Screen Dump 308

That it doesn't always work out . . .
this cup-and-saucer world of water-resistant fonts
where Harry meets Maggie
and your search for totemic images
inflates to Jungian proportions
with parking spaces
brimmed with backstory metaphors
and exotic asides -
the nuts-and-bolts of Dunkin' Donuts . . .
the spiraling down
with heel lifts calling the shots
eight ball in your hip pocket . . .
You await word from persons of interest
displaced to the farther reaches . . .
The fits and starts of unknowns . . .
The morning after the day before . . .
You continue to imagine
the beginning middle and end
of most excuses . . .
the popcorn days of your apprenticeship
tapdancing the good life
with deposits from sticky bottles
recycled from the Tour . . .
and the sparring over putting pen to paper
with eyes on the exit
transforming lockups into the lockdowns
of summer's documentation . . .
the trash Instagrammed . . . and posted . . .

Marcin Szpak

Screen Dump 307

Foodshopping for answers to the 20 questions
double-parked in your brain . . .
you exhume a meta-metaphor for use in this poem
bridging then and now . . . and then again . . .
Players from your odyssey costumed as extras . . .
reappear . . . and begin texting . . .
vying for a seat on the Argo . . .
But why here? . . . Why now? . . .
Back to the woodshed . . .
back to rehearsing the audible improbability
of life's irrepressible ups and downs . . .
Irrepressible? . . .
Alas, poor Yorick! . . .
You too knew him? . . .
Shakespeare's 400th? . . .
On the white beaches of P-town? . . .
Bicycles like puppy dogs lined up on the fences? . . .
Yes, of course! . . .
the betting windows at Saratoga
the ponies of August
the ghosts at Yaddo . . .
and the times when your thoughts were blanketed
by unknowns shadowing you . . . and your other . . .

The Bicycles of Provincetown

Screen Dump 306

You crack open a Bud Lite and make yet another
act of contrition . . . arm wrestling with Mallarmé's
creature of ancient and evil plumage . . .
the memory studded with the illogic of machines . . .
the stage sprayed with artificial mist . . .
The day swells with a sudden summer shower . . .
You are dumped into a grammatical cul-de-sac . . .
Snappy tourists and tourist-wannabes
dream of accompanying happenstance on a drive
along a winding coastal road . . .
highlighting your online CV with images
of past players pumping doldrums
in the mirror of an empty free-weight room
in one of the many cities you've never lived in . . .
You make a mental note to re-up your membership . . .
On second thought, you contact customer service
and ask about their return policy . . .

www.thepoetrybrothel.com

Screen Dump 305

. . . some sorry-ass grave digger grown bone-tired of the trade.
          - Maggie Nelson, Bluets

A sense of brutal honesty . . . perhaps not often . . .
or . . . not often enough . . .
Why bother with the examined life on the examination table? . . .
With accretion . . . nothing lost . . . including loss . . .
The images fuzzy . . .
Is retrospection by nature . . . fuzzy? . . .
by nature . . . faulty? . . .
As when you look back and get drenched in blue . . .
A sweet sensation? . . .
And you insisting you always drove the bus . . .
Doubtful . . . she replied . . . mid-costume change . . .
as if . . . in the middle of lovemaking . . .
someone walks in . . .
I know my lines so please stop with the prompts . . .
Rallying around . . . and what not . . .
The loneliness of long distance silence . . .
Not a chance, my love, you have parlayed that conceit . . .
Trawling for eyes . . . mouths . . .
Awaiting the shuttle back to Neveragainland! . . .
Floated by some . . . There must be a reason for this . . .
Sucker-punched . . . and then . . .
conceding that it may help some . . .
those holed up in themselves . . . living life . . . off camera . . .

Aron Demetz

It's August, and the Ponies are Running

(reposted from Monday, August 1, 2011)

It's August, and the ponies are running:

they're running, running, running;
running away with my better judgment,
my better half, my worse half, my other half;
they're running away with my vacation, my vocation;
with my kids' education, my salutation, my edification;

they're running away with the plump-lipped waitress
in her too-tight uniform, in her too-short uniform,
in her tu-tu uniform;
they're running away with the short-order cook,
the dishwasher, the window washer, the windshield washer,
the loud customers, the cleavagers, the spin doctors.

It's August, and the ponies are running away
with my expectations, my aspirations, my inclinations;
with my best intentions, my worst nightmares;
with the free tees and handicappers,
with the gamblers, the scramblers, the midnight ramblers;

they're running away with the long shots,
the long run, the long ball, the long haul, the big fall;
with the potheads, the potholes,
the hotties with their rubberneckers,
the one-armed bandits and double-deckers,
the card sharks, the loan sharks, the great white sharks;
with the stacked decks and pole vaulters,
the pole sitters and baby sitters;

The ponies are running away with the weary travelers,
the thirst quenchers, the road crew bosses
and time-and-a-halfers;
with the running-on-empties, and pies-in-the-sky,
with the local history buffs and their jaundiced eye;

they're running away with the landscape,
the cityscape, the seascape, the escapees, the APBs;
the trees lining the tertiaries, the estuaries,
the innocent bystanders, the indigents,
the passersby, the groupies, the roadies, the loners;
with the home-schooled and home-brewed;
they're running away with the motley-crewed.

It's August, and the ponies are running:

they're running, running, running;
running away with the one-tricks, the two cents,
the three blind mice, the four horsemen;
with the squanderers, the wanderers
the hangers-on, the barflies, the right wingers,
the left wingers, the middle-of-the-roaders, the Debra Wingers;
with the know-it-alls and straight shooters,
the forked tonguers, the mixers and remixers, the mixmasters.

It's August, and the ponies are running:

they're running, running, running;
running away with my severance pay, my brand new day,
my May day, my getaway, my AOK, my here-to-stay,
my hip hip hooray, my final say.

IT'S AUGUST, AND THE PONIES ARE RUNNING!

Screen Dump 304

The choreography of the day carries you into the second act
where backstage lighting
showcases the incidental props of dreams . . .
soundtracked by furniture music . . .
Why incidental? . . .
With time, the stuff of days folds into itself
leaving you naked in a one-way mirror . . .
on a one-way street . . .
The Street of Crocodiles . . .
hidden behind a bookcase
in a one-night stand's double-wide . . .
Entrapment follows the magician's wand . . .
awaiting orphans
who continue to grapple with self-checkout machines in Walmart . . .
carts brimmed with hand-me-downs . . .
The flavors pale . . .
You skip the rest of the chapter . . .
grasping at straws
as if the opening of the exhibit
exchanged vows with non-presidential candidates
in this Olympic Year . . .

Screen Dump 303

No whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory / of whiteness.
          - William Carlos Williams, The Descent

You try to retrieve a dissonant melody
but the street lights
bobbing in the turbulent wake
fade to shadows . . .
afterimages displacing the memory of your odyssey
and its players . . .
You enter the fray . . . with delicacies
and become a vessel for happenstance . . .
This of course is as it was . . .
Time sprouts ears . . .
The abundant pronouns of your close encounters
upend the entanglements . . .
your free throws . . . Made-for-TV-Moments . . .
fill several subfolders . . .
as the magician's hand plummets into a bell jar . . .

Paulina Otylie Surys

Searching for Bobby Fischer: A Prose Poem in 13 Days

(reposted from Wednesday, May 11, 2011)

Day 1

My friend's cat, Bobby Fischer, is missing.
He took off without leaving a note
without taking his food dish.
We're worried about the food dish.
It sits in the corner all day
twiddling its thumbs
thinking about Bobby Fischer.

Day 2

My friend and I hail a cab.
The cabbie misunderstands us.
He takes us to a Rotary meeting.
The final vote is being tallied
on whether or not to airlift a causeway.
The causeway is cause for concern.
Some Rotarians feel it's water under the bridge.
One Rotarian recalls seeing Bobby Fischer
walking along the causeway
earlier in the week
seemingly preoccupied.

Day 3

The man at Kinko's has crooked teeth.
My guess is he knows something about Bobby Fischer.
He scans a recent photo of Bobby Fischer.
We attach it to a sheet of white paper.
We consider captioning it Desperately Seeking Bobby Fischer
but settle instead on Searching for Bobby Fischer.
The man with crooked teeth says he likes it.
He makes 110 copies but only charges us for 100.
He says he knows how we feel.
I don't trust him.

Day 4

We divide up the posters and plaster the neighborhood.
Several passersby comment on Bobby Fischer's good looks.
A few pocket posters as souvenirs.
One old man draws a mustache on Bobby Fischer.
We call the police.

Day 5

The message on my friend's answering machine is garbled.
Something about a round robin.

Day 6

Bobby Fischer has done this before
only to return a few days later
reeking of catnip and stale mates.

Day 7

Bobby Fischer calls.
He says he's been thinking about making a move.
He says he has enrolled in a method acting class.
He wants to throw himself wholeheartedly into something.
He wants to bring real life to the boards.
To forget himself.
To give his mind and body to a fictitious character.
My friend and I nod knowingly.
We hand the phone to Bobby Fischer's food dish.

Day 8

We bump into Bobby Fischer's acting coach in the library.
He's taking out a book on gambits.
He tells us that Bobby Fischer will be using
a little known gambit on opening night.
He's rather defensive for a Sicilian.
He gives us two tickets.
I don't trust him.

Day 9

Opening night.
We're packed in like sardines.
Bobby Fischer is loaded with greasepaint.
He plays a bishop who's sacrificed.
The klieg lights make him blink.

Day 10

The play receives rave reviews in the Post.

Day 11

Bobby Fischer calls.
He wants us to pick up extra copies of the Post.
He says the play is being made into a television miniseries
which will air during ratings week.
He says he has to go.
Oprah's limo is waiting.

Day 12

Bobby Fischer calls.
His voice is shaking.
He says the television producer, Boris Spassky,
decided to cut his part
in view of the current crisis in the Catholic Church.
He says Boris Spassky told him the Church
has enough problems right now.

Day 13

The doorbell rings.
It's Bobby Fischer.
He's back.
He smells of catnip.
His fur is matted with dried greasepaint.
His backpack is stuffed with dog-eared copies of the Post.
His food dish brims.

Screen Dump 302

If they can do it, I can do it.
          - Anon

It's all about leveling the playing field, yes? . . .
sidebars . . .
late-night Ubers . . .
categorizing narratives by color . . .
insinuating yourself into the after-hours . . .
asking recording engineers . . . session musicians . . .
character actors . . .
about the nuances . . . and blueness
of your voice . . .
Finding that most people's favorite painting
is a blue landscape . . .
with Miles . . . in an atelier . . . noodling . . .
Kind of Blue . . . a mantra . . .
while others step up to the plate . . .
order takeout . . .
a crapshoot . . . nonetheless . . .
You were abandoned . . . more than once . . .
testing your belief in . . . what? . . . magic? . . .
But aren't we all at times duped
by an illusion of our own making . . .
tweaking the script to straddle happenstance
in positions construed as ballet . . .
even on those days that seem to unfold as planned? . . .

Marcin Szpak

Screen Dump 301

And so I fell in love with a color . . .
          - Maggie Nelson, Bluets

Your costume as rhetorical fiction . . . as illicit . . .
as maddeningly blue . . .
where in earlier chapters, you fell in love with retraction . . .
taking back what you offered . . . teasing . . .
as you considered the fast lane in a trailer park . . .
with rules for engagement for understudies
afflicted with acyanoblepsia . . .
the inability to see blue . . . You know this . . .
and have managed to derail your obsession . . .
Your next move . . . as witness to the beginning . . .
the middle . . . the pleasure principle . . .
first slow . . . then . . . faster . . .
with eyes and mouth half open . . .
in front of a mirror . . . as penetration of privacy, yes? . . .
This morning at the breakfast table . . .
your blue eyes mapped your next strategem . . .
imagining blue skies . . . and blue waters . . .
a blue room . . . in a blue hotel . . . as if like Stein
you believe every bit of blue is precocious . . .

Marcin Szpak

Screen Dump 300

Is perspective a hedge against the mutually observed? . . .
The omniscient third partiers
with their notebooks and keys
and smartphones
act out scripts
bridging fact and selfie . . .
Improvisations of the odyssey, yes? . . .
In the red . . . always in the red . . .
clutching write-ups . . .
hamstrung by the limitations therein . . .
Stocking shelves at 3 AM
you pick through trash for archived posts . . .
mounting pieces by amanuenses
for gallerists who begin their day
with texts and double espressos . . .
The eyes in your bedroom mirror
are the eyes in the photos that once populated its edge
leaving sentences for lifers . . .
documenting the odyssey as it unfolded in real-time . . .

Marcin Szpak

Screen Dump 299

Does any of this ring a bell? . . .
Does it matter? . . .
Is it the illusion of re-entering a scene . . .
or paging through a program
to fetch the name of the pleasure principle . . .
or principal? . . .
long-listed . . .
somehow personal . . .
smiling an insomniac's dream . . .
a moving violation of neck bites
and other seductive mishaps . . .
Your unwritten poem is blabbing away . . .
over there in the corner . . .
saying yes to Noh . . .
checking into Door #2 . . . with #37.5 . . .
You were ticketed for tailgating . . .
and pled not guilty . . .
to entering a club . . . on stilts . . .
dispatching patrons clucking and hand-wringing . . .
The shortest route to then
eyeshadows an archived player
trying to make it into the finals . . .
It's all in there . . .
In where? . . .
In the script of video regrets
from casual partners
on rainy days and Mondays
and from onlookers earmarked to cameo
in the penultimate edition
of your back story . . .
catapulting across dust motes
with therapeutic touchups and oral delivery . . .
demonstrating the divine
in sex toys . . .
poems that rhyme . . .
retired librarians . . .
after-hour tongue-lashings . . .

Ahmet Polat

Appropriating Myself

(reposted from Thursday, June 16, 2011)

Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.
          - Buck Mulligan quoting Whitman in Ulysses by James Joyce

The dogs are in the trees again. And they're barking. I am escaped from the pages of Dickens, my words nestled all snug in their beds. A black and white segues from my past. A symbolist jumps in insisting on the last word. He is dressed down. Woe to those befuddled crossword puzzlers or those courting constellations on rooftops with the satisfaction of a meandering brook. This dealership is known for its BLTs. My place in the sun layered in dust is appropriated by a Jay Gatsby lookalike living on the edge with a certain je ne sais quoi despite the bulging lines at soup kitchens. Footsteps echo off buildings scheduled to be razed before change punctuates the thought-balloon - ghosts on the spur of the moment waiting for the lost to stumble, entering their shadows, cartographers linked in time. The baguette did come in handy as you said it would. But how did you know? Without blackbirds in the trees I wouldn't have the mind of summer. Why don't we rent a little bungalow on the water this summer where each midday we can crayon in our missing persons? The artichoke under glass dances to Mahler's slow movements rising from a wax cartridge in front of a great fire brimming with wooden arms and legs. The menus here are blank, the newspapers' words missing but with a trace of a message that tricks us into thinking it can be pieced together and understood. Your free run wooden horse has run away. It was her heels - neon yellow spikes clickety-clacking though the intersection, charging gawkers a fee for a free ride - a free ride that would take them to the palisades of their dreams, leaving them winded with enough pocket change for the meter maid. Many are puzzled and await word from above. It will come. I want to be transported to an earlier time filled with jawbreakers stamped with phrases of affection. I suppose I too want it all. You called in for takeout. We selected items from two columns. That’s when I decided it was time to refill the rapidograph with red ink and begin a series of one-liners in red - the red saturating the eye with disbelief. You audition for the part of Iago, thinking this would be a great way to spend the summer - a summer of unrequited doubles. It was a throwaway, I had to admit, that unsettling feeling you get as the bath water departs, counterclockwise, leaving you, toweled, thinking about the final scene in that film whose title is slipping away. The name Wichita could happen to any of us. Now what? Now what do we do? . . .

Screen Dump 298

The double bassist on my to-do list speaks Jelly Roll . . .
Excuse me, but what color is your window? . . .
Off-duty plagiarists in deerstalkers
litter the putting green of my REM sleep
with run-on sentences
with incomplete sentences
with life sentences
with blah blah blah sentences . . .
Why lose momentum with archived ne'er-do-wells? . . .
Counting sheep as cheat sheet . . .
Moving your queen into a safe position on the board
will buy you enough time to run to the corner deli
for a provolone on sourdough and green tea . . .
Your full red pierced lips . . . work overtime
on my ink
pushing the envelope
out of my dead letter cubby . . .
Hey, I'm trying to fill my dance card here! . . .
You've managed to retain your enigmatic persuasion . . .
on stage . . . in a sundress . . .
sending the game into extra innings . . .
I don't know how . . . but . . .
like you the boulevard continues to mimic
those in the know of art nouveau . . .
Let's step outside for fascination's sake
and rub shoulders with real-time dance marathoners . . .

Irina Dmitrovskaya

Screen Dump 297

Are words good enough?
          - Anon

You seek sanctuary in a grammatical cul-de-sac
worrying pronouns
and the proper syntax for love . . .
The wind knocks down a tree . . .
You begin chainsawing the drops
carving out a lean-to
for the idea that
words are not good enough . . .
despite your thinking
that the inexpressible is contained
inexpressibly
in the expressed . . .
A caricature of Wittgenstein
designing door handles
for his sister's cottage
arrives in an email
which you consider forwarding
but then delete . . .
It's a way of talking yourself . . . out . . .
into the sunshine . . .
into the color of particles . . .
as thick as snowflakes . . .
connecting the dots . . . to the afternoon . . .
imagining a carousel of alchemists
with you stretching for the silver ring . . .

Ellen von Unwerth

Screen Dump 296

What happens after three or four days, months, years
of directing traffic into the spread
of a polygamous morass? . . .
What happens when then becomes now
and you begin gesturing charismatically . . .
souls of past players with the gift of tongues
step out of the rangefinder
and begin lining up at the back door? . . .
It's complicated, yes? . . .
I am prior the movement . . . then stillness . . .
the hoopla of crossing Brooklyn ferry and all . . .
the hum of sunrise . . .
of sunset . . .
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd . . .
dotting the eyes . . . costumed with promise . . .
the parties of then . . . and now . . . thick with lines
lip-syncing Mad Shelley's words
as he faced a perfect storm . . . in the Gulf of Spezia
in the seaworthy Don Juan aka Ariel . . .
only to be cremated on a beach near Viareggio
a small Keats in his pocket . . .
Tell me about the heart of the story . . .
or the story of the heart . . .
the attachments . . . real and imagined . . .
which is which? . . . little matter . . .
the accoutrements . . .
ashes reinterred in Rome
with Mary and clan relocating
to a cliff-top manor in Boscombe, Bournemouth . . .
Tell me about the time when days were open books
and chapters were modular
and your cheeks were full of sightseeing
and your heart was a wild child that had only just begun . . .

Kristin Atherton as Mary Shelley

Screen Dump 295

Our life is a dream.
          - Ludwig Wittgenstein

A dream about a mannequin who dreams about Pinocchio . . .

The conjunction qua has left the building . . .

He doesn't work here . . .

Pinocchio? . . .

We continue to worry language . . .

The way words work . . . sidetrack . . . strut . . . fade . . .

play games . . .

miss the turn . . .

get hung out to dry . . .

hang us out to dry . . .

Wittgenstein wannabes designing door handles . . .

Last night doing cardio at the gym . . .

the word conjointedness popped up in the free weight room . . .

Six-packs and six-packs . . .

You . . . lycra'd and sweaty . . .

in the first sentence of a short-short story . . .

about Pinocchio . . .

Intimidating yet intriguing . . .

Later in the parking lot . . .

you obsess over the loss of muscle mass . . . the loss of self . . .

the attribution . . .

the appropriation . . .

asking yourself if paling is inevitable . . .

Klaus Kinski as Paganini? . . . as Nosferatu? . . .

Perhaps . . .

I too am stoked by the films of Bela Tarr . . .

especially The Turin Horse . . .

which picks up where Nietzsche left off . . .

Klaus Kinski qua Nietzsche qua Wittgenstein? . . .

Beeban Kidron

Screen Dump 294

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

Alina Lebedeva

Screen Dump 293

Testing the waters reignites 35-year-old narratives . . .
almost boarding a plane
almost after three stiff weeks in bed
Facebooked as Hello Stranger . . .
the blind alley as harmonic space
as prelude to performance
as color-coded jackhammer . . .
It's all about pushing molecules around, yes? . . .
And in the middle:
But I'm not interested . . .
OK, but are you interested in a subset . . .
or a sublet . . .
based on the prime numbers two, three, and five
sidestepping headstones . . .
the graveyard swollen with the bones of whalers? . . .
And now this? . . .
How real the fantasy? . . .
A master fornicator . . . Byronish . . .
taking an Uber to the Land of Eros . . .
eliciting a belly laugh
from the party of the third part
lying next to you at 3 AM . . .
Room service? . . . What room service? . . .
The idea . . . not so much to simulate synesthesia
as to explore possible interactions
possible interconnections
among sound, vision, space, and time . . .
Does harmonic space for example projected over time
onto physical space stop time . . .
or does it simply add players to Throwback Thursdays? . . .
Entranced by a frugal eater . . . pocket change . . .
I dunno . . . trepidatious, I guess . . . just sayin' . . .

Anne Hathaway in Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Screen Dump 292

You open yourself to experimentation . . .
to the edge of the virtual (visual?) cliff . . .
Bemused subjects . . . some with nosejobs . . . follow suit . . .
costumed . . . for understudy
leading you back to the blank pages of your grammar school
where nuns . . . in full habit . . . patrol the halls . . .
dispensing indulgences with warnings . . .
The doorbell rings . . .
you answer it . . . and vanish . . .
for seven or eight years . . .
assuming various identities . . .
selecting menu items from both columns . . .
Admittedly, not much of a musical talent . . .
Offshore, an Evinrude sputters . . .
Newsprint crawling on all fours teases
grammarians emeriti . . .
the walls of your apartment besmirched
by an unknown stand-up comic . . .
You decide not to pick up where you left off
burying yourself instead in a dogeared Whole Earth Catalog . . .
convinced that double-reeds are the way to go . . .
a contrabassoonist satisfying your oral fixation . . .
This person who shall remain nameless . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 291

Life can only be understood backwards, . . .
          - Soren Kierkegaard

So I threw it into reverse
but still couldn't make out the Christmas carolers
the decked halls
the pristine lines . . . enjambed
my grandparents' wedding day
the tête-à-têtes
the in-absentias . . .
though I did hear the jazzers . . . faintly . . .
Then I got a new bicycle . . . a Rollfast . . .
red with red streamers . . .
Hey, where'd ya get the two-wheeler? . . .
From the bicycle shop in the lagoon
owned by a pod of sperm whalers
who were able to make a go of it
with the help of a small business grant . . .
It pays to know . . . you know? . . .
They ran through the specs of my bike
and filled me in on the whaling industry
circa 1800s . . .
the ghost ships that still roam the high seas
searching for missing children . . .
Like the Rachel or Terry Riley's In C? . . .
You got that right! . . .
Can you come out and play? . . .
No, I've got to finish shucking corn
and scoring gooseberries . . .
My life as a gooseberry . . . the sequel . . .
It's Canada not Canadian . . .
A bushel and a peck . . . and a rat-a-tat-tat . . .
Lying on a futon
in front of The Late Late . . . Late Show . . .
on a cool summer evening
Colin Clive as Victor Frankenstein
It's alive! . . .
the permutations . . . the combinations . . .
the out-of-the-box footage . . . knit one . . . purl two . . .
the cereal box mazes . . .
with shadows awaiting the heat of the sun . . .
a window to . . . Whereverland . . .
being clueless . . . the ecstasy thereof . . .
Falling asleep . . .
entering the room of a dream backwards
where she arrives . . . on a Harley . . .
I am all of 75 . . .

Screen Dump 290

Pronouns are . . . bossy and noisy.
          - Maggie Nelson

Plasticity spells adaptation . . . and suddenly
you know the next steps
suddenly you are the next steps
and the wherewithal . . .
and the noteworthy elements essential to the day . . .
to all days . . .
telling others they were at the concert . . .
telling others they are the concert . . .
There are no bigger fish to fry . . .
upstream or downstream . . .
Go out . . . see for yourself . . .
Was Leonardo DiCaprio worrying proper footwear
at the end of The Revenant? . . .
Weren't the embellishments so very very cool? . . .
and how about the sound trays
in their accoutrements . . .
introduced in the final two minutes
or was it the stranger . . .
or strangers
behind Door #2
awaiting the sound of your footsteps at 3 AM? . . .
arms filled with accents . . .
I'm tap dancing with language . . .
tap dancing with words
my feet are words . . .
Clarity? . . . I don't want to give everything away . . .
Who gives everything away? . . .
There's always a sequel, yes? . . .
If not, there should be a sequel . . . several! . . .
I hope I'm not too far off base here . . .

Laura Zalenga

Screen Dump 289

You seem to have these labyrinthine moments
in which 1001 strangers hang on your every word . . .
well, maybe not every word . . .
and printers' devils brown-bag the New Narrative
with finger-lickin' goodness
retrospectively, of course . . .
Like when you are regarded spot-on . . .
Suddenly, the clouds part . . . leaving you where? . . .
Leaving you here . . . in this difference of opinion
this semi-detraction
this double-wide
this then and now . . . of nail nippers
reportedly able to cut through bone . . .
It's quite obvious that you've been fiddling again
with the (place) settings . . .
Have you been taking your meds or are you out on a limb
with the go-betweens straddling bipolarities? . . .
The oblivion of being both is contraceptive, yes? . . .
I have felt this from the false-start . . .
Then doing a walkabout with the architecture buffs
though being able to regard each with a finer metric
is a good thing . . .
something worth going to bat for . . .
like the ever-present sexuality of the so-called moment . . .
the labyrinthine moment . . .
when the next installment arrives in the inbox
long after the deadline . . .

Laura Zalenga

Screen Dump 288

[a choral piece for seven voices]

v1: We are gathered here today to . . .
v2: Yes?
v3: Disregard the mirror's embarrassed reflection
its sameness . . .
neither stated nor implied
not unlike trying to find a mismatch in the sock drawer.
v4: Huh?
v5: Quibbling over the blueness of blue
and how over time most bow to convention.
v6: Fractured Fairy Tales!
v7: The fractured refuse to engage . . . for shame!

v1: A new cast awaits the green light.
v2: Bravo!
v3: We all occasionally buy into fools, yes?
v4: Grumble.
v5: C'mon, aren't we suppose to be sharing misnomers?
v6: But I've been unfriended!
v7: I continue to be distracted by the horizontality of positions.

v1: That happens . . . see Wittgenstein.
v2: Me too! To say nothing of the horizontality of arguments.
v3: You must remember this . . .
v4: Casablanca?
v5: I think I need to rethink.
v6: Rethink what?
v7: I'm locked out of my email and . . .

v1: I can't get (it) up!
v2: Like rain? The not-so-small hands of rain?
v3: But what if I expect otherwise?
v4: What if I misread the fine print?
v5: I need to rethink where to begin.
v6: Begin at the beginning, of course.
v7: Now look at what you've made me do!

v1: Look at what I've made you do?
v2: Hiding . . . again . . . behind your micro-softened words?
v3: Will I feel crushed? Is it OK to feel crushed?
v4: I'm the needle for the email thread.
v5: Cue the violin choir.
v6: Let the SUV careen off the edge of the screen.
v7: Epitaph? . . . What epitaph?

Mighty Aphrodite (1995)

Screen Dump 287

Period is too final . . .
          - Anon

Dylan's One Too Many Mornings greets you . . .
Ghosts carry on about the arbitrariness of hookups . . .
Feckless endangerment? . . .
You miss the subway stop of your childhood . . .
run through a run-through of the street scene
with homegrown players
table-reading not-so-modern versions
of Orpheus and Eurydice . . .
A traveling geometry
brings angles to the encrusted . . .
trawling shallows . . . stocked with unnatural monuments
to the ones that got away . . .
trawling shadows for 3D printings
of Shakespeare's First Folio . . .
But did they? . . .
In this poem, you are milking one too many mornings
as an homage to Dylan's tweaking . . .
You were enough . . . and then you weren't . . .
But it's coming around again . . . so . . . sit tight . . .
in your hallowed domesticity . . .
I've seen the farther reaches . . . exceed your grasp . . .
Study it . . . parley it . . . sauté it . . .
Figure this: you were entropied . . .
and you were entropied without permission . . .
And they were pissed? . . .
Few could have imagined the fiasco . . .
Please submit profiles of those few . . .
But I'm sure it was there . . . especially on moonlit evenings
when caramelized onions trumped caramelized apples
and minions engaged in repetitious acts of contrition . . .
the phoniness overwhelming . . .
So . . . where does that leave us? . . .
Please beg the next question
with your bedroom eyes aglitter? . . .
Of course, there was a semblance of whatever
but he/she left the mancave (womancave?)
without a paper trail . . . without a paper cut . . .
We'd like to hear about it because . . .
as with Fence Books we like to be stopped dead in our tracks
by challenging writing distinguished
by idiosyncrasy and intelligence
rather than by allegiance with camps, schools, or cliques . . .
Parlez-vous . . . the global language we all share? . . .
The suddenness of disclosure . . .
You have mapped the downstate venues of your travesties
where back seats were retrofitted for come what may . . .
and you came . . .
and that's when you arrived . . .
and that's when you were memorialized via Super-8 . . .
and someone's stubby Ticonderoga . . .
You decided you wanted to do this . . . and you did . . .
So there . . . charming bus stops in the Old Country
irrespective of their downtrodden heels and flimsy facades
await you with bated breath . . .
Might there have been another way to go about this? . . .

Anka Zhuravleva

Screen Dump 286

[and with that the paradigm shifts]

Why now . . . after all these years? . . .
No idea! . . .
Please continue . . .

OK, as I was saying the court stenographer is off the charts
so don't expect a transcript any day soon . . .
Just a thought . . .
We all have them . . . occasionally . . .
Distance yourself . . . see if that makes a difference . . .
Perhaps the eroticism of stomping grapes? . . .
What? . . .
I kid you not . . .
You mean like Lucy and Ethel . . .
on the round-screen Stromberg Carlson
in my parents' doilied parlor . . . circa 1956? . . .
No, no, no! . . . I mean like Anne Carson
in The Beauty of the Husband . . .
her fictional essay in 29 tangos . . .
about a woman paralyzed with desire
for her feckless but beautiful husband . . .
After driving a friend to Montreal for eye surgery . . .
I went to McGill where Carson was teaching ancient Greek
and picked up a copy in the bookstore . . .
Anyway, in Husband Carson and her then husband Law
are stomping grapes . . .
His name was Law? . . .
Yup, here's Carson . . .

You cannot imagine the feeling if you have never done it –

like hard bulbs of wet red satin exploding under your feet,

between your toes and up your legs arms face

splashing everywhere –

It goes right through your clothes you know he said

as we slogged up and down

in the vat.

When you take them off

you’ll have juice all over.

His eyes moved onto me then he said Let’s check.

Naked in the stone place it was true, sticky stains, skin,

I lay on the hay

and he licked.

Licked it off.

The eroticism of stomping grapes, yes? . . .
Carson . . . now remarried to Robert Currie
aka The Randomizer . . .
does this collaboration masterclass called EgoCircus
a writing workshop in which there is no writing . . .
Imagine that! . . .
Exactly! . . . Imagining performance pieces
that will make writers better writers . . .
Anne Carson: The Poet of Perversities . . .
that's Laura Passin writing in The Toast 2015 . . .
But . . . I digress . . .
Hookups "R" Us . . .
our raison d'être, if you will . . .
And I hope you will! . . .
Nothing wrong with that . . .
Rejoinders . . . now there's a paradigm shift for you . . .
Rejoinders make for accomplished bedfellows . . .
Sweating through the final paragraphs
I was convinced that the ventriloquist's dummy
was about to deliver the 12 soliloquies
from Shakespeare's lost plays . . .
Huh? . . .
Go ahead . . . google it . . .
You even checked Strand's rare book section, yes? . . .
As if I would know one bowling alley from another . . .
Yeah, right, like Wittgenstein's grammatical confusions:
If you have nothing to say, say nothing . . .

Ellen von Unwerth

Screen Dump 285

Happenstance happened . . . igniting a firestorm . . .
the screen door ajar . . .
letting in the flies . . . and what not . . .
The door to the mind springing open . . .
to poetic freedom . . .
to artistic integrity . . . washed down with a Red Bull . . .
hearing a cacophony of stories . . .
trying to sort through the morass . . .
of random acts of so-called kindness . . .
Those on the clock suspicious . . . as expected . . .
But he/she is not wrong . . .
Oh, really? . . .
And what will you do after the dust settles? . . .
Ha, I read in your other poem
that the dust never settles . . .
when it comes down to
the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind . . .
or the spotted mind, or the spot-on mind . . .
I forget which . . .
especially now . . . with all sales . . .
final I should add . . . being extended . . .
Arguably . . . an insufficient amount of airtime
on getting the word out . . . to the shortlisted . . .

Philip Messmann

Woman XLVII

She consorts with puppets . . . no strings attached . . .

in a room filled with bobby-soxers

where she is subjected to the free passes

of agents who feign muteness

to fake Stradivari's signature

while playing stoop-ball with bassoonists smoking joints.

Weed is dressed to kill.

She loves basement bashes . . . un-posing . . .

and underclothing worn out.

The streets criticize her player-piano introductions

bottlenecked on bridges during rush hour.

Her wherewithal has caught on

with post-coital interviewers

who tweet at double-headers

where triple plays are as commonplace

as nosebleeds.

Costumed for night . . . she seldom rides shotgun

saving her literary lollipops for footnotes

and phony phone numbers floating in her wake . . .

her long legs spanning one and a half sidewalk cracks.

Gisele Bundchen

Screen Dump 284

Your Elements of Style are not my Elements of Style
are not her Elements of Style or his . . .

The dust never settles! . . .
I came to this aha moment as if by steam train . . .

as fool-proof as the watering can sitting out there on the deck . . .
which reminds me . . . It's time to turn the soil in the garden . . .

I await a transcript of the testimony . . .
an oblique view of the events as they unfolded . . .

"Do not color outside the line"

warned Sister Aloysius Joseph, my first grade teacher . . .

I got whacked on the knuckles with her twelve-inch ruler

when I colored outside the line . . .

I erased Humpty-Dumpty's name with such anxiety

I put a hole in the paper, and got whacked again . . .

The naughtiness of assignments sparkles the redundancy

of the day-to-day . . .

The naughtiness of Chekhov's Olga . . .
atop Seattle's Great Wheel . . .

rain-soaked . . . Facebooked . . . body parts color-coded . . .
accoutered with L. L. Bean relaxed outerwear . . .

Why sweat the backdrop? . . .
The Elements of Style await an out-and-back road race . . .

I think I'll wrap them up . . . in brown paper . . .
before the deer return to the wood after their morning feed . . .

Liliana Karadjova

Screen Dump 283

I am my own derivative . . .
my own non-sequitur . . .
A committee of one . . . pocketing delusions . . .
sweating square pegs in round holes . . .
retrofitting my Facebook presence  . . .
Far be it from me to emulate . . .
let me think . . .
to emulate a postulate taking final vows . . .
how's that? . . .
I vow to eat my spinach . . . but that's about it . . .
That we should all have evidentiary moments . . .
moments when we are knocked off our high horse . . .
moments when selfies
bleed through . . . the paper
and let go a Whitmanesque yawp!
that shakes the condiment aisle
condiments flying off shelves
condiment-missiles targeting fast-foodies
aisles where vicious circulars clutter
the faux-cobblestone floor
and florescent lights
induce close encounters . . . of the text kind . . .
with Language Nazis . . .
out for a night on - or off - the town . . .
harkening back to a time when . . .
A time when? . . . A time when
harkening back was Punch and Judy orgasmic . . .

Liliana Karadjova

Screen Dump 282

Everything, indeed, is at least double.
          - Marcel Proust, The Captive

You draw a line . . . in a sandstorm . . .
recalling moments when everyone seemed a double
when you wished everyone was a double
when rehearsals were contagious
and life was lived . . . by connecting dots . . .

I tried this . . . it didn't work . . . so I tried that . . .

No problemo, dude! . . .

I come here to hide
to try to connect the end to the beginning . . .
naming names to avoid confusion
intimating nothing . . .

There is a loneliness here
an underwhelming
warped facades . . . forsaken by cameras
aimed to capture the day-to-day . . .

The line shape-shifts . . .
into a world of understudies . . . with benefits . . .
wheeling dealing free agents . . .
with unfair trade promises . . . and closed source stories . . .

Stories begin and end in oblivion . . .

Players run amok

skipping paragraphs
chapters

crossing lines . . . willy-nilly . . .

You learn your lines . . . inside and out . . .
enter the scene
deliver them . . . in a panel truck . . .
without embellishment
without the unsolicited recap
without the blithering omniscience . . . of those in the know
without recrimination . . .

You manage this . . . despite the swirling madness . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 281

This then is the episode we salt and pepper . . .
Like listening to Chet Baker sketch out My Funny Valentine
through a mouthful of metal and plastic
after drug dealers knocked out his front teeth . . .
It's the behind-the-scenes that grabs us . . .
How things are versus how they seem . . .
Quentin Tarantino's The Hateful Eight . . .
the opening scene like the other day
hurling us back into whiteness . . .
O. B. Jackson driving six horses . . .
trying to get to Minnie's Haberdashery
before a blizzard eats them alive . . .
a ball-peen hammer striking a lovely bunch of coconuts . . .
sucking us in . . .
as when in the penultimate moment we collapse . . .
in awe of the world . . . in all its wonderful imprecision . . .
Always something, yes? . . .
But . . . it's all good! . . .
like being ignited by Lucia Perillo's poem Foley . . .
where everybody has a story
about intimacy's lowest common denominator . . .
and love's faulty disposition . . .
as if phone sex . . . across the fourth wall . . .
reminding us that
the body tells a story / mostly about loss . . .
Do you know it? . . .
But I am at my best when . . .
Of course, of course, you are! . . .
Especially after the black screen . . .
again . . . at the beginning of The Hateful Eight
Ennio Morriccone's notes coming from somewhere . . .
out there . . .
stopping us in our tracks . . .
and we forget . . . where we are . . .
we forget . . . everything we were meant to forget
when we agreed to enter the ring . . .
only to find ourselves asking
Why couldn't things be like this? . . .
that strange alchemy
of black . . . and white . . .
of what we expect . . . and what we get . . .
of what we have . . . and what we have not . . .
and . . . of the world . . . in all its wonderful imprecision . . .
in spite of . . . or . . . because of . . .

The Hateful Eight (2015)

Screen Dump 280

Chapter One . . .

Why continue to revisit failed love poems? . . .
The answer my friend is blowin' through the skulls of hyenas . . .

Chapter Two . . .

You find yourself weaving in and out of rush-hour traffic . . .
You worry neutralization . . .
a recurring dream . . . through eyes wide shut . . .

Chapter Three . . .

The Paper Chase . . . as always . . .
You'll have the honor of last billing . . .
and an imagined proof hammered into the record books . . .
The word tangential keeps butting in . . .

Chapter Four . . .

Your managed theatricality? . . .
It's got the best of you . . .
And your autobiography?
Whited-out . . .
Yet, language seems to matter . . . to some . . .
And they know who they are . . .

Chapter Five . . .

Irrespective of the flaws in translation . . .
everyone deserves a life . . . in words . . .
its irksome footnotes tumbling through darkness . . .

Chapter Six . . .

Just what is this thing you have for augmentation? . . .

Chapter Seven . . .

The musicality works . . . it really does! . . .
despite the barbs of fishmongers . . .
and inane enjambments . . .
submitted for someone's approval . . .
Facebook friends . . . perhaps? . . .

Chapter Eight . . .

Notwithstanding extras . . .

Chapter Nine . . .

The Kryptonite Diaries: A Leg Up . . .

Chapter Ten . . .

Why worry bric-a-brac . . . bus schedules . . .
downtrodden flâneurs . . .
dispirited by manifestos from every Tom, Dick, and Harriet? . . .

Chapter Eleven . . .

Out with it! . . . Please! . . .

Chapter Twelve . . .

Fascinated by the limelight . . . as we all have been . . .
or are . . .
compromising our role as MC of the here and now . . .
wrinkle-proofed . . .
tugging away at unfathomable junctures . . .
for the attention of animators . . .
who couldn't care if less is more . . .

Chapter Thirteen . . .

How's that? . . . You could have at least . . .
Something . . . not exactly sure what . . . but it will come . . .
it will come . . .
when honeysucklers join with chamber players
on off-days . . .
and play the roof off the joint . . .

Liliana Karadjova

Screen Dump 279

Fear not the logorrhea of the unblocked . . .
The calamity of driving a golf ball into rush-hour traffic . . .
a scene from You Are There . . .
Sundays . . . 6:30 . . . with Walter Cronkite . . .
when parlors were doilied . . .
and the livin' was easy . . .
We run out of oxygen . . . again . . . and again . . .
in our search . . .
over . . . and under . . . under . . . and over . . .
chasing the maddeningly elusive center . . .
You've been there . . .
and scribbled rejoinders worthy of Shakespeare . . .
flagging insurrectionists in your dreams . . .
ordering IKEA furniture online
along with Jobs' launching of a perfect cube . . .
SRO to hear a machine say Hello . . .
And now . . . the underlining . . .
anointing a string of words for the next patient
fretting a toothache in a dentist's office
walls adorned with images of kids and vacation spots . . .
and instructions for flossing . . .
Hooray for those with a day-pass . . .
You've scanned . . . and uploaded . . . your Kodak moments
You will never forget them . . . nor they you . . .
no matter how hard you try . . .
as your insinuations morph into comedy . . .
and exit through the gift shop . . .
Miles's Blue In Green jostling for attention
alongside your students
omniscient . . . indifferent . . . whatever . . .
shepherded into the bipolarity of adulthood . . .

Screen Dump 278

This syndrome of impossibilities . . .
It would behoove you . . .
Really? . . . And I thought you cared . . .
About what? . . . Far-flung admonitions? . . .
Family members, notwithstanding . . .
I am ready to resume . . .
Why hesitate? . . .
Oh, now I see that the ON button has a tendency to stick . . .
Submit a requisition . . . posthaste . . .
The aftershock is always . . . perplexing? . . .
You are aware that this offer will expire, yes? . . .
Fortunes . . . made . . . and lost . . .
despite your attempt at entrepreneurship
at the last feature . . .
when the opening scene brought down the house . . .
Are you ready to face the music? . . .
I believe it's John Luther Adams's Become Ocean . . .

Anja Niemi

Screen Dump 277

With less than a lifetime to play 20 Questions
you decide to re-enter the fray . . .
pining for a rainy afternoon . . .
the entropy of the moment swooping down
with felt-tipped pens for talons . . .
You could have taken an easier way
but hysterical blindness is driving the bus . . .
so that's that . . .
Incidentally . . . slowly is off-putting . . .
especially in the middle of the naked truth
when gaggles of tourists . . . sweating vinyl seats . . .
barge in . . . aiming iPhones . . .
and waving permission slips from elementary school principals
bemoaning lost weekends . . .
Right about now I want to thumb through a magazine . . .
(I can't believe I just typed "tight" for "right") . . .
But enough of this fantasia-sport . . .
I for one grew into adulthood with knees bent . . .
and suede elbow patches . . .
miming the director of that mini-doc
I've forgotten the name of . . .
Ending with a preposition? . . .
You bet! . . . My swipe at the inefficacy of rote . . .
Eyes on the prize, I suppose? . . .
Let's not think this all the way through, OK? . . .
I want to savor the fortunes of a few . . . I mean it! . . .
I want to drop everything . . . for something . . .
I want to stick cuspidor into this poem . . .
There, I did it! . . .
Distracted by your description of things coming to a head
when, for whatever reason, the endgame arrived early
and we were taken aback by the thought of leftovers . . .
junior varsity ball-handlers mentally dissecting your jeggings
with the pump of tin men exiting a motivational seminar . . .
I began thinking about those lazy hazy crazy days of summer . . .
to say nothing of the vibes we got
from insignificant backpedalers . . .
who kept wandering in and out of the cottage . . .
letting the screen door slam
which for better or worse in sickness and in health
is now or soon will be on the tip of everyone's tongue . . .

Andrew Yee

Screen Dump 276

Driving on the wrong side of the looking glass . . .
Irrefutably Heathcliffian . . .
Again, the story . . .
Trying to get the story straight . . .
The story . . . a smattering of misapprehensions . . .
neologisms . . .
return trips . . .
lost in the aisles . . . of a used bookstore . . .
jostling for immortality . . .
not unlike Xboxers who
freely associating your solemnity with past escapades
now stand on their heads
in the queue at Mickey D's
waiting for their grilled chicken sandwiches . . .
in their minds . . . a healthier alternative . . .
Examine the crossbeams of your gingerbread house . . .
the crossbeams of your thoughts . . . your regrets . . .
while I interpret the shadow
of your half-smile
matching it to the shape of your hands . . .
the shape of your lips . . .
exposing your offerings
to the down-the-hatchers . . . and down-and-outers . . .
who have fallen for your Youtube flirtations . . .
kicking back on off-days . . . and on on-days . . .
engaging Throwback Thursdays . . . without remorse or endives . . .
your stubborn refusal (is there any other kind?)
best approached head-on . . .

Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016)

Screen Dump 275

. . . doesn't every poem confess something?
          - David Kirby

You audition behind a screen for a seat in the pit . . .
the fanfare . . . Chanticleerian . . .
before stopping . . .
at the corner pub . . . in shorty . . .
the opening gambit . . . unpremeditated . . .
awakening video endgamers . . .
with a shuddering rise . . .
coming . . . again . . .
as if in service to Nefertiti . . .
taking a village . . .
letting the incidentals fall onto the gameboard . . .
moves . . . you invented . . .
gripped as you were
in the pre-sainthood days of martyrdom . . .
when every instant was up for grabs . .
the auction block loaded with requests . . .
(You do remember them, yes? . . .
not necessarily the sticky specifics
but the gist of the encounters . . .
some played by ear within earshot
of the players assigned to the rack . . .
the real point of the action) . . .
while outside the mist parlayed the rusting hulks of seafarers . . .

Fabio Chizzola

Screen Dump 274

People like to think that I was frustrated. . . .
          - Rose Wylie

Hickory, dickory, Doc Martens . . . evidently . . .
and then some . . . a full tank of gas . . . is not enough . . .
is never enough . . .
I celebrate my selfie, and sing my selfie . . .
as if bygones were . . .
while the looney tunes in the loony bin
soundtrack an unexpected darling of the art world . . .
glaring from beneath her pewter-gray bob . . .
seeded with happenstance . . .
nomenclature . . . a loose cannon . . . or canon . . .
wrinkling the thinking of those in the know . . .
Stop a moment . . .
and take issue with the troublesome minions . . .
especially now in the aftermath of an opening . . .
Disneyfying Dickinson . . .
Of course, you saw them . . . we all did . . .
so please drop (stop?) that line of questioning
before you're benched . . . two minutes on the clock . . .
with Klee, Taking a line for a walk . . .
The afternoon cometh . . . stalked by flurries . . .
It's not yet time to count sheep . . .
with a Hey, diddle, diddle, . . .
and free passes to the Auto Show . . .
And now you . . . with your camera . . .
memorializing moments for eternity's collage
awaiting the green light . . .
the steam train chuffing out of the station . . .
your unexpurgated memoirs . . . in tow . . .
through the woods . . . to grandmother's house . . .

Rose Wylie

Screen Dump 273

Sparring with place settings . . . at low tide . . .
as if rationalizing utensils with a sense of know . . .
accordion dreams back-pocketed . . .
tomorrow's version . . . on the tongues
of news anchors mired in flotsam . . .
Hum along . . . if you like . . .
with the dissonance of the Jersey shore . . .
where tête–à–têtes gasp their last
on the Bayone Bridge . . .
during rush hour no less . . .
and Roxanne tweeted something
about lumbago and Leonardo DiCaprio's
most-tweeted Oscar moment of all time
surpassing even Ellen DeGeneres's selfie . . .
Can you imagine? . . .
And just think . . . when the circus comes to town
you can suit-up for stand-up . . .
on the high-wire . . .
your four-inch heels . . . excuse me, five-inch heels . . .
just what the doctor ordered . . .
Playing ICU . . . at the light . . .
your coming (out) attraction . . . Oscar Night . . .
on the red carpet . . .
awaiting your cue . . . coat-racked against calm . . .

Per Zennstrom