Screen Dump 413

You as mirror-image examine the usefulness/uselessness
of strung words . . . of words qua words . . .
words riding shotgun with ambivalence . . . the hours
spent with muted palette keynoting a declaration of independence . . .
a declaration of co-independence . . . co-dependence . . .
Your articles of confederation . . . of clothing as Exhibit A . . .
await sleep's hum . . . which may never come . . .
Your costumes of engagement rarely
uninteresting . . . especially now . . .
cutting along the dotted lines for the new you . . .
looking at the looks . . .
dull pencils dry brushes . . . sketching
nothing to memorialize the past . . .
your past as retreat into decaffeination shelved . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 412

Again you pantomime escape . . . sparklers crackling . . .
wading through shallows as if clarity
was chomping at the bit . . . to enter the frame . . .
the blameless obfuscation
of your notebook jottings pinning the tail . . .
How to explain the fascination . . .
the tacit approval of your blue books
brimmed with proofs of migratory
thoughts crowding out others
in the takeaway box of your imagination . . .
clocks desperate as once . . . oh so long ago . . .
You are plain-spoken whenever you enter
the ring . . . eyes focused on the prize-
of-the-moment . . . filling some gap
you don't remember from where despite
which you continue to go through the motions
matching the self . . . in the mirror
when with the sun you sign into your life-is-OK life . . .

Peter Lindbergh

Screen Dump 411

You're choreographing steps in the snow
despite a front heading your way . . . to be followed by another
on your heel toe toe heel . . . looking for the definition
of recalcitrant . . .
Pinterest pics color moments
of the biomechanical
outlined by Henry Gray in his 1858 Anatomy . . .
We each . . . reach . . . at some point
sketching caricatures with the straws we've drawn
pastels at sunset soundtracked by a tap routine
peddling elixirs while cheering barnraisings for startups . . .
The steps will eventually come . . . indeed . . .
scaffolded by drop-dead paradiddles . . .
Messages from elsewhere seem to have guided you thus far . . .

Chloe Arnold's Syncopated Ladies

Screen Dump 410

The semi-autobiographical appeals to you
despite its labyrinthine loopholes . . . acne scars . . .
and OCD underpins . . .
not unlike midnight snacking on reviews
on Rotten Tomatoes:
funny? . . . moving? . . . profound? . . .
plagiarized . . . and labeled a reformed other . . .
what with the painting hanging in
who knows whose apartment? . . .
Fanfare for the tone deaf, yes? . . .
A tour bus walks into a bar . . .
the order of finish . . .
irrelevant, your honor, Perry Mason said . . .
a faint skirmish . . . as when spent
he spent the rest of the evening
chatting up his etchings . . .
The straight dope . . . and all
whose predilection for protein
makes voyeurs gag . . . in reel-time
with anonymous ratings - still coming in I should add -
topping the list of vinyl . . .
turntablists scratching out
their untoward albeit melodious propositions . . .
You improved in black and white . . .

Lady Bird's Saoirse Ronan

Screen Dump 409

Once upon a time on a sidewalk, yes? . . .
he/she pointing out something to understudies
who practice to perfection between takes
with the chainlink buffering . . .
Another time between the lines . . .
with the same MO . . .
The waiter returns with a to-go box . . .
The scene shifts to reel-to-real . . .
The moment skips past thinking snow . . .
You are called out for howling at the entrées . . .
sheltered behind the runner-up's ear . . .
This too will be memorialized . . . Imagine that! . . .
The bed is a no-no . . . as if in the first stanza . . .
He/she could hear the silence before
you broke it off for independent study . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 408

You practice a type of echolocation . . . labeling
the wherewithal of former selves linked
to former players . . . their bodies semantic templates . . .
Demarcation aside
the tags echo stories in foreign tongues
with words to pique the interest of eavesdroppers . . .
Meaning becomes metaphor
as the queue populates . . .
tracing and retracing lines of engagement
which from a distance resemble
the structures in which you have spent your captioned life . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 407

You engage a theory of aesthetics . . .  become a blank space
in costume . . . under various guises . . .
narrate fragments of invisible houses for shadowers
in moments of silence . . . immerse yourself
in the ice-cold stream of a character . . .
the ice-cold theatricality of days . . . breathing life
and nuance into words
with enough awareness to evolve the character
through subtle ongoing performances
that could be hawked as how-tos for a life worth living . . .
YouTube is always handy, yes? . . .
Either way, you could use something in the distance . . .
something to dream perfect numbers as such . . .
Catastrophe Theory as public code . . . as public code breaker . . .
splattering negative numbers all over trending paradoxes . . .

Gabriele Rigon

Screen Dump 406

As if partnering in the process of distributing paint
on an uncomprehending surface . . .
the insinuation was an of course phenomenon
the enormity of which was enough to zero-out the counters
maintained by slow readers courting time slow reading
worrying the artless passages . . .
You maintained a page count
and tweaked the lines that peeked through
the deconstruction
misdirecting the watchers at the gate . . .
Later you greeted the inexperienced
with a template for testing the waters without smartphones . . .
You wished otherwise . . . perhaps . . .
and this of course was not the first-time . . . triggering points
locked in formaldehyde for artful dodgers
vying for a piece of your pie . . .

Gabriele Rigon

Screen Dump 405

The evidentiary moment fuels your ah-ha . . .
the excitement filling in the blanks with the names of identity theives
while sweet-talking desserters . . .
Your words . . . bittersweet . . . seduce the far-fetched . . .
A pared-down Proustian approach
scans images . . . free-writes shortcuts
to the enigmas of entrapment . . . of standing-room intimacies . . .
No need to spend time call-waiting . . .
The costumes will color in their own lexicon . . .

Liliana Karadjova

Screen Dump 404

Mentioning the unmentionable was a mistake, yes? . . .
A Type II error . . . when players
with see-through credit lines are admitted - or, committed - with F-scale
aficionados . . . and guaranteed a place in the penultimate playoffs . . .
Again, you regress to costuming the unintended . . .
highlighting misdirection
with the fourth-quarter ticking down
as if YouTubers in roundabouts spun your nom de plume
with an elementary logic . . .
Calling the shots in the kaleidoscopic manner of the mentally ill . . .
Star-struck triglyceriders on the storm . . .
Go-betweens doing bright-white lines with sans serif junkies in triplicate . . .
It's not anonymous, anymore, I mean . . . all pitter-patters, if you will? . . .

Lolitaesque

Screen Dump 403

So the analysis continues
picking through the odyssey's detritus
undaunted by the future's trailer
pastiched scenes stampeding lesser inklings . . .
you . . . convinced of their value . . .
of the value of the gems hidden
in the wordplay . . .
the run-on sentences
the incomplete sentences
the closed mouths of intermediaries
enough to bankroll another journey
into the past life of . . .
the past lives of . . .
awaiting the end run . . . that awaits . . .
the scrimmage
the scrum . . .
as if raising a pole barn against time
during off-seasons
with beards-a-plenty is enough . . .
is more than enough . . .
to satisfy the insatiables at the back door . . .
I am who I am . . .
You are who you are . . .
We are who we are . . .
introducing the next player
the next contestant
the next confidant
dollied . . . with head akimbo . . .
the uppercut beginning its ascent . . .
the paradigm shifting . . .
Zoom lens atop drone . . .
Standing down
scripted for the takedown
yellowing . . .
The elders . . . next . . . searching out
tender limbs on which to place
their hard-earned words . . . so yesterday . . .

Rooney Mara in A Ghost Story (2017)

Screen Dump 402

That the current overuse of bespoke is an example
of semantic drift triggers memories of warm summer nights
when you would rehearse unlisted numbers
with a niggling exactitude . . .
hurling backseat drivers back to their Once upon a time . . .
The elements of style reeked of insouciance . . .
Little matter though . . . your redacted paper trail
exposed the bellies of the beasts you'd encountered
as you odyssey'd past the stop signs of endearment . . .
Center stage was occasionally occasioned . . .
You backpedaled as best you could, yes? . . .
with little effort to upstage the obvious . . .
We're plugging leaks choruses through most of the recital space . . .
This back-and-forth-back-and-forth upends many
as Valentine's Day swoops down upon a newhire standin
with Out to Lunch cred . . .

Linda Evangelista

Overnight at the Ventriloquist's

(reposted from Wednesday, June 1, 2011)

His voice is everywhere.
His knowledge of cork vast.
He talks about his plans
to retire to a walled city
with underground labyrinths
inhabited by used car salesmen
posing as television personalities.
He will not take No for an answer.
Jobs are scarce, he says,
from under the rug.
Too many words, too many words.
He whistles in three-part harmony
and keeps five balls in the air.
Halfway through the evening,
he saws a woman in half
while drinking a glass of water.
The other guests continue
to arrive in suitcases.
We fall under his spell.
Dinner is served by candlelight.
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.
We are shown to our rooms with flashlights.
Later that night, it begins to snow -
thick, indifferent flakes swirl down
like confetti in a snowglobe.

Screen Dump 401

Famously lingering . . . after hours
with pages of questions pulsing with anticipation . . .
But what of the rendezvous? . . .
Surely it will play itself out
despite the sluggishness of infinitives . . .
Suppose we consider the portal as a revamp . . .
as an exegesis of odysseys past? . . .
Some will soon age out
but others will doubtless raise a ruckus
if for no other reason than the discrepancies between the script
and your play acting . . .
costume changes notwithstanding . . .
Yet another example of explanatory fiction, yes? . . .

Craig McDean

Screen Dump 400

Now the parsimonious agitation of the rain, yes? . . .
Downtempo'd . . . the street cradling the day
when a smile - doing its best - passes
and you're earwormed . . . Sia's Destiny with Zero 7. . .
I lie awake / I've gone to ground . . .
Thoughts of Color Me This
crowd out the other . . .
I'm bending time getting back to you . . .
Wait . . . wait . . . hit pause . . . I need to rethink this . . .
You know exactly what I'm talking about . . .

Sia Furler and Sophie Baker

Screen Dump 399

You imagine someone listening
to your delivery . . .
A smile goes to your head . . .
and now you're being
carried along by the irregularities in this latest drama
which will air
without much of anything . . .
as soon as . . .
Something is forcing itself upon you . . .
Some just cry while they drive . . .
Surely you can adjust the rate of tumble, yes? . . .
Imagine, if you will . . .
But then, try to keep it in the moment . . .
especially when you plagiarize additional memories . . .

Serge Barbeau

DSM-XYZ

The days mislaid . . . buried under Netflix's Alias Grace with Thigpen and Cleckley interviewing Jane/Eve and Joanne Woodward snagging an Oscar for The Three Faces of . . . A few years later, Sally Field's Sybil fuels diagnoses of multiple personality disorder - now dissociative identity disorder - and Sally walks away with a PrimeTime Emmy . . . while still later, Shirley Mason, the Seventh Day Adventist on whom Sybil is based, admits to faking the whole thing to get the attention of her therapist, channels Mary Shelley, and flees into the shadows of a condo on Lake Geneva . . .

Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve (1957)

Screen Dump 398

You ask the remote to select . . . the plotless moment
when all are suspended
and someone wheels in the midday
as if a restart is expected . . .
far from the principles . . . or principals . . .
of the madding crowd
sharpening stubs of pencils
to prove . . . to no one in particular . . .
that the river will indeed flow
in no direction home . . .
Why bother rescinding the to-do list
when the day will close black and white? . . .
The point being well-taken
by those who are otherwise clueless when offered a buyout . . .
You know this, though, yes? . . .

Gabriele Rigon

Screen Dump 397

It's not as if you chose letter box format . . .
One day it was there . . . piggy-backed on a cold front
that moved up your arm to your shoulder . . .
No toggling out of it either . . .
these manifestos of the body - lyrical experimental satirical -
bring flu-like symptoms
unhappiness as prose fragments
of wellness and illness . . .
Your sense of odyssey . . . quietly taking shape
on the corner of an ice storm . . .
You thought you would spend the day with a Sharpie . . .
The sad farmhouses in your dreams
are the stacked-up nightmares of previous lives . . .
Your distrust of the obvious, yes? . . .

Jarek Kubicki

Screen Dump 396

. . . warm and present yet far away.
          - Donald Hall, The Selected Poets

Also-rans crowd the podium
circumnavigating locutions decked out in the school colors
texting what can be had of the moment . . .
The venue virtual . . .
The commonplace suspect . . .
You arrive . . . trailing apps . . . as if reinventing the obvious . . .
I am lax . . . and begin paging through . . .
You footnote the theoretical medieval clothing of the new-you . . .
Awaiting your lines to be inscribed in stone . . . you insist . . .
We are all forgotten . . .

Bruno Walpoth

I Am On Top Of Things

I dream myself a spotter of weight-bearing fantasies . . .
my dialogue a monologue of graphic comics
and half-whispered promises laced with nonsense syllables . . .
I am on top of things . . . deluded . . .
imagining the world as mirror-image . . .
as far-fetched deadline . . . indifferent, colorless . . .
improprieties squeezing through the holes in my story . . .
paper cuts and hypotheticals . . .
a collage of weak passwords
legacied for shadowers of REM sleep . . .
Counting to the tenth power . . . within which . . .
if that's what you want . . .
The whole truth . . . and nothing but . . .
tap dancing . . . whistling while I work . . .
taking the long way home . . .
My notebook fills with snow . . .
Four score and something . . . a death . . . in the family . . .
Off-days the string quartet in my back pocket
is all but played out . . . in three-quarter time . . .
Exes . . . marking the spot . . . steal second . . .
and more . . . transposing the theme of Lassie,
chock-full of unclaimed funds . . .
sitting there . . . festering(?) . . . in the lap of jargon . . .
with no one worth emailing
about the sinister drop . . . in temperature . . .
A pound of something . . .
Tragedians backed-up at the roundabout
conjure audience implants
with places to go . . . people to be . . .
reworking the boundaries of ancient-Greek mythos
with aspiring telecommuters . . .
I brood Bacon's comment about the violence of paint . . .
What better way? . . .
Did you think you had thought of everything? . . .

Bruno Walpoth

Screen Dump 395

The pedagogy of your body sits in the front row . . .
open-legged . . . anticipating the rapture
trickling through the web of microphones
implanted in your flesh . . .
A garage band of soft stones retraces the images
of your odyssey drawn by headliners once removed . . .
You are quick to note the score . . .

Kate Moss

Screen Dump 394

You dream yourself a spotter of weight-bearing fantasies . . .
your dialogue a monologue of graphic comics
and half-whispered promises laced with nonsense syllables . . .
You are on top of things . . . imagining the world as mirror-image . . .
improprieties squeezing through the holes in your story . . .
paper cuts and hypotheticals . . . a collage of weak passwords
legacied for shadowers of REM sleep . . .

Rana Hamadeh in The Sleepwalkers (2016)

Screen Dump 393

Your garden is a myth of drones rocking in the back seat . . .
following the dotted line . . . lining up
for handouts . . . hand-me-downs . . . handsome Johnnies . . .
Counting to the tenth power . . . within which . . .
if that's what you want . . .
The whole truth . . . and nothing but . . .
tap dancing . . . whistling while you work . . .
taking the long way home . . .
Your notebook fills with snow . . .
The world a far-fetched deadline . . . indifferent, colorless . . .
Four score and something . . . a death . . . in the family . . .

Alique

On Frankenstein's Birthday

          for Mary Shelley

The powerful engine reanimates the commonplace
and transports you to Doug Adams's Galaxy
where you shop for groceries and tend the fire.
A little red helps wipe out the nightmare of cubes.
You'd think solutions would drop from the sky
but instead squirrels on drifts ignite messages
from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
You recall taking off in secret,
traveling incognito around the countryside,
not unlike Torquato Tasso,
whose alleged schizophrenia rescued him
from a life without love.
Did Percy too stir with an uneasy, half vital motion
when you were out at all hours
with soft brush, dark crayon, and rice paper?
Were the rubbings a hit in the cabin on Lake Geneva?

Bernie Wrightson

Screen Dump 392

Off-days the string quartet in your back pocket
is all but played out . . . in three-quarter time . . .
Exes . . . marking the spot . . . steal second . . .  and more . . .
transposing the theme of Lassie, chock-full of unclaimed funds . . .
sitting there . . . festering? . . .
in the lap of jargon . . .
with no one worth emailing
about the sinister drop . . . in temperature . . .
A pound of something . . .
Tragedians backed-up at the roundabout
conjure audience implants
with places to go . . . people to be . . .
reworking the boundaries of ancient-Greek mythos
with aspiring telecommuters . . .
I brood Bacon's comment about the violence of paint . . .
What better way? . . .
Did you think you had thought of everything? . . .

Cesar Ordoñez

Screen Dump 391

You've hit an orchestrated snag . . .
The ancient phobia reappearing with Leopardi's Hodge-Podge . . .
Evidently the time was set . . . and now, the retracing . . .
as in La Familia de Celilia . . .
accompanied by what if a much of a which of a wind . . .
Here's the windup . . . and the pitch (as black as) . . .
sending it out of the park and into the maelstrom of great silence . . .
with hey, diddle, diddle, / the cat and the fiddle . . .
with the cats . . . and the fiddles . . . at 10 AM on August 12, 1958 . . .
Art Kane for Esquire . . .
Not inclined to venture out into the drifting
Silent Snow, Secret Snow . . . above all . . . a secret . . .
Thinking - metaphorically - how disturbed one must be to do that, yes? . . .
But let's not go there . . . Who (in fact) killed Cock Robin? . . .
Circa 1950s . . . the black and white Stromberg Carlson
and the opening scene of Robin's arrow speeding into a tree . . .

Art Kane's, A Great Day in Harlem, 1958

Screen Dump 390

A yellow submarine's sonar . . . pings . . .
somewhere . . . with directions to what? . . . last minute specials? . . .
The oddments are such that we could enjoy the respite
but this too is back-burnered
along with notes from Illuminations . . .
Sine waves sign in . . . trigger dance fever . . .
filling the silence with names . . . faces . . .
photomontages of parties . . . of the first . . . and second part
emailing jpgs to lovers . . . and other strangers . . .
Keep the words coming, he/she said . . .
strolling among the pines . . . on a winter afternoon . . .
worrying fonts . . . as if the image . . . you and I know this . . .

Dorith Mous

Screen Dump 389

Choosing tautology to express emptiness
your erotic other's tacit acceptance
waits in the wings . . . primping . . . with extras
Uber'd in for the shoot
for MoMA's History of Hooking . . .
a trailer on the set of Boardwalk Empire . . .
dioramas, day trips, drive-bys, past priors . . .
You examine the separation
that informed your odyssey . . .
an escapist's myopia . . . scheduled to air
on subsequent Tuesdays in February . . . or March . . .
with one-night stands costumed as dreams
of uncooperative dentists retrofitted
for the unbeaten hometown debating team
from your up close and personal
when you were stuck in traffic for over a year . . .

Charlotte Strode

Screen Dump 388

What is it that I love in loving you?
          - St. Augustine, Confessions

An 18-wheeler's list of gritty demands rear-ends your odyssey
as underperformers face the dilemma of Cup or Core . . .
Eyeshadowed eyes follow in the afterglow of first-come first-serveds . . .
Omissions make worthwhile the feel-good . . .
as it gushes . . . strangely satisfying . . .
with only-child enthusiasm . . .
Buried beneath the paper trail are instructions for the real . . .
which you repress for later parsing
by the I'll-see-your-twenty-and-raise-you-twenty
grammarians emeriti
who talk more . . . but settle for less . . . 50 minutes later . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 387

But what about de-composing . . . a poem, for example,
as if from across the room the mirror images of yes and no? . . .
You think infinite . . . bundled with song as a way out . . . as an escape route . . .
the narrative color-coded for easy access . . . the point of view . . .
again, an empty room . . . filling with strangers . . .
The neighborhood unwilling to disgorge a parking space
though in such moments one sometimes stumbles upon an area of respite . . .
a wilted exemplar of geologic time . . .
Elsewhere . . . the obvious . . . or not so . . .
to make it sound as if it had just been thought up . . .

Ellen von Unwerth

Screen Dump 386

By that I mean treading water . . .
You know, to tread water . . . as praxis . . .
But then, he/she was disheveled . . .
jaywalking . . . and . . .
moments later . . . entered a CVS . . .
as if subscribing to the notion
that everything can be tabled . . .
should be tabled . . .
Equations . . . and what have you . . .
The passivity will eventually get to you
but I feel a kind of obligation . . .
a sense of commitment . . . notwithstanding . . .
Why did you stick that in? . . .
No idea . . . perhaps equivalence . . .
the awareness of defiance . . .
A tad heavy handed, yes? . . .
I've lost the sense of comma-placement . . .

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 385

You appeared unruffled at the dress rehearsal
running the gauntlet of valets wielding remotes . . .
I found it hard to believe that replacements were forbidden . . .
The whole thing was chancy, but exciting, yes? . . .
You made a go for it but ended up staring
at snowflakes through the window of his/her bedroom
filled with rococo . . . which I must say says it all . . .
The elegant attentions were, at least for the moment,
a recognition of deferral despite the extended warranty . . .
You did opt for that, didn't you? . . .

Your naiveté cranked to eleven you declaimed

that you had inherited the silliness

from the French avant-garde . . . which you had been
introduced to by a substitute teacher in second grade
whose name was among those listed somewhere . . .

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 384

The internal disarray has become less troubling, yes? . . .
The storm impends . . .
its wheels out of sync with the Zeitgeist . . .
And you, forking pasta on a flurried afternoon
in late November, chat up kinetic theater
with changelings hiding in Jane Austen's lines . . .
But what of the small dairy-farming communities
whose zigs and zags call less
for explanation than for diagnosis? . . .
Are they fodder for your tweets
or for your unreasonable notebook? . . .
Take for instance the gestural brush strokes
or the old typewriter font with its enigmatic nothingness
catching purchase with casting calls
while a restorer guesses Leonardo . . .
repaints the entire background ivory-black
and raises the bar to $450 million . . .
We await befuddlement . . .
It will come . . . as offshore Evinrudes take turns . . .
I am aghast . . . at something . . .

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi

The New Religion

That culture is becoming "the" culture.
          - Tad Friend, Getting On

You wake to a loopier world and friend request from Big Pharma.
Not unlike the Neanderthal's trephining blades, yes?

The Mom and Pop on the corner is no more a gray flannel suit
with homburg and pipe.

Whatever happened to The Young Philadelphians
shinnying up the senior partner pole slathered with grease?

Survey Says T-E-C-H-N-O-L-O-G-Y.
Fifty-something "Grampa" Buzz's flip-flopped new boss is young enough

to be his son's son. . . . Grampa Buzz can't afford to get laid
off . . . but he will . . . and his salary will buy five smarter

twenty-something brogrammers unencumbered by stodgy college degrees.
Their expertise's half-life is down to three years.

Who writes code anymore anyway . . .
now that off-the-shelf APIs are ready to do the heavy lifting?

It's all there in the cards.
And just what cards might those be?

Golden Cosmos

Screen Dump 383

The mark of my poetry is the constant regret that human experience
eludes description.
          - Czesław Miłosz

The insincerity of huge red clown shoes trips up
your lip-sync of David Bowie's Oh You Pretty Things . . .
as foreign tongues dip into bowls of chowder
laid out with candy-ass smiles
and free tickets to movie theaters featuring blank screens
awaiting flash-in-the-pan fictional lives . . .
Bicycling figure-eights between goalposts
with sustain pedal engaged . . .
the buffering . . . the artisanal teas . . .
the Nabokovian butterflies pinned with day
passes to wooded paths strewn with incomplete sentences . . .
It's all shtick, yes? . . .
Wandering lonely as a cloud pits you against bulls
in china shops with intricate archways
spelling out the history of underground go-betweens . . .
You have a knack for note-taking
which bodes well for fine-tooth combing the intricacies
of personal spaces known only to others once removed . . .
You will be called upon . . . I just know it . . .

Screen Dump 382

I'm stuck in a paraphrase . . . your paragraph
a faux antidote . . . capturing moments coalescing
at the bottom of a black hole . . .
Dealmaker or dealbreaker? . . .
The endpoint the same, yes? . . .
I mean when was the last time you considered
the combination of letters headbutting you
as we speak . . . or . . . as we try to communicate
with signage? . . . To dawdle in such dress
as they are used to wear, indeed! . . .
Forget that it's all there . . . all the remnants of your odyssey
when you were given a second chance
to guide the motorcycle through the cones
set out by the Emperor of Ice Cream . . .

Screen Dump 381

Parenthetical interruptions . . . exhausting . . . you try to avoid them
and marvel at the perfection of the opening line:
It's late already, five or five-thirty . . .
You concede that the search for meaning is senseless . . .
a convex mirror type of phenomenon
as jarring as verbal abstraction when playing hangman . . .
What about transitions? . . .
Rarely abrupt . . . and this I guess is good . . .
You have been known to confuse yourself . . . and others . . .
There is some solace, however, in putting on an overcoat
reeking of a story critiqued by oddsmakers . . .
And what does it remind you of? . . .
It may take a while, with all the red tape, but rest assured
it will happen . . . say the informants . . .
most of whom would flounder in a stream of consciousness . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 380

Post-coital hot tubbing with mannequins
unleashes half-baked half-overheard conversations plagiarized
from footnotes of wannabes miming cocksure readers
whose bar-hopping is choked
with arms, legs, glass eyes, and false positives . . .
Your intrepid unscripted words continue to trickle into daylight
while your profile gets a fresh coat of paint
and your shopping cart checks itself out . . .
And these are only a few of your favorite things? . . .

Paolo Rovesi

Screen Dump 379

The whole thing innocuous . . . losing the unfollowing . . .
the body picking through the remains of the day
confused by puzzle-me-this . . . a vanishing point
to ask again if this is enough . . . if this is enough . . .
Waking with the rain . . . texting for balance . . . in Halloween
costume with motorcycle boots . . . and treasure trove
of gandy dancers laying track to the outermost house . . .
its windowless room a catalyst for your re-readings
of open-ended questions submitted by student interns . . .
I will return to this . . .

Craig McDean

Screen Dump 378

You become the person you were scripted to become . . .
despite your edits . . . your Lottery tickets . . . your season passes . . .
your photo ops . . . There's no telling
who will be next in the queue
that stretches along the potheaded macadam
back to your once upon a time . . . taken out
in the third quarter . . . treated with condiments -
at least they looked the part - and released into a bullpen
with nose ring and selfie stick . . .
You would have thought the colors . . .
but that wasn't on today's menu . . . or in today's cards
falling like leaves with ramifications for droves of peepers . . .
rewinding the tape . . .

Rebekah Heller

Screen Dump 377

Of course, there will be moments . . . lost moments . . .
moments with voices . . .
infrasound voices . . .

and the seventh function of language
if you catch my drift . . .
Bipolarity 'R' Us . . .

Twittering is speechless . . . it goes without saying, yes? . . .
Picking through drops . . . imagining seriation
as if happenstance were ritual . . .

The elliptical exuberance of go-betweens
who chime in at the slightest provocation . . .
It's not the endpoint I imagined . . . not at all . . .

Can you please sit still for the rapidographic moment? . . .
At least for the tabloid elements
which jostle themselves senseless? . . .

Most are stuck in enjambments . . . for that matter . . .
awaiting mediation . . .
awaiting colorization . . .

Please try to stay within the lines
or you too will feel the mounting hum . . . I mean . . .
Far too many have come forth

with iridescent confessions from odysseys past . . .
Too late? . . . Your momentary lapse is ineffectual
and will be returned . . . you weren't were you? . . .

So . . . why now persist in juxtapositions
when you know . . . better than most . . . what can happen
at the water cooler? . . . elsewhere? . . .

The repetition . . . stifling . . . or maybe not?. . .
Dunno! . . .
I've encountered it on my trips outside the strike zone

with a full count . . . and two men on . . .
Keep a stiff upper lip . . . Huh? . . .
Reduce the map to palatable units . . .

Then an end run surcease of sorrow . . .
Devil may care or (clause)trophobia . . .
This will be written up . . . and saved as diagonal grammar

in a foolishly embroidered manner . . .
and added to the menu . . . at the last minute . . .
A losing battle? . . . Who said that?. . .

Notwithstanding . . .
Everyone is getting antsy . . . over whatever . . .
The latest release . . . edifying! . . .

The imagined consensual . . . alive and well
in afterlife's timeouts . . .
in afterlife's reflections . . .

Jarek Kubicki

Screen Dump 376

You worry the blurriness of closed circuit
the 24/7 blurriness
with newbies meandering in and out of frames . . .
striking poses in
weblike food courts . . . ominous kiosks . . .
yet to be wikipedia'd . . .
Descending into the maelstrom of a mall
carded with BOGOs
you continue bluepenciling the first draft
of your long-awaited collected works
soon to be short-listed
despite dead links . . . bit players . . . and berms
popping up . . . in your wake . . . in and out of thin air . . .
All tried-and-true, yes? . . .

Craig McDean

Screen Dump 375

Your loom of straw men and straw women as incantations . . .
backroom fist bumps
with players lining up for takeaways
which - let's not kid ourselves - are compromised simulacra
of authentic knockoffs . . .
But hey there's nothing wrong with endings that fit . . .
Accessibility is third party . . . and the road the Wild West . . .
Talking heads feature . . . with cauldrons, no less . . .
Stick around . . . there's more . . .
When did you say you last visited the Palace of Memory? . . .
It can happen . . .
Dealing from the bottom of the Old Maid deck, I mean . . .
Perhaps you are one and the sane, yes? . . .
Know what I mean? . . .
Skip to my Lou . . . then tell me
why you've decided to shadow the alphabet . . . just in case . . .
I am before . . . and after . . . again . . .
Your BFF wants to know the true extent
of your incalculability . . . minus underpinnings . . .

Per Zennstrom

Screen Dump 374

A beer and pizza run through a cemetery
segues to a thought bubble . . . filled with nuance
and dissonant furniture music . . . while you
unfazed by the URLs of unscripted moments
unfoldered . . . cranked up . . .
entertain ghosts with headstoned gymnastics
and comedic extirpations
linked to incidentals [citation required] . . .
The party's infinitesimal talk prompts a shift
with unspooled punctuation
and 20 grammar-like sundries . . .
top bottom . . . bottom top . . . no hint of the uncommonest
moments yet to come . . . before a patdown of standins
auditioning for a 2 AM shoot . . .

Diandra Forrest

Screen Dump 373

That scene with the untied shoe . . . pointier
than I would have imagined
following it down the hall
and into the fourth room on the left
with him/her believing in the grandiloquence
of unpunctuated lives
that arrive with box lunches to boot . . .
and you fast forwarding to FaceTime . . .
infinitely looped . . . costumes
favoring triple dips . . . on triple decks . . .
in triple headers . . .
enigmatic words silenced in bell jars
bandied in and out of SROs . . .
And where are we, again? . . .
And why am I having trouble remembering
the prize in the Cracker Jack box?
the prize from your brief foray into flash fiction?
The trance-like atmosphere of being short-listed
surely en plein air
as spellbinding as the watchers at the gate . . .
encumbered with semicolons . . .

Abbie Cornish as Fanny Brawne in Jane Campion's Bright Star (2009)

In the Hall (House?) of Mirrors (Glass?)

(reposted from Sunday, June 24, 2012)

How did her life live itself without her?
          - Jonathan Safran Foer

Sketch the images in the mirrors to preserve them.
To show them to others.
To share them.
Sketch them quickly.
The way your art teacher had you do it.
Forget about getting it right. (Whatever that is.)
Forget perfection.
You have 20 minutes.
For what?
Never mind, just sketch.
Do any of the images remind you of people you know?
Or people you knew?
People who play - or played - a role in your drama?
Think about the people and their delicate lives.
How their delicate lives impacted your delicate life.
How your delicate life impacted their delicate lives.
How whatever they did impacted whatever you did.
Whatever you chose to do.
Don't point a finger.
You are the architect of you.
You are how you are.
Not how you should be or could be.
But are.
The Captain of Your Soul.
Captain America.
O Captain! My Captain!
Captain Midnight.
Captain Morgan.
Captain Hook.
The Captain and Tennille.
Keep sketching, please.
Are you beginning to recognize the people in the images?
They're in there.
And if you can, think about the questions.
What questions?
The questions you've written on index cards.
Think about the order of questions.
The questions you've been dying to ask the people.
The people in the images.
The people you know.
The people you knew.
The people you don't know but would like to know.
Irrespective of how shallow the questions may seem.
How seemingly shallowly secular.
But isn't there another way?
No. This is the only way.
You wanted feedback, yes?
Doesn't everyone want feedback?
How am I doing?
How do I look?
Do you like what I've done?
Where am I going?
When will I get there?
How will I know when I've gotten there?
You've come here to ask the questions.
To ask the people in the images the questions.
The questions on the index cards.
Surreptitiously?
Perhaps, but necessary.
Wait. I think I see a dog in one of the images.
Perfectly acceptable.
What?
Animals are perfectly acceptable images.
Yes, it's a pit bull. It's his/her pit bill.
A white pit bull with a black eye.
He/she called him Joe or Joseph or something like that.
Friendly.
Please. Keep sketching.

Francesca Woodman

Screen Dump 372

Your life . . . and its iterations . . . are out to lunch . . .
shopping for winter boots . . . which doubtless will remain boxed
despite the inevitable shadowing us . . .
the tarts and torts . . . the pajama'd players . . . queuing up to cameo
in your off-color-coordinated dream . . .
An open question opens to abstraction
as a day-trader's phish for trinkets
litters the path with the insistence of hooplas . . .
stanzas rewound to target voyeurs . . .
You again eye the rafters . . . as do we all . . . and continue . . .
dog-eared how-to manuals offering salvation whenever you chime in . . .
Dim the light . . . play out the hand . . . if you must . . .

Annie Clark aka St. Vincent

I HAD THOUGHT THINGS WERE GOING ALONG WELL

by John Ashbery (1927-2017)

But I was mistaken.

* from As We Know (1979)

iBlue*

Never trust alabaster cockatoos
or blue-light specials . . .

Answering the door
with blueberry muffin on your face . . .

At least in your electra glide in blue eyes . . .

You highlight . . . the (pen)ultimatum . . .
in red yellow blue . . .

Memories flood the five minutes . . .
both of you blue-penciling the script . . .

Whatever it is . . . will be massaged . . .
like the donor's heart . . .
to answer the questions that have been airdropped
and to be corrected analyzed blue-penciled
and returned . . . for revision . . . later . . . in the month . . .

Bob Dylan's North Country Blues . . .

You have become true north . . . again . . .
Gerrymandering the neighborhood . . . in provocative teamwear . . .
Usernames on the back in iridescent blue . . .

I've got Blue Light Specials on the brain . . .

Your dreams of curating an exhibit of shopping carts
ooze seduction . . .
an overdosing on blue pigment . . .

Life deserves an essay question . . .
An essay question . . . with extra time
and additional blue books . . .

My dreams paralyzed . . .
demanding answers to questions
orphaned in blue books . . . long ago . . .

Miles' Blue In Green jostling for attention
alongside your students
omniscient . . . indifferent . . . whatever . . .
shepherded into the bipolarity of adulthood . . .

Quibbling over the blueness of blue
and how over time most bow to convention . . .

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 . . .

. . . 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 . . .

As when you look back and get drenched in blue . . .

You're on record for covers
for begin-agains
for setting up a kiosk in a trailer park
outside of Atlantic City . . .
and you have been written up
for quilting your odyssey . . .
complete with blue lights, dampeners, and
(un)dressers . . .

The declensions . . . the alterations . . .
Insidious, but then . . .
demythologizing the odyssey . . .
à la Maggie Nelson in Bluets:
[It] worked well because he is a passive top
and I am an active bottom . . .

And Sherlock Holmes's Blue Carbuncle . . .

You kick it up a notch for the blue screeners . . .
a bevy of iconoclasts in a blue Chevy SUV . . .

While you're up, could you please flip
the complications . . . of that encounter . . .
when the reds, whites, and blues partied hard? . . .

There's a blueness to it . . . hypnotic . . .
despite the trepidation of icosahedrons . . .

You were kept up at night by Joan Mitchell's
Les Bluets . . .

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 enter the fray
disabling the tried and true
with the words of oglers
vying for redacting . . . and blueness . . . again . . .

You certainly had your share
of forgotten moments . . .
when out of the blue you received applications
for the position you had yet to advertise . . .

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 . . .

*composed for a blue-themed open mic by appropriating lines with
blue from Screen Dump 1-365.

Diandra Forrest