you rise early, brimming with alterations,
and a new pocket protector?

Little matter. No one will be duped.

Nothing incidental here in the foundry of stamped emotion.
You can examine it, dissect it, take it for a walk -
without recrimination without regret -
leaving indelible - and very real - turnabouts
for those who feel nothing about feeling nothing.

Anja Niemi

Again the Snow

Enough already with the requisitioning!
I'm up-to-here with the whatever-you-call-it-ese!
And, please, return the funnel to Shelf #221-B.
We're done with that part of it - at least for now.

Repositioning the sentence fragments
could change the course of your personal history.
The elements of style?
A glimmer in your glass eye no doubt.

The cruise ship aground. (A hyphenated juncture.)
Straight bingo and Prize-O under house arrest.
Forget the iterations on (insert title)-for-a-Day.
You had your chance. The days tumbling past fast.

Your clothes and furniture moved in(to storage).
Wait, this dialogue is unrehearsed.
Not unlike the yesterdays, yes?
I thought we had agreed on the parameters of then, then.

Again, the snow.
And the drifting.
And the hunkering down.

Excerpting prepublication quotes is a No-No.
That's a tad stupider than expected, isn't it?
Of course, with the cumuli - very large cumuli, I might add -
backgrounding the scenario, everything seems hunky-dory.

That's his/her Jack Russell's name, isn't it?
Who? David Bowie?
A review in TLS sent him over the edge.
That, too?

Q&As! I want Q&As!
Loopholes and segues and digressions and sidebars and whatnots.
Oh, the Places You'll Go! à la the good Doctor.
More like the places you should've gone, yes?

Were the consequences considered
or simply added to the stew willy-nilly?
Thanatopic he/she was heard to say.
As reported?

Again, the snow.
And the drifting.
And the hunkering down.

Several bought into that.
And why not, it was Wikipedia'd?
Send in the copyeditors with their retractable colored pencils.
They're paid to write wrongs.

Funny how the genes have their own agenda
which, up until a day or two ago, ruled.
Picture the nanoscientists sans venue
on a typical dressed-down Friday abroad.

Could be fun, yes? parlaying a piece of the voice
operating in second gear, blurbs formulaic and sepia'd
in dead languages we all know and love.
Try vetting that, and I guarantee you'll run into a group

of entrepreneurs on holiday smacking their lips
with unbridled self-indulgence
the whole thing underwritten by the makers of Freytag's Pyramid.
Got more?

Again, the snow.
And the drifting.
And the hunkering down.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

A Most Beautiful World

And then there's this sound

like a truck hitting a truck

and you try to convince yourself

that you didn't hear it.

Then it happens again

and black smoke starts streaming

out of the fresh-air vents.

And the kid sitting next to you asks

if this is supposed to be happening.

And you can't answer.

You can't even remember your name.

So you put your arm around the kid

and reach your other hand

to the woman across the aisle.

And she takes it.

And you hold on.

Leaving Them Ho-Humming

OK, well, maybe not, but I still think it's a good idea. One that could fly. How could it not, given the enticement? It's not every day that you get a break like that. And just think, in no time, you'll have that look which many find comforting as well as encompassing. I know I could have shopped around but, really, to what end? Even Cicero's third oration against Catiline drooped, leaving the crowd ho-humming. Don't play dumb. You know exactly what I mean. The taxing our endurance bit. Over the top? Yeah, so? And as for quantum computing? Listen, you take this cab, and I'll take that one, and we'll count down the difference, then apply the algorithm. Are you in or out? Or in and out? Not unlike Schrödinger's kitty, yes? You'll see. You keep telling me All Gaul is divided into three parts. OK, everything's connected. Entangled. I'll pinch that. You're not the only one with a Many Worlds bumper sticker, you know. Forget the downtime. Insignificant. Tell me, Does he ever leave the house? Does he ever come out? Have you ever seen him except on Skype? I'm not talking Lovecraft, here. Go ahead, ping it.

The Weather Outside

But then the tide turned and we were caught in the middle without the flicker. We sat there unconvinced stuffing ourselves like olives until the light changed and the cabs resumed their squabbling. It was good to see green. Later at Joe's Tavern we continued our dissection of Part One which I felt was the least compelling of all three especially in Blu-ray. I was in the minority so I decided to try one of the highly recommended reds from Argentina. We had a good time despite the candles and cranky plumbing.

Christopher Jacrot

Segue to the Autodidact

You don't know about that
and you don't want to know about that
so you hit Delete
and the carny ride begins
slowly at first
the barleycorned crowd cheering
up close and personal
snow falling in sheets
reminding you of the last time
and the time before that.
Smitten with interiors - a metaphor
according to the catalog
for unfulfilled longing -
you, wide-eyed, slack-jawed,
decide to re-shoot the final scene
without backup
the ponderous critiques
sclerotic and sepia'd.
Time now to plow out.
Time to take to the highway.
Recharge the mise-en-scène.
All eyes on the skies.
The clock's ticking sticking.
The beats beating the juicer
to the punch bowl
crop dusting taking on new meaning.
Informed by cable, several jig
speak of the good ol' days
iPhones and iPads and iWhatnots
stuck in traffic.
The debate continues
over what whomsoever's words mean.
I did this. I did that.
You however want to to do this
insisting on a raincheck
searching your pockets for the stub.
Sans fanfare.
Sans battlecry.
You want to just do it.
The cineplex spilling into the street.
Talking heads demanding
seconds, thirds, fourths.
You will know them when you see them.
And you will let them know
when you know.
Trust in the text (there is no other).

Your Answering Machine Is Asking Questions

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words
mean so many different things."
          - Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

You're not sure it's a question,
and you're trying to convince yourself
that you couldn't care less.
But you know that you do.
You know that lately it's been a rabbit hole.
So you put aside the question
in question, and think again
about Alice, in disguise, in your dream,
carrying a Louis Vuitton bag,
and wearing one of his huge hats
in the manner of the Red Queen.

Sincerely Yours

Excuse me. Excuse me. The meter's running.

Can we get going?

With what? Setting, plot, character?

No! No! No!

Oh, you mean point of view and voice?

No! No! Just jump in.

Just jump in?

Yeah, just jump in. Begin anywhere. Write anything.
Impatience is key.

Are you one of those single-entendre types?

What? Could you please speak intelligibly?

I'll have you know just the other day I had a meter maid
check my intelligibility.

A meter maid? Really? Stick that in.

What? Stick in a meter maid?

Yes, stick in a meter maid. Just keep writing,
and keep your hands on the keyboard.

OK. OK.

Play >> Pause >> Stop >>

Play >>

You keep fiddling with the equation.

Fine. Fine. No hay problema.

You're better off with non-sequiturs (and you know it).

Sympatico, yes?

Tell me again about resonance,

and how it makes for a better life.

With someone?

Pause >> Play >>

The moment stalled

and you tried to retrace your steps

and those of your other.

The forecast is snow; I want to make the most of it.

Meaning?

Life in the margin holds promise.

Pause >> Play >>

Keep rearranging the furniture,

it helps clear out the cobwebs

and, who knows, maybe Kierkegaard will come in handy?

Late Night with Ledbetter.

Who?

Either/Or.

You're pontificating again. I thought you were over that.

Digital aphorisms help with the rough spots.

The ups and downs of trigger-happy Luddites?

Another Late Night with Ledbetter.

Enough, already!

Pause >> Play >>

Not enough time to play with it.

To get what we all hope for.

Pop goes the easel.

Reading that line felt strange.

Do it again. You'll get used to it.

Stop >>

Tao Lin

Wrongful Appropriation

Your hesitation speaks volumes which few if any will read.
It smacks of plagiarism, but don't we all?
I could thumb through a few pages, if you like.
A votive candle, perhaps.
Sparks have been known to fly.
A past life here, a passed life there.
You yourself told many it was a superlative time:
a time of innocence, a time of confidences.
Turn that thing down, will you please?
It's interfering with my tram of thought.
And you thought what?
That we would forego the preface?
Jump up behind me.
I've decided to pay up front, and make-do with whatever.
Tell the others to meet us at the restaurant-in-the-round.
. . . they're all that's left you.

Roberto Kusterle

Repeat After Me

He has left nothing to say about nothing or any thing.
          - John Keats

You are a different person in a different world in a different time.

Your Secret Santa has been exposed to the elements.

He has forgotten his password, abandoned his sleigh and reindeer,
and left the museum with a redheaded docent.

Images of your former self fill the air with commiserations.

Made-for-TV Movies spiral into collages of departure.

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

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

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

Imagine the confusion?

The code bombs. Startups fail.

You have tried to set the record straight.

There will be no setting the record straight.

The record is gone.

You have tried to pick up where we left off.

Just where did we leave off?

Too much information, yes?

You have submitted the paperwork, and rejoined your age-mates
who pump iron with good form, and will continue into silence.

It's as if we were glued to YouTube.

It's as if we knew all along.

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

Roberto Kusterle

Woman XXXIII

Seeing her in a trailer
for the prequel to
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
I capture a still
and save it . . . somewhere?

Paying It Forward

It's OK to fabricate memorials to footwear
that engage you in wee-hour albeit interesting conversations.
You never know, she said.
Waahl, if I were Ezra, but I'm not so I guess I'll continue
ambling along under cover and without a mean streak.
Again, the exhibits.
I haven't a clue as to the wherewithal necessary
to make a good impression, but so what?
There are far more important items under glass.
You do know that, yes?
Let's move on then.
I'm trying to adjust the curvature to make the transition
as painless as possible given that the Grammar Cops
have arrested Loman again for one of her I feel badly(s).

Nils Strindberg

Playing the Critic

Looping back, we realized it was there all along,
hidden under a mediocre sheet of parchment.

The directions were fairly easy to follow -
no need to googlemap it.

Evidently, someone expected more.
You could feel it in the breeze which had begun to pick up.

Instead of retracing the notes on the staff,
we made our way to a museum

to see what the buzz was all about.
The bronzes held us as did the splatters on aluminum plates.

We did the tour without audiofiles
critiquing the exhibits as media moguls

who had underwritten such things.
It was a close encounter. One for the archives.

Nils Strindberg

Ampersands

Something about a porcelain figurine
followed by an intimate encounter

time shape-shifting, catching you mid-stride,
losses lost in the day-to-day.

Don't waste your time trying to make sense of it,
the step-by-steps were tossed out with the trash

along with the Revell Zeppelin
from the cracks of your childhood.

Your membership has been cancelled.
(The updates were worthless anyway.)

Go ahead. Enjoy Miles's linking of the then
to the sanctity of the conundrum

far from the madding boring shit
as he called it.

The year will soon flip.
Leftovers announced.

Time to break out the resolve
to sort things out and take on Sheila Heti's

How Should A Person Be?
despite the comfort of entanglements new and old.

Engage the throttle.
Not sure to where, but that's part of it - the good part.

By morning, old everything.
Your head channel-surfing for ornaments.

'Tis the season, yes?
Cassandra Wilson whispering Time After Time.

Concession to a Paraphrase

And quieting dreams in the sleepers in darkness. . . .

          - Wallace Stevens

Without the enjambment at the weary end of November,
you'd be lost forever to the moon and its quieting dreams.
The cat mrkgnaoing, Move on! Move on!
Your pacing solves nothing.

Funny, you know this as well as I.
Yes, the scholarship is evident, but misplaced.
Your announcement with the shades drawn against the traffic light
opens a door and your eyes to the darkness

and back to an earlier season of silence -
the linguistic equivalent of hammering nails into flesh.
When was this, anyway?
Yesterday? Last year? Five years ago?
I don't remember. Do you?
The tureen quivers with nonsense syllables.
The evidentiary moment remains.
Your car idling.
The snow, too, advancing.
Of course, the video shows that there's more in the final paragraph
than referenced in your text.
The Art of Omission, yes?
So little time left out of tempo with footnotes no less.

Francesca Woodman