Disconnecting the Dots

Sometimes I left messages in the street.
          - David Markson, Wittgenstein's Mistress

And then Frank O'Hara stopped by.
He's living in a yurt . . . in the 'Dacks
doing this . . . doing that
And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!
And how about Gustav Mahler channeling Frank O'Hara . . .
bicycling Bavaria
I seem to be absolutely born for the cycle!
deconstructing Moby's Porcelain
disconnecting the dots
as if it matters . . . and it does . . . but not to
his gorgeous, alcoholic, hearing-impaired,
superflirty, 19 years his junior, wife and muse, Alma,
whose bedpost is mottled
with the notches of affairs.
Billed as the most beautiful girl in Vienna
she believes several men are better than one
and spills as much to Freud one afternoon on his couch.
Never a fan of her husband's music
she chooses none of his for her funeral 50 years after his death.
And here again is Frank:
It's my lunch hour, so I go
for a walk among the hum-colored
cabs. First, down the sidewalk
where laborers feed their dirty
glistening torsos sandwiches
and Coca-Cola, . . .

Laura Mentink in Wittgenstein's Mistress (2017)

Early this morning, bicycling Route 28 to Inlet:
unforgettable . . .
meandering past pristine lakes, deep woods,
and rustic little towns, someone wrote.
I know a moose when I see one.
And I've seen several . . . at Hoss's General Store in Long Lake.
Everything anyone would need . . . or want.
Everything.
Books . . . some read, some unread . . . on my shelves.
OK, so I've skipped a few chapters
and skimmed others
and disregarded enjambments.
Who hasn't?
But really . . . what is this thing called PO-ET-RY?
Without coffee, I mean . . . or, I mean, of course.
And what's with that?
Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends:
A photograph's all that's left of you.
Must we write from prompts?
Or from furniture music, à la Satie?
I am now trying . . . to write upon nothing, Swift said.
Someone keeps elbowing in with irregardless.
Where, oh where, are the grammar police?
Can you spell donuts?
How about potato?
How about VP Quayle's version of potato?
By the way, it's now called Dunkin'.
Dunkirk is showing at Bow Tie Cinema.
Try this . . . but not at home.
This is a text.
I'm embedding pics in a text.
Putting pen to paper . . . sitting on the fence.
Trying to write right
and other absurdities for understudy
by standins . . . and passersby . . . and wannabes
saddled with odysseys.
Three rows over, 60 years ago, in Latin Class
this girl - an upperclassman - in the school uniform
and I'm mentally undressing her
while Julius Caesar divides Gaul into three parts.

Latin Class

Coming Into the Country with John McPhee
who memorialized big rigs and other uncommon carriers
in Uncommon Carriers
after shadowing truckers for a few months.
Something about momentum
and air brakes
and commercial breaks
which speed delusions
with Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man.
I'm out here waiting for the answer with Soren Kierkegaard
the other Dane who loved the rain falling mainly on the plain
in full view of Either/Or
written after breaking up with his fiancée Regine Olsen
using the pseudonyms A for Either, B for Or,
and Johannes Climacus for The Diary of the Seducer.
I can well understand why children love sand, Wittgenstein said.
It's all about castles . . . my home is my castle, yes?
With you bundled with apps . . . one day in the foreseeable . . .
An algorithm walks into a bar . . .
This too will be tweaked . . . and tweeted . . .
to fit the model to the facts
or the facts to the model . . . whichever . . .
before Cicero's Third Oration:
How long, O Catiline, will you tax our endurance?
How long will that madness of yours escape us?
To what end will your unruly boldness hurl itself at us?

Lucius Sergius Catilina

Sound familiar?
This, by the way, is an example of trichotomy,

in full habit Sister Anna Roberta said.

And why the Fates red-carded Caesar
in the middle of the Rubicon
and why Hannibal joined the circus and mastered elephantese.
It comes full circle . . . all of it . . .
the dots connected . . . disconnected . . . fading from view . . .
with paybacks and fallbacks playbacks and callbacks wetbacks and drybacks
and boxes of ephemera
near the counter of the old, lamented
Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop in Boston,
Dan Chaisson wrote in The New Yorker
brimmed with
mangy postcards
wedding announcements
lobby cards
vinyl LPs
hippie stickers and patches
Civil Defense pamphlets and evacuation maps
poker chips
Old Maid decks
and skinny dogeared self-published PO-ET-RY chapbooks
filled with messages in the street.

Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop

Buttdialing Ubers and Other Sonnetized Shorts

Season Twenty

Using topspin to unseat the poem du jour
carrying most through enjambed memories
with summer . . . bending into grains of sand
primed to mimic phishers
You have yet to read into eccentricity
especially as your odyssey'd past
inheres in material traces
Never forget the soirees . . . in the dunes
with their distinct impressions of nothing
costumed as commitment
as well as someone's . . . Godot's perhaps? . . . footfalls
Everyone was naughty
Everyone regressed
Everyone failed . . . again

Francesco Carrozzini

Buttdialing Ubers and Other Sonnetized Shorts

Season Nineteen

You seem to enjoy the almostness of your borderline personality
carrying on about the leaks in emptiness
that accompany Bruegger's Everything Bagel
and the duffel bags . . . of risky narcissists
adorned with fidgety flight tags
from the Bucket's 100 Places to Visit Before Passing
Stay the merriment became your duly-noted mantra
even after your breaths exceeded the numbers
and you hop-scotched with bouquets of trillium
that happened by on their way
to yet another ho-hum commercial break
that . . . despite the menagerie . . . always made you chuckle . . .
especially when Facebook friends pointed to lapses in serving styles
And you do believe yourself, yes?

Bruno Aveillan

It's August, and the Ponies are Running

(reposted from Monday, August 1, 2011 & Monday, August 1, 2016)

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!

Buttdialing Ubers and Other Sonnetized Shorts

Season Eighteen

This poem is a game of scrabble . . . a game of babble
a game of mirrored sunglasses reflecting
a box of colored pencils . . . as you
thumb through Augusten Burroughs's Dry
inviting a tangle of lines leading to a fun house
in the middle of a re-enactment . . . as if
parallel parking a shopping cart were sufficient
Again you argue the clock
with thoughts of a drybrush masterpiece
by Andrew Wyeth . . . at the Fenimore Museum
Everyone deserves a break today
Why today? . . . Why today the blue vacuum with dry load
applied to a dry support
from your dry days revitalizing sober living apartments?

Paolo Roversi

Buttdialing Ubers and Other Sonnetized Shorts

Season Sixteen

A one-size-fits-all transcription of experience
and your mind's ear takes a break today at Mickey D's -
generic, anti-confessional, without
the clawing happenstance of a Johnny Depp lookalike
backstroking in a sea of Elmer's Glue
You continue to get antsy over dead zones
Who doesn't? . . . but do we need two of anything?
Attention-deficit mavens and their obsession
with the gap between fit and finish
transforming stage directions into librettos
puts one in the mood for a slice of pizza
with the works . . . from Baldy's on Cork Hill -
a stopgap for fortune tellers and fortune hunters
If at any point you feel small, you should

Season Seventeen

Later . . . in a restaurant . . . on the lake . . . a specter
with cropped gray hair . . . and the waiter serves the soup du jour -
cream of broccoli - sided with a bronzed copy of the Post-it
she stuck to your mailbox 30 years ago . . . and someone asks
what Porgy stands for . . . and you're flashed back
to the balcony of Glimmerglass with its incredible range of voices
and tale of a cripple in the tracks of a very young Sidney Poitier
on his knees . . . in a wagon pulled by a goat . . . whose googling
tells you it's a subspecies domesticated from the wild goat
of southwest Asia . . . and did you know that goats
have only bottom front and side teeth and one large back molar
in the top jaw for crushing things . . . and the Poitier
Porgy and Bess is one of the great lost films
because of a pissing match between the two Gershwin estates?

Sidney Poitier in Porgy and Bess (1959)

Buttdialing Ubers and Other Sonnetized Shorts

Season Fourteen

Using rhetoric in a slipshod manner
Or slapdash, yes, that's it . . . slapdash
Why bother trying to be ironic and sincere . . . at the same time?
Can't you see beyond the No Smoking sign?
This is where the poem is supposed to get horny
or forgettable . . . or whatever
Yes, I know you hate that
Assailed by distractions . . . in the guise of . . . aesthetics?
Can you please help prime the pump?
Doing so, however, may result in a Surgeon General ticket
Speak softly but carry a big selfie stick
In the moment . . . but only if the moment cooperates
and then only if dessert is included
in the slapdash dish . . . in a slipshod manner

Season Fifteen

You're charged with toggling a laugh track
while waiting in the checkout line
at the supermarket
The manager is a clown suit
A clown suit is a root canal sans novocaine
A clown suit is a box lunch
An after-the-fact afterthought
Your flight is taxiing
And now the ticket person in a clown suit
is telling you you're in the wrong line
but there's a million dollar smile
on a million dollar baby
in a million dollar condo
with a million dollar (fill in the blank) ___

Buttdialing Ubers and Other Sonnetized Shorts

Season Twelve

Postcards from the corner office offer tips
on managing the parts of life that make no sense:

seductive five-star creamsicles

soundtracked by melodic lines nursing
pentatonic and catatonic scales

You pride yourself on inscrutable self-scrutiny
the examined life . . . and all that
as if parroting fan-fiction of the Canon
through pursed lips
makes dumbing down the default
So why the obsession with spoon-fed fork-tonguers?
The files . . . sight-read
have been sealed . . . and now
your raised hand is being codependently ignored

Season Thirteen

Escaping through the cracks in your argument
following bread crumbs to the Temple of Incidentals
restless long legs
parody of a back-flap biography
you fret over brands of black pepper
focus on the container
Stepping out onto the deck with eggs over easy, yes?
And coffee?
The seemingly insignificant?
There's nothing wrong with invisibility
and lemon juice . . . held up to a light bulb
selecting from menu options
making do . . . treading water
Come prepared to defend your thesis

Rihanna

Buttdialing Ubers and Other Sonnetized Shorts

Season Eleven

The theatrics begin . . . with words up . . . words down
rehearsals . . . do not pass Go
You know how it is
with everyone talking . . . at the same time
It's tough to follow the storyline
if there is a storyline
But then some stories are better without a storyline
Just let the events unfold
in your pocket . . . I don't care
little matter where
Whatever's convenient for you
I'm trying to wrap my head around something . . .
something that will get me through the next few hours
or the next few minutes

Paolo Roversi

Buttdialing Ubers and Other Sonnetized Shorts

Season Eight

Which reminds me, when was the last time you punched in?
A to-go box would be nice
As would your cv
with color-coded treasure map
The cartography of the selfie, yes?
I have no idea why but protocol is calling the shots
You've seen it yourself in the glacially slow downloads
Two streams diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry you could not ogle both
and be one ogler . . . I don't believe you!
It's not as if they didn't score high on Rotten Tomatoes
The dominant aesthetic right now seems to be amusement
A defense mechanism, perhaps?
Download and install the Uber app, already, will you please?

Season Nine

You have a reputation for down time
for rearranging players and their parts
It's all there . . . in your notebooks . . . on your (un)zip drive
It has become your mantra
Incomplete sentences . . . written with crayons
follow in your wake
The manner in which they carry themselves
and the questions . . . left unanswered
Trying to construct reality with Legos, yes?
You and your erotic other were captured on tape
with sticky wickets
I never believed in falling prey to pews
But then again . . . and again
Something is sure to befall the one-night (by)standers

Season Ten

The subject becomes the object
igniting associations
It happens whenever you click Search
The tendency to remain open
while people hover . . . submitting requests
Are you ready to give it up? . . . to give in?
Let's hope not . . . at least not until
your fingers have done the walking
Opening statements, please
What if we were to record every other word?
Would nonsense reign?
Would it become the New Now?
You were late . . . with revisions . . . only
to be called out . . . to be called out . . . for redundancy

David Benoliel

Buttdialing Ubers and Other Sonnetized Shorts

Season One

You hawk Girl Scout cookies to linemen
patching phone lines in manholes
They pledge allegiance to the pleats in your uniform
A flâneur stumbles . . . on camera
Ill-equipped and ill-mannered
you are perfect for the job
and hired on the spot from within
Your half-life . . . is a lateral
You skip the condiment aisle
to jostle newhires . . . if for no other reason
A pawn . . . no, a night . . . in the game, yes?
Ditto Dottie!
With as much anachronism as catch-as-catch-can
Neck . . . and benecked

Season Two

You count out change from a shiny metal change counter
attached to your belt with Velcro
You score a merit badge for the likes of this
Isn’t this romantic?
An aging-out squeezebox expands and contracts
to the gesticulations of bystanders
eBay's only a day away
Forging ahead nonetheless
with less than Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels
you wait tables in reruns
buttdialing Ubers for Q&As
while running changes with after-hour noodlers
A good misstep
as innocuous as an up-close-and-personal

Season Three

I’m famished . . . how about you?
Lick and belicked . . . as you like it
A speedbump unto oneself, yes?
Isn’t it time to resume the obligatory?
Can you imagine?
Not unlike the postmodern
foisted upon minions
when no one was looking and the brownout was force-fed
And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, yes?
Is it safe? quoth Sir Laurence . . . to the Marathon Man
Low-lying clouds should be forgiven
They know not . . . As for you?
The same is not true . . . You knew . . . around the block
and then some

Season Four

I’ll huff . . . and I’ll puff
Really? . . . That's a bit Uberish, yes?
The Uber knows all
Though stymied, you go on
Feel better when you fail better
The drones are about to trance . . . teleported to Walmart
I’ll bet you miss Blue Light Specials
Blue Light Specials "R" Us!
As if we were belched into the nosebleed section
Runners on first and third . . . here’s the pitch
swung on . . . and the hills are alive with the sound of silence
Simon and Garfunkel? Aren't they're close-mouthed?
Wittgenstein as Party-Pooper
If you can’t talk about it . . . Bollocks!

Season Five

The flight left in two hours
Then you accidentally uncorked plagiarism
As if to say There, I’ve done it again!
Full-fledged-in-your-face-buttdialing
I feel I should commit myself
to something . . . or someone
Happenstance as whoopee cushion
as pocket billiards
with all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Bespoken . . . ain’t that the truth?
with a hey, diddle, diddle and a cache of Little Golden Books
breaching security for the hell of it
Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell . . . And then?
He called for his bong . . . and he called for his bowl

Season Six

They're choreographing drive-bys . . . on trikes
and talking with Jacob's Pillow about next steps
You listen to the rhythm of the falling rain
telling you just what a fool you've been
Hey, that's OK! . . . we're all just passing out
Besides, the light is about to change
Insignificance piles up on the night stand
most days
Orchestrating tweets
You end up backpedaling for all the wrong reasons
Soon to a major motion picture . . . guaranteed
to stop post-nasal drip and other post-apocalypse nits
You're good to go
French Press or full press?

Season Seven

You can have both
Clickety-clack
and the days become a railroad apartment
with you as conductor
of Mahler's Seventh
Buttdialing Mahler's Seventh
Does a table-read have to be cold?
All the world's a chessboard
and you have all the right moves
Triumphant! . . . He/she was triumphant!
Measure upon measure . . . as if out with the bathwater
Purposefully negligent
Now why in the world would you call for backup?
Continue reading the main story

Geisha Davis

Screen Dump 371

A willingness to look silly stalks you
with kinky imaginations . . . banister games . .  .
late-night tête-à-têtes . . .
while you . . . on hidden camera . . .
backpedal . . . into an off-season valentine
shopping trip to designer outlets . . .
A soft-spoken train wreck meanders
into wish-fulfillment
with instructional video in Jungian tongue . . .
The morning reboots . . .
jousts . . . the colors of some flag . . .
Two can play solitaire, yes? . . .
You are this . . . that . . . this . . .
and that . . . nurturing a crudeness into nothing
less than a bespoke cringing one-act . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 370

Love loves to love love.
          - James Joyce, Ulysses

You misquote yourself . . . again . . . finding solace
in the non sequitur . . .
in the interplay among players . . .
among onlookers
who . . . could they have it another way . . .
would not . . . tapping their fingers
to your breathing
as you . . . awaken with asking
the morning again . . . and again . . . and again . . .
a transubstantiation . . .
of the temporal . . . the insignificant . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Paging (Through) Dr. Williams

(reposted from Sunday, May 29, 2011)

Red-faced
balding
in faded scrubs,
he walks
his hound
and waits
while she pees
nonchalantly
on the red
wheelbarrow,
sending
the white
chickens
scurrying
in a flurry
of feathers.
I pass
noisily
in my rusted-
out sub-
compact,
munching
on the sweet
cold plums
I took
from the fridge
when no one
was looking.

Screen Dump 369

You are lavish in the security of between-line labyrinths
obliterating bedpost notches as if rewriting
oxymorons . . . while Hallmarkian tributes
fester in a siding . . .
You trained your voice to ignore
the embellishments dripping from the rafters
where has-beens scramble for long balls
with gestures that make the evening news . . .
Why is keyboarding so difficult? . . .
Wait, let me try this . . . OK, that's better . . .
You said it yourself . . . though I'm at a loss
for what it was exactly . . . but who cares
if most things are not spot-on? . . .
Don't you just love that phrase? . . .
The polymorphous morning drenches . . .
Someone somewhere whistles . . .
soundtracking your journey into the afternoon's summit
where signposts await crayons
and we can spend a few moments dancing away
our hearts and souls . . .
Listen . . . do you hear it? . . .
The script! . . . My kingdom for a script! . . .
Again dredging up the dramaturgical model? . . .
Please, don't drop Goffman's name . . .
Without which you would be at a loss
for describing the dogeared pages of your little black book . . .
the doggerel of your little black dress . . .
Irrespective of something or other . . .
I think I know what you meant when you said what you said . . .
Confronting the silence at 3 AM . . .
We made new with old . . . and waited for the shore
to be washed along with the others . . .
Funny how things slip into cereal boxes
without much effort . . . (eight ball into the corner pocket) . . .
You were there when he/she dropped the ball
but proceeded nonetheless to run without it . . .
How ridiculous! . . . Disrobing in a fitting room . . .
Taking care to wipe off the counter
before the guests arrived . . . to speak in tongues . . .
Why so serious? . . .
This must be a transcription, yes? . . .
You are in the throes of minions . . . wishing for a timeout . . .
And now look who's here . . . три сестр . . .
Are you kidding with those accoutrements? . . .
You attended the play with an old jar? . . .
A magician gushed as he/she biked along the boulevard
where ghosts of past players
rehearsed on an empty stage brimmed with elliptical memories . . .
Irresponsible and aimless as an underhanded clock . . .
You saw the writing in the bread truck at 4 AM
regurgitating your lines as if he/she wanted to hear all about it . . .
But then, without warning . . .

Chekhov's Three Sisters at Cumbernauld Theatre Scotland (2016)

Screen Dump 368

Instead of musing over unwritables
you conjure an upper playground of happenstance
illuminated by naked citrus fruits . . .
stand-ins for understudies . . .
This will have to do . . . for now . . .
Bad decisions again slept in the car
somehow skirting the inevitable
reworked into the script . . .
There's really nothing that can be done with the extended family
preparing for a voyage that may ultimately prove problematic . . .
We'll have to weather that as well, yes? . . .
Try to bring it full-circle
not unlike the past when you bumped into the future at a kiosk . . .
It took your breath away . . .
You continue to believe in the words as transcribed . . .
Nothing wrong with that . . . I too will play the options . . .
Who knows what we will find in the emptiness after the credits? . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 367

On the beach in full-dress rehearsal . . .
reaching for the gold ring
the merry-go-round anything but . . .
wooden horses stuffed with players
jostling for a taste of the imagination . . .
Your offering scanned . . .
Why the strange nomenclature? . . .
Why now with the betting windows closed
and all eyes on the disguise? . . .
I too had no idea it was an enormous pity
what with the domino-effect in effect
being force-fed the far-fetched rationale . . .
You get what you pay for, yes? . . .

Alina Lebedeva

Screen Dump 366

On the phone with a ventriloquist . . .
imagining his/her unmoving lips . . .
the script - fully formed - trotting across the stage
the lighting subdued . . .
you decide to rebuild the equation
to reduce the gap . . . the inequity . . .
as if jargon were the reason . . .
Pick a time and a place . . . that's it . . .
You will know your lines . . .
Five stars . . . if that means anything . . .
Intact . . . tweaking the past . . . prefiguring the future, yes? . . .
Credentialed of course . . .
for those who trust the certificate . . .

Alina Lebedeva

Screen Dump 365

Do you think you're talking to a normal person here?
          - David Letterman

You have become a gardener of time
refusing to admit to theory . . .
to the notion of passage . . .
balancing world views on a pinhead
while cataloging the entrails of happenstance . . .
Hopes, dreams, paradigms, yes? . . .
come together as a resolution of sorts . . .
of elements of style . . . of chance . . .
the harmonics of each breath . . .
the sound deafening . . . as you confront silence . . .
unable to contribute anything as spellbinding
as emptiness . . .

David Letterman

Screen Dump 364

You made sure the sidings were empty . . .
The inexplicable explained in the margins
of chapbooks that have taken flight
as a way to appropriate images
from Facebook friends . . .
Squeezing through the mirror
in the fun house
is a fun thing to do on days when footnotes fail . . .
Do you feel as obligated as you once did? . . .
You telling me about your expertise
or what you took to be your expertise . . .
You certainly had your share
of forgotten moments . . .
when out of the blue you received applications
for the position you had yet to advertise . . .
It's all in the business cards, I guess . . .
A good thing you insisted on photo IDs . . .
The incidental music proved a fascinating backstory . . .
One that held the listener . . .
and prompted most to order seconds . . .

Diandra Forrest

Screen Dump 363

Instead a foray into electronic music . . .
You make do with the acoustics . . .
The true through kicks it up a notch
along the canal of your second chapter
which is pretty much good to go . . .
A low thin cloud invades the recording studio . . .
Again, the emptiness . . .
with a dark function that takes on the late '80s
as if you have isolated the indexes
which hold the order of players
as listed in the credits . . . which keep rolling . . .
There's really nothing to do here . . .
Does this ring a bell? . . .
Recall the boardwalk . . . and the hookups
when everyone smoked or seemed to . . .

Diandra Forrest

Screen Dump 362

Your Likert-type scale with its even number of anchors renders fence-sitting impossible . . . Not that anyone cares . . . Auditions for Player-of-the-Month continue . . . The constant gardener . . . The reassignment of persons places things . . . You are reassigned  . . . elsewhere . . . You apply for a sabbatical . . . to study ins-and-outs . . . redactions . . . Expungements like a good neighbor . . . The bus stations of your odyssey morph into empty rooms . . . Mannequins appear . . . and color-code themselves . . . to fit in . . . Implied otherness . . . is not an oft-used phrase . . . Quickly, the storm of texts arrives . . . uninvited . . . Reading the odd numbered chapters . . . evenly spaced . . . is one way to go . . . Questions from past players . . . hoping to score . . . choke your answering machine . . . Your mother appears and orders a chunk of suet for gołąbki . . . Porcelain-skinned Angela, the store owner's wife, reaches across the counter . . . with a piece of fruit . . . The window showcases bound, hanging cheeses . . . their sharpness . . . the entrapment of memory . . . squeezing through the fence . . . dealing . . . or not . . . A Proustian moment as joie de vivre . . .

Diandra Forrest

Screen Dump 361

. . . not trying has become the whole point.
          - Maggie Nelson, Bluets

Trafficking in hidden agendas with day-glo paint misses the point . . .
Restorative innocence quells the spirit . . .
and makes playing modal à la Bill Evans an eye-patch drama
as if licking the clothing off the fresco'd figures
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel . . .
awakening the bloom of lilacs . . .
tweaking photos to edit the story
you want Facebook friends to commit to memory . . .
Hamming it up . . . 20, 30, 40 years ago . . .
Your co-ham now gone, yes? . . .
his smile . . . an afterthought . . .
Why now the disambiguation
of shouldering the burden as we stumble along with
the happiness? . . . sadness? . . . indifference? . . .
of posting the past? . . .
I am just past pedaling . . . appropriating deep-throat lyrics
for an avatar aging out of a forgotten storyboard . . .
Not trying has become the whole point . . . and nothing but, yes?. . .

Screen Dump 360

Auditioning for the part of valet on the street
of unparked cars
you spin tales of wild nights . . . wild nights . . .
silencing intimaions of parochialism . . .
taking back memories of back seats
on bridges seen at dawn
from windows in apartments of unknown comics
whose eye contact is part of their shtick . . .
One-liners dressed to the nines . . .
on stages set exponentially . . . in powers of ten
by the enormously well-read
clutch one-way tickets
to what some call Palookaville . . .
just off the boardwalk in Atlantic City . . .
a city tied to your DNA with lemons
ripe for squeezing beneath camo'd trench coats . . .
Are you still struggling with clarity? . . .

Katarzyna Dembrowska

A Piece of Nothing

(reposted from Friday, September 21, 2012)

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.

Screen Dump 359

Of course there are other matters . . . but that's for later . . .
Right now I'm not sure . . . where . . .
If anything you can continue with pin spotting . . .
A minor miracle has come to the fore
and with it several outlandishments . . .
There's always room for more, someone said . . . I'm sure . . .
Look . . . you're the one for this . . .
The clandestine underpins will go undocumented . . .
and unnoticed . . . for the most part . . .
It's someone else's bailiwick, anyway . . .
someone else's Pilates routine . . .
Just the other day, in fact, if I'm not mistaken . . .
Indeed, you've been snapping pics for decades . . .
as unparalleled moments monopolized your unique features . . .

Kate Barry

Screen Dump 358

You are ticketed for going all the way on a one-way street
in Chapter 18 of Finnegans Wake
channeling Here Comes Everybody . . .
a borderline personality . . . happy only when pissed . . .
You hail an Uber and begin recording . . .
hurrying nothing into memory . . .
backstory pushing through the glass ceiling
dumping you into a seance
with Emily Dickinson . . . voiceover'd by Terrence Davies . . .
Why do passersby do that? . . .
Do what? . . .
Insert sleeved DVDs . . . barcode windowed . . .
into envelopes for return? . . .
No idea . . . closure, maybe? . . .
afraid to leave something undone? . . .
You spend too much time in an atelier
taking the wheel from court-appointed best-selling
ceramicist Edmund de Waal . . .
Even the Silk Road to clubs in Staten Island
has traps, pitted as it is with indiscretions . . .
and jabberwocky . . .
But I do so like to grope . . .
Yes, . . . and? . . .
And I cameoed in Chapter 3 of Psychopathology for Dummies . . .
giving head notes to a phrenology prof . . .
I aced the course . . .
You need to take a few days off . . .

Mary-Averatt Seelya in Finnegans Wake (circa 1970)

Screen Dump 357

Again, the denominator rears its hazy head . . .
A toxic flamboyance . . . waving a pinwheel . . . approaches the stage . . .
where lines will be drawn with mechanical pencils
by mannequins in see-through outerwear . . .
The problem of translation, yes? . . .
Zeroing-out the counters . . . that sort of thing . . .
while just above the fill-line you spot the missing pieces . . .
the missing persons . . . and play through the midpoint
with nothing in mind but the failed endgame . . .

Katarzyna Dembrowska

Screen Dump 356

Plotting the next stage of your odyssey
jump-starts ring-tailed fantasies from your days
in the driver's seat when you squiggled
for all you were worth . . . minus shipping . . .
Rent-A-Mime remains an option, yes? . . .
Spit-shining Crocs on those days when your tinnitus
chimes in may bring relief to those signed up
for your tour into the heart of darkness . . .
which continues to beat more than
one hundred thousand times a day . . .
in an ongoing quest for the eternal sunshine
of the ambient mind . . . where partying morphs
into a stone-faced commitment
on the deck of the Nellie and you toggle
understudies . . . trading tasty tidbits
for the something-or-other of strangers in full view . . .

Katarzyna Dembrowska

Screen Dump 355

Moments like these when you feel adrift:
you're here; you're not here . . .
your life . . . a novella . . . or flash fiction . . .
soundtracked by dissonance
as if beguiled by harpies
in the palms of pallbearers . . .
You wake with the urge to use
the phrase in the know . . .
As misdirection, perhaps? . . .
Consolation? . . .
You enter the fray
disabling the tried and true
with the words of oglers
vying for redacting . . . and blueness . . . again . . .
Which would you rather be? . . .

Screen Dump 354

The day . . . overcast and strangely industrial . . .
armpit saddlebags
with full-blown cholesterophobia . . .
tipping the go-between to encapsulate time and attendance . . .
rehearsing the commonplace
three standard deviations above the mean . . .
Have I been duped into thinking there will be another? . . .
All this posthumous posturing, pshaw . . .
Back then, I suppose it mattered . . .
But now with deadbeats in ascendance, forget it . . .
An octopus-in-training inking nonsense syllables
itching with false promises . . . Instagrammed with time-outs . . .
insinuating itself into the best of times
when no one is looking . . .
How so, you ask? . . .
I am filled with the music of DakhaBrakha
a Ukrainian group I first heard on an NPR Tiny Desk Concert . . .
The preferred costume of flâneurs? . . .
Flannel shirts of course flapping on clotheslines . . .
Could be the beginning of a novella . . .
where readers cut to the chase . . . and regret doing so . . .
Reading between the lines . . . you backstroke beyond the breakers
as if in a scene from Beneath the 12-Mile Reef . . .
CinemaScoped and soundtracked with a little help from Terry Riley's In C . . .
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the last line . . .
the one-trick pony has vanished . . .
with just enough time on the clock for some to call it a miracle . . .

Screen Dump 353

I've been Kerouwhacked!
          - Anon

A fly in my eminent domain . . .
or a cockroach . . . or a pole-sitter . . . or dog-walker for that matter . . .
I suppose it would take a village, yes? . . .
Kiosks awash with how-tos . . . and instructions
for un-dancing . . . tipping the valet
who tripped on his way back to the Wayback Machine
with lines from Proof:
Let X equal the quantity of all quantities of X.
Let X equal the cold.
It is cold in December.
Gwyneth Paltrow trading eights with Hannibal Lector . . .
Armpit hair be damned . . .
it all boils down to goop, yes? . . .
He/she got Kerouwhacked brainstorming . . .
or barnstorming . . .
or talking through the walk-through or walkabout or walkout . . .
The steps of a proof are murky.
The steps of a proof are snarky.
The steps of a proof are nestled all snug in their beds.
Let X equal their beds.
And then someone took a shine to someone
and that someone opened it up to someone else
and now someone will have to take the hit . . .
Always looking the other way . . .
as if a periscope popped up in the Middle Ages . . .
your middle ages . . . when your juke joints
began stiffening with a creaking
that shook you awake at 3 AM
to speed dial your doc
who was on the third hole . . . teeing off . . .
thinking about Lexi,
his daughter's jodhpur'd friend from riding class
but first, do no harm . . .
You're not waiting for the phoniness to end, are you? . . .
Please tell me you're not . . .
Please tell me you've handed in the assignment
and that you're OK with the seating chart
and with Einstein's definition of insanity
instagrammed by iGens or Y2Kers or GenZs or whatever they're called . . .
many of whom sport Muffy's Lean Cuisine gap-toothed grin
after she was bad-touched by Dilbert,
the animated crossing guard . . .
super heavyweight Xboxer . . . regular contributor to Emojipedia . . .
awaiting the release of his feel-good single,
I Just Wanted to be Friended on Facebook . . .
And now what? . . . The neighborhood clown
has just trotted out his/her yoga mat
and is about to contort in full view of a selfie stick
which have been shown to transmit STDs
when you ignore your mother's warning
to never leave the house without wearing clean underwear . . .

Walking the Cat

(reposted from Wednesday, February 16, 2011)

[audio]

He prefers to spend his days lazed
in the stuffy arms of a chair by the window
where he can keep an emerald eye
peeled for caricatures in the street.
His pleasures are unparalleled
though this morning he carried on
about the hot cereal being anything but.
Later, despite the coming snow
he insisted on our usual walk -
the side streets troubled by student drivers
at ten and two, the vacant lot flecked
with white. We stopped for a paper
which pleased him to no end, knowing
it would eventually wind up in his box.
He doesn't seem to mind old news.
On the way home he mentioned
the snow blower which I should have
had serviced in the fall, and his wish
to return to his pastime of compiling lists
of restaurants with take-out sushi
at reasonable prices for friends and acquaintances.
But you know how that goes.

Tara and Corleone

Screen Dump 352

It's here somewhere . . . it has to be . . . I just know it . . .
Wind chimes . . . catching the blizzard's tail . . .
and you . . . journaling your odyssey . . . now in its nth year . . .
worrying the lines . . . that deepen
with every footnote . . .
nostalgic for the look you had
at the beginning of the New Millennium . . . aka Y2K . . .
Do you regard past playaphiles with a smile? . . .
Should you? . . . You're asking me? . . .
You paid the price for their best behavior . . .
You made the best call . . .
We all make the best call . . . in the moment, yes? . . .
when roads diverge . . .
and the photo-montage of smiling faces . . .
Smiling Faces Sometimes . . .
Smiling Faces Sometimes . . . pretend . . .
The Temptations, yes? . . . Psychedelic Soul . . .
The Wayback Machine . . . back to the '70s . . .
If they can do it . . . I can do it . . .
with Jack in the Beanstalk's goose laying golden
eggs on your face . . . after-hours clubbing
seals . . . awaiting their ship . . .
brimmed with henna intimacy . . .
and the dead silence of phony phone numbers . . .
Who knew? . . . Certainly not you? . . .
Then the stumbling began . . .
the eyeliner underlined with stilettos
and role confusion . . .
Erik - son of Erik - Erikson's Moratorium . . . and the hiatus . . .
I retreat . . . into my children . . .
I am my children . . .
I become my children . . .
I become untouchable . . .
I accept my sentence . . .
my paragraph . . . the entire book . . .
a cautionary, confessional tale of two people . . . me . . .

Patti Smith

Screen Dump 351

A cautionary tale of the imagination propels a cold plunge
into night which ends with back alley anonymous embraces
down a stairwell . . . into the street . . .
notebook jotting your cross-country gambit . . .
The morning after faced head-on
with words-of-the-day about false eyelashes . . .
and the misunderstandings . . . of playing the part . . .
Yet it did indeed feel good . . . almost . . .
filtering as a go-between
hinged on recording the latest in Odyssey Tales . . .
in which faceless extras being fed fried chicken
audition for the part of a modern day Caligula . . .
bipolarism notwithstanding . . . the meds suffice . . .
charting clang associations
and that darn thread through the labyrinth . . .
I am circus . . .
I am three-ring circus . . .
I am four- five- . . . six-ring circus . . .
careful, of course, in the derangement . . .
The requisite basic disorientation
and the need to temporarily unshackle the mind
from ordinary semantic logic . . .
There is absolutely nothing fortuitous about this . . . or that . . .

Eugenio Recuenco

Screen Dump 350

Tripping on bad soft-core porn
you are hurled into impenetrable writing
full of postmodern gewgaws
and whirligigs . . .
a room lined with waxy lemonwood paneling
deep in the bowels
of an unheard of snow day . . .
I don't think I like where this is headed . . .
I'm dog-tired from shoveling
and misunderstood besides . . .
OK, we'll back it off a bit
and cut to the symbols
of the unconscious:
a heyday of Freudian slips
and Jungian archtypes
with your tendency to pigeonhole
taking a back seat in a rusted-out stretch limo
pinned by first-timers . . .
The driver is hosting an open mic
reading his/her latest installment from an
uncooperative smartphone . . .
and we're here on the cusp of ordering-out . . .

Screen Dump 349

New and a bit alarming . . .
          - Beauty and the Beast (2017)

The bloated script toggles your erotic other . . .
as if at a meeting of sorts with a chameleon-like character
who never was . . . and never will be . . .
pushing a Something-of-the-Month Club app
celebrating the opening of the New NY Bridge . . .
Scalpers run lines down blind alleys . . .
Friends with benefits bottleneck stage doors . . .
The millennium's magic beans, yes? . . .
A portal to The Time Before the Time That Was . . .
cryptic codes choke galley proofs thick with odyssey . . .
costumes . . . understudies . . . extras . . .
liner notes nuanced
with clues to your whereabouts . . .
last seen being whited-out by sheets of snow . . .

Bruno Aveillan

Screen Dump 348

The thought of Klein's patented riff on ultramarine
and the high romance of pursuit
saturate your jealousy of time despite a high wind advisory . . .
Gym rats crowd onto a blue continuum with feigned defeat
pained by the thought of your strange repetitions . . .
their ineptitude straining the windows with halftime images . . .
You were climactically rebuffed, yes? . . .
but who's to say why? . . . Certainly not page-turners
who know the morbidity of sand
slipping in and out of costume and into the role of street
only to be shunted off into a siding . . .
You, not unlike many, are mired in the phrase bald-face lies . . .
its etymology as elusive as imaginary numbers
skipping beats to the turntable's scratching . . .
An obsession with interludes will soon spell relief . . .

Anka Zhuravleva

Screen Dump 347

You were kept up at night by Joan Mitchell's Les Bluets . . .
A book on the terrace . . . at the entrance to Monet's cottage . . .
now a pile of pages . . .
ghost-knowledge . . . a mark of erudition . . .
passing the plate . . .
like Beckett's Film starring Buster Keaton . . .
who remained confused . . . throughout . . .
asking Beckett if he had eaten Welsh rarebit . . .
freely improvising the lines . . . the melody dictates rhythm
and shared admiration
of facticity and the poetization of form . . .
What are you talking about? . . .
Not quite sure . . . but little matter . . .
especially now . . . toeing the high wire . . .
though costumed we are recognizable . . . spooning a hard conceit . . .

Samuel Beckett and Buster Keaton

Screen Dump 346

Under a fermata . . . as if the book's deckle edge . . .
With amplification your silence will inhabit
the margins of this poem
not unlike a ripening of sorts . . .
perhaps indifferent-seeming . . . at first . . .
then a buttoning-up against the cold . . .
You have become unsuited for tangentials . . .
play-acting . . . breathing in . . . breathing out . . .
trying to convince yourself
and the other (named after the main character)
that this is the language of lost things . . .
that this too is the way it is . . . as good as it gets? . . .
tagged . . . archived . . .
to be studied . . . continued . . . forgotten . . .
He/she enters you . . . becomes you . . .
The odyssey as virgule . . .
Your first tea . . . miles away . . . down the hill . . .

Francesca Woodman

Screen Dump 345

A fairer House than Prose.
          - Emily Dickinson

Instead the twitching vocabulary blinds us
with its patina . . . demanding entry . . .
You have experienced this yourself . . .
[see Journal entry #365]
Without reassurance then . . .
How we manage to traverse March Madness
on a snowy March day . . .
your bad ear tap dancing to Keats's Impossible Music . . .
flirting with segues . . .
past players working an audience . . .
Meditation as foreplay, yes? . . .
You haven't refreshed the pages, that's why . . .
There's a blueness to it . . .
hypnotic . . . despite the trepidation of icosahedrons . . .
20 questions? . . .
And why the cormorants? . . .
Instead of rewinding . . . try resetting . . .
It doesn't matter . . . the directions are misleading . . .
off-putting . . . thick with errors . . .
Of course, he/she wants to re-up . . .
Relegated to inefficiency . . .
the oversight of an overnight of the 10th order . . .
Recheck the code . . .
You embody the Pleasure Principle . . .
skim Freud . . . flag Jung . . .
You deny insensitivity, yes? . . .
arguing instead the pressure points of the body . . .
Little wonder the insinuations . . .
The algorithms wax geometric on your eyelids
providing a welcome respite to food shopping . . .
I can only imagine . . .
Unclothed . . . wrinkle-proof . . .
escaping into the figurative
as if a swell carried you across the jetty
on an overcast day . . . brimmed with extras . . .
Regard the script, please . . .
You were well-versed given your days at the manhole . . .
with its triangulation of
hand . . . mouth . . . womanhole . . .
Is that it? . . .
Shape-changing . . . and leaving before the sun . . .
not unlike a vampire . . .
Reason #3 for why your mother told you . . .
If the sitcom rolls in, be noncommittal . . .
the honester you'll become . . .
These elements will magically take flight
as if from your scrapbook . . . minus 18 minutes . . .
where someone reminded you to hedge your bets . . .
And, of course, the buoyancy . . .
You insist numbness, but that wasn't it, was it? . . .
as you sucked on your lower lip
waiting for the Windows 10 Update . . .
You were lavish in your arrogance
and partied-on until the bubbles were pried open . . .
your odyssey threatening to be something other
than what it was? . . . is? . . .
You continue to catch the wave of enjambment . . .
fresh from Neverland . . .
prancing ostentatiously . . .
and this is good . . .
indented on the next line to show that the break
is the result of space limitations
not the actualization of the self . . .
which tries mightily to crash the servers of past players
who insist the seduction of bass lines . . . not baselines . . .
for no reason other than buy-backs . . .
a pumping segue to the requisite . . .
your meter hashtagged as a dream sequence
intuiting its possibility via ekphrastic verse . . .
laid out on a picnic table astride cobs of corn . . .
Of course, there will be afterthoughts . . . as always . . .
a celebration of the "I" and the "you"
straddled with nary a homestretch . . .

Emily Dickinson

Screen Dump 344

That the room is spinning . . . spinning . . . spinning . . .
Unhouse your face . . . and begin . . .
Time bookends itself . . .
You have made-do . . . and made-off
with the likes of nobody . . .
Evidence bespeaks versatility . . .
I have been verily amused by your analytics . . .
and antics . . .
Intentionality 'R' Us, yes? . . .
Arrange the chimes farther down the row . . .
You have crossed yourself
past the row houses
seemingly at ease with the accoutrements
being examined and codified
in the makeshift alcove . . .
Of course I remember the locomotive works
qua casino . . . where the slots
found a home . . . and await the starting gong . . .
Isn't it as if you were pre-empted? . . .
It wasn't written that way . . .
I don't know how it was written
but I know it wasn't written that way . . .
A switch must have occurred . . .
and flipped . . .
Nonetheless, you will be less remarked upon
astonishingly mild-mannered
with a ripple-effect to unfurl your socks
in full color
in full view
in full payment
in retrospect . . .
His/her latest novel plays upon dot matrices . . .
It's a Fulbright . . .
Imagine the centrifuge . . .
and the particle accelerator
gathering dust
especially in that moment of anticipated reactions . . .
The Law of Anticipated Reactions . . .
Perchance to dream? . . .
And yet a smidgen, perhaps? . . .
While you're up, could you please flip
the complications . . . of that encounter . . .
when the reds, whites, and blues partied hard? . . .
Trust me, it wasn't allegorical . . .
There was no dispensation involved . . .
further, happenstance was not called upon . . .
You would think the obvious
but the outcome surprisingly took on
a broader issue
and made its way . . . tail between its legs . . .
to the photomontage
as if nothing had happened . . .
We were caught off-guard . . .
All of us . . .
And it was a good thing to be in good company . . .
We got the story straight . . .
with the attendant ifs, ands, and buts . . .
Things can get muddy . . . as you well know . . .
especially with the threat of climate change
and Holly Golightly . . .
You do remember Cat, yes? . . .
The knitsch was knotted . . .
We were about ourselves
with five minutes left in the quarter
and leftovers left over . . .
Please review the conscious avenue of deceit . . .
It's always there . . .
I have your back . . .
Thank you . . . and be well . . .

Audrey Hepburn and "Cat" in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

Screen Dump 343

Caedmon, the illiterate cowherd, learned to sing in a dream . . . The seductiveness of the transcendent impulse, yes? . . . The words sometimes coming . . . sometimes not . . . sometimes the wrong words . . . No watcher at the gate, they enter the arena and the ears of others . . . their attempt to hurdle the ho-hum foredoomed to failure . . . You steel yourself . . . against what? . . . conformity? . . . obsolescence? . . . Free-wheeling afterthoughts stampede pageviews . . . provide just enough fluidity to prime a cold winter's night . . . the moon taking on all comers . . . in all weight classes . . . The concept of an afterlife . . . so day-before-yesterday . . . Are you still there? . . . or have you retreated into the deep woods of derivation? . . . Day-trippers choke supermarkets' aisles . . . fall victim to the trumpet's dissonance . . . without the bells and whistles . . . without the enthusiasm . . . of post-coital anaerobics . . . All for naught? . . . If push comes to shove, applicants will be required to submit their soliloquies in triplicate with a Sharpie . . .

Gemma O'Brien, the "Sharpie" Lady

Screen Dump 342

Your last time out was played . . . in mime . . .
good will hunting à la if-he-can-she-can . . .

a disastrous hookup . . . where less was more . . .
and more was even less . . .

with you lost among ceiling tiles
while outside Stevens's snowman orchestrated

nothing that is not there and the nothing that is . . .
And you ask . . . Why "now" the drama? . . .

Wendy Bevan