Screen Dump 448

It seems foolish to think about ins and outs . . .
the cantomime trying to show how opacity descends upon us
and we skip the freebies
the duplicitous star-struck lovers
their lapse among leap-froggers . . .
fascination shortlisted . . .
You have set your sights on leaving
everything out . . . regretting the insertion . . . again? . . .
the rearrangement some would call louche . . .
You worry fastidiousness will undo you
especially now with your backpack gaping . . .
utensils giggling their inexactitude . . .
imposing drama on the rescheduled reshoot
awaiting revisions . . .
So many continue to be damaged with the dawn . . .
the world as Hawking predicted
becoming uninhabitable . . .
while uncharitables plot the canvas and push paint
to escape the tiresome conventions dull patter sour confessions
moved by boredom from the fringe to critical spotlight . . .
words reigniting mental gymnastics
meriting a trip to the mall
handicapping cluster flies snowboarding dry powder . . .

Colette (2018)

Screen Dump 447

Meanwhile the unruffledness of days splattered with snow . . .
A trio of clowns . . . random in tandem . . .
fresh from a nightmare . . . hand out free passes . . .
to open mics . . . now closed . . .
A time for revision . . . and repetition . . . looms . . .
The unwelcomed clone of your selfie is on hold . . .
choking back backstories of incidentals
to bring offcolor to passersby
exiting kiosks on the unnamed streets
of someone's hometown . . .
You search for links to direct you through the avalanche
of late-night palm readings
by recent converts to mime . . .
Pasta will be passed around without remorse . . .
without malice aforethought . . .
with trial balloons launched without beta testing . . .
It's OK to be remaindered, he/she said, now that the everyday
is signed sealed and delivered without return receipt requested . . .

Lydia Roberts

Screen Dump 446

You are involuntarily committed . . . to something . . . to nothing . . .
to see it through . . . your history of walking
the nooks and crannies of flâneurs
smirking through costume changes . . . and letters of the alphabet
with everyone croaking . . . everyone trying to get soberer . . . and soberer . . .
The lowest common drama will do, yes? . . .
It's all kindling, I suppose . . .
Like the caboose in that strange fairy tale of Bach's motif
tuning slides maxed . . . daytripping across shallows . . .
maneuvering roll calls to bring out the best in Netflix . . .
You assume arpeggiation . . . swoon dyslexics with Bayesian reversals . . .
spiked with the odds you've been messing with on the off ramp . . .
when words of his/her probability . . . mutated . . .
circumambulating . . . and elementary my dear Watson
knowing that castling is the only move involving two pieces . . .

Screen Dump 445

          after and for Anon

The list bloats . . . and your piercings have a curfew . . .
Once upon a yellow romper . . .
around 30 . . . give or take . . .
The script reads several oral exchanges
a phrase linked to homespun . . . as in the winter of our fall . . .
But who directed the run-through? . . .
and who were the sequentials . . . or the catch-as-catch-cans? . . .
Your iPhone vibrates with coconut balm
wondering about the older, regular whose gift was gab . . .
The stop-action . . . disabled, yes? . . .
or, rather, who stop-actioned the disabled? . . .
Looking for Mr. Goodbar elevates to happenstance . . .
I'll see your goodbar and raise you twenty . . .
with Diane Keaton . . . or Telly Who loves ya, baby? Savalas . . .
or any of a number of extras . . .
then downhill . . . through the thick growth at brain drain . . .
But will you see it coming? . . .

puppeteer Ilka Schönbein

Screen Dump 444

A clear intensification of bullshit is underway.
          - William S. Smith, Art in America, December 2018

The rigidity of footnotes stalemates you
on odd numbered days during months that begin with a vowel
when 0.7mm leads proved to be too soft
for jotting memoirs of backpedaling . . .
The inconsistencies overwhelm . . . and increase at an alarming rate . . .
Just in time for the holidays, yes? . . .
With worries of internet penetration at all time highs . . .
Lady Day's I Can't Get Started forecasts a cold front
accompanying a highly detailed index
with entries that - according to the New Yorker's Dan Chaisson -
cover everything from hiking to honeymooning
to beekeeping and braiding,
allowing readers to track [Sylvia] Plath's imagination
as her poems evolved . . .
in a voice true to [her] own weirdnesses . . .
Your reminiscences take me back to an old roster of players -
color-coded . . . and sized . . . for maximum effect . . .
The method is so young it totters . . .
But you've heard it all from attachés who roll with the credits . . .

Gordon Hall, The Number of Inches Between Them

Screen Dump 443

iPhone voice messages echo Stage IV intimacies
(cf. Szasz's Myth of Mental Illness; Braginsky's Last Resort) . . .
But now you can't remember . . . and are being stalked
by a string of declarative sentences
whose hoodies have unhinged the imperative . . .
It's no longer enough to ignore this
or the commodification of life extension
in the dairy section of Warhol's 10,000+ 35mm pics . . .
Many make waiting a career . . .
You saw this yourself in your last trip down breakdown lane . . .
The '50's series Omnibus was telecast live
for crackers in Chelsea Girls
with the Joker's here we go and Frost's you come too . . .
Anatomical World's skulls and skeletons
have decided to go (window shopping) with fish and chips . . .

Constance Jablonski

Screen Dump 21

(reposted from Thursday, December 26, 2013)

The disingenuousness of last minute players
and late starters
and those on the cusp . . .
Return receipt requested . . .
Parlaying the obvious . . . because . . . just because . . .
Looking back to go forward . . .
Like Casals at 96, I'm making progress . . .
Awakened by recalls . . . and by the nudge of those
with the chorus . . . announcing the place
(as Oliver) . . . of your one wild and precious life . . .

Deborah Turbeville

Sno-Cone Joe

It was the summer of the
wiffle ball, 1961, the summer
before October 1st, when a
mild-mannered right fielder
from North Dakota, Roger
Maris, unjuiced, would send
number 61 into the right
field stands, breaking the
Babe’s 34-year-old record;
16 years before Rick Ferroli
would begin holding wiffle
ball tournaments in his
backyard tribute to Fenway
Park in Hanover,
Massachusetts; 19 years
before Jim Bottorff
and Larry Grau would
establish the World
Wiffleball Championship
at College Park in
Mishawaka, Indiana. I was
14, playing shortstop for a
wiffle ball team on a dusty
diamond in a city park
in upstate New York. Wiffle
ball innings colored that
summer’s afternoons,
soundtracked by the
screeches and laughter of
the younger kids in the
park’s pool, whose deep end
was three feet, and where,
earlier that summer, a rat
had wandered into the drain
pipe, causing a mass exodus
of kids whose screams
echoed down Main Street,
three miles away. The
magic of the wiffle ball
held us, rivaled only by a
strange, uncomfortable
feeling that had surfaced a
couple years before, that
seemed to grow daily -
indeed, hourly - and
would eventually eclipse our
fixation on the plastic, white
orb, with eight, 19mm
oblong holes. A feeling for
girls, for members of the
opposite sex, who, that
summer, in tight, colorful
tops and short short shorter
shorts, crowded into the
makeshift stands framing
the wiffle ball diamond. We
tried our best to look cool,
to stay cool, as if, unfazed,
we thought only of the
wiffle ball, of sending it
over the fence, out of the
park, so that we could then,
nonchalantly, commence
rounding the bases and
return to our teammates for
back slaps and arm shots in
that pre-high-five pre fist
bump era, scoring not only
runs for our team but
points with the hair-
sprayed, big-haired, big-
eyed spectators. There
were no dugouts. The
members of the team at
bat would sit on a small
wooden bench or on the
grass, and, most often,
would discuss, not the
statistics of baseball,
but the mystical moves
required to get to first,
second, third, and home
with members of the
so-called "second sex"
whose inscrutability
had us shaking in our
Chuck Taylor All-Star
white canvas high tops.
Every year, a few of us
would master the moves,
advance to the majors,
prepared for what Coach
Johnson called the clap,
the drip, crotch rot,
crotch crickets, in other
words, VD, or venereal
disease, warning us to
guard against it by
practicing safe sex,
using condoms, or
prophylactics, or, more
commonly, rubbers.
And, as if having been
given the green light by
some otherworldly force,
most of us knew where
to get them, the source
having been handed
down to rookies by those
who had scored, by those
who been around the
block, by those who had
in fact gotten laid. The
source was Sno-Cone Joe,
whose ice cream truck,
emitting jingly, happy,
cartoonish tunes, would
daily make the rounds
of the city's parks
throughout the summer.
Just go up to Sno-Cone
Joe, ask for a double
chocolate and three
rubbers. And we did.

Screen Dump 442

Around and around a roundabout . . . tough as 10 penny nails
sporting cerise kicks for your podcast on bipedalism
with an exclusion clause from the Holy Roman Empire . . .
The instability of The Life and Times of . . . TBA ushers you into the finals . . .
blue books blackened with Ticonderoga #2s . . .
Two people lying on a bed of 10 penny nails walk into a bar . . .
Rehearsals and reversals, yes? . . .
Penobscot Bay remains a mystery to the marine life
waiting for Ivy-Leaguers to take the bait
as the world is whited-out . . .
its palpability . . . a big floppy couch
stuffed with ping-pongers . . . exposed mid-serve . . .
abusing over-the-counter bunion cream while awaiting a shuttle to detox . . .
This and other addenda clog . . .
Odysseyites write you up . . . and down . . . over . . . and under . . .
You yourself know this . . . as well . . .

Liliana Karadjova

Screen Dump 441

I've been wondering if all the things I've seen were ever real.
         - Sheryl Crow, Everyday Is A Winding Road

But the dream escapes before you awaken . . .
Somehow . . . somewhere . . . a blacksmith's syncopated beat
followed by a clothesline's hum . . .
It takes a neighborhood, yes? . . .
I am into fixtures, you insist . . . as clouds clutter the sky
and your bag of groceries gives way
to a maze of brochures hawking timeshares . . .
The sun is late . . .
You have forgotten the words . . . the way . . . the gallon of milk . . .
Uberizing your wishes just won't do . . .
Did you actually think you could call it in? . . .
This morning's tap dance was outrageously complex . . .
It's the complexity of the other
floating a hazard . . . the light changing . . .
Monopoly's admonition not to pass GO! . . .
Hundreds were pressed into service . . . before your shoutout . . .
And now look at the crowdfunders buying in . . .
as if . . . as if . . . as if . . .
your lip-syncing will make a dent in the nosebleed section . . .
Thank you . . . in advance . . .
We look forward to your revision
despite the seeming unrevisability of this stream of consciousness
swimming off the page . . .

Sheryl Crow

Screen Dump 440

You talk about pulling what 12-steppers call a geographic
hooking up with an acquaintance from your fire escape days
when rooftops filled with cigarette smoke
and not reading books to children was an outrage . . .
You can't imagine the shapes they come in . . .
So-called vestigial organs play Bach
as if it were your new favorite painting . . . a monochrome
hung eye-level with the sound of someone vacuuming
under a daybed . . . earmarked for the tone-deaf . . .
Young and fresh . . . the composition extraordinary . . .
paired with short stories he/she could not repeat . . .
That was back when we took black-and-white photographs
of each other with a Polaroid One-Step . . .
The detritus of the curb has become a come-on to violists
who are suckered in by the harmonics of international concert pitch . . .
Most have zero in common . . . despite trivializing
the sad and disappointing waistbands of front runners . . .

George Katsanakis

Screen Dump 439

The transition compulsory . . . now that you have cleared
that hurdle . . . and are hell-bent
on driving through the foam barricade . . .
Go-betweens will surely offer solace
as if to say the endgame has petered out . . .
You have arrived at two desires . . .
It's where you want to be, yes? . . .
A big rig simmers with hospitality . . . at the next Motel 6 . . .

Jan Scholz

Screen Dump 438

The violence of the moment . . . and yet . . .
the sensation odd . . . straddling pleasure and pain . . .
a barometer . . . for future hookups . . .
The instability of hiding behind a mask . . .
of ordering off-menu . . .
uncarded . . . without reservation . . .
the dryness of the imagination
and manipulation
with you becoming fixated on a dumbwaiter
as survival tactic
with its ups and downs
passed around . . . and over . . .
to escape through a chink in the keynoter's address . . .
Engaging the odyssey . . . photoshopped . . .
as you perform the obligatory . . .
much to their ecstasy . . .
the mastery of misdirection . . .
of drama . . .
Getting paid to get laid, yes? . . .
Costumed as the other . . .
running the wheel of red and black . . .
blue directing alma maters
of all shapes and sizes . . .
Headlights underestimating triumph . . .
I am . . . like you . . .
Collecting empties on off-days to kick-start returns . . .
You disappear into the pages of a book . . .
tallying the mispronunciations
of book-learning tempered by experience . . .

Alina Lebedeva

Screen Dump 437

You're dribbling memories into a journal . . .
pouting a return . . . the scripted line of best fit . . .
opening a door . . . players jumping out of the scatterplot
of your short story . . . spinning . . .
with the elusiveness of clarity . . . of renouncement . . .
but what are you renouncing? . . . this time? . . .
Soon the wintry dawn will collide with shells
ejected from a chamber . . .
The season begins . . .
as if in a flash a tree is taken down by a chainsaw . . .
by the lines in the chainsaw's script . . .
the mandatory eight . . .
All scripted in the moment . . . a return . . . a regression . . .

Alina Lebedeva

Screen Dump 436

Please meet or turn off your cell phone.
          - Closed Captioner

Trading eights . . . as autobiographical fiction . . .
as one moment to the next . . .
transforming attendees into rubberneckers
misdirected by the odyssey's sleight of hand . . .
A duffel bag's nomenclature . . . fortuitous . . .
Trying to see beyond the outlandish . . .
susceptible to the dropbox's tweaking . . .
Why insist on presenting it out of turn flagging inconsistencies? . . .
Here's your part! . . . à la Miles . . .
The exhibit choked with expectations . . .

Roberto Kusterle

Screen Dump 435

Now you're telling me you're onto something . . .
like a poem awaiting binary coding . . . lines loaded
with flaws and failings . . .
wannabes trading calques . . .
Who needs it, anyway? . . . Did I just say that? . . .
You're not going to play the memory card, are you? . . .
while ramifications claw their way into the morning's coffee klatch
silencing closed captioners? . . .
You'll have time after the interrogation, yes? . . .
Why not try on an idiom? . . . Many do, you know . . .
Fit and finish is always a big deal . . . for some . . .
There seems to be an absence of pretense
shadowing the lazy romantic cliché in your pocketful of melodramas . . .

Jan Scholz

Screen Dump 434

You practiced the score . . . mastered the technique of throat-singing . . .
your tongue forking . . . a dish of eye-candy . . .
suddenly aware of parameters . . .
meted out by someone called something else . . .
happy pretending you had other names . . .
You worry the right shoes . . . the red shoes . . . the shoes born to dance . . .
to dance alone . . . to dance with someone . . .
someone who knows the steps . . . someone familiar with the inner Martian . . .
aging . . . friendly . . . directing traffic . . . your traffic . . .
as if an invitation to the dance on Mars . . .
This was enough . . . is enough . . .
at least for now . . . at least for the watchers at the gate . . .

Ed Freeman

Screen Dump 433

You recall the encumbrances of the self you were . . .
encaustic images in Crayola colors
the docent stumbling over his/her linguistic recklessness . . .
The trip around the block
and then some . . .
summer fall winter spring
numbering the players en passant
as if in a move to check . . .
But what of Emily's nights at a child's school desk
in her white-curtained high-ceilinged second-floor corner bedroom? . . .
It was a very good year, indeed! . . .
On the tour bus to Amherst
the bus driver straight out of High Noon . . .
the discoloration of the rain . . . little matter now
at the wake of the bassist's wife
while the shame-sham-smear-he-said-she-said rages . . .
The butler with the candelabra in the library
stood up by Miss Havisham . . . did it . . .
Because I could not stop for death - / He kindly stopped for me? . . .

Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham

Retracing Our Steps to Utopia IX

(reposted from Thursday, June 6, 2013)

Your accusation is a bit fuzzy
but I'll wear it anyway
like a noisy suit of armor
scarred from battle.
The moment keeps recycling.
Groundhog Day's petty palette of inconveniences.
You could have at least given me the heads-up.
Do you believe in magic?
Of course you do.
My blindside rutted with trespass.
Again? Did you say "again"?

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 432

You escape . . . into the detritus of the penultimate chapter . . .
This of course before the covers morphed into queasy YouTube videos . . .
DJs? . . . How many did you . . . do you . . . know . . . what? . . .

Mariacarla Boscono

Screen Dump 431

There was an inconspicuousness to it . . .
I mean . . . there we were . . . cresting conversations
as the clock boarded the third quarter
with little to deconstruct . . .
Of course, he/she brought it up . . . drilled it home, in fact . . .
but without exclamation . . . and so . . . it wobbled . . .
frayed . . . leaving us free to disassociate . . .
to wallow in post-time remorse . . .
Someone suggested hacking the portal . . .
but that smacked of illiteracy, if you know what I mean . . .
You see, you said, and without tweaking . . . we did . . .

Wendy Bevan

Screen Dump 430

Bedheads . . . with Roy Orbison In dreams . . .
sidestep the Procrustean parlance of machines
in the first act . . .
You worry entropic penalty . . .
and Bezos's two-pizza rule . . .
as if a common denominator . . . had been odyssey'd on call . . .
Mama said there'll be days like this . . .
when drones pick up . . .
and it's first and ten . . . and your little black book
seeps professional foosballers . . .
This sudden interest in flophouses, yes?
and rehab centers overridden with ants . . . and uncles
of a different color . . . a different flavor . . .
Someone somewhere is being set up for a photo shoot . . .
You may be called in for captioning . . .

Irina Dmitrovskaya

Screen Dump 429

Grease monkeys flood the yellow bricks
with Shakespeare:
a world too wide / For his shrunk shank, . . .
You measure for measure their costumes . . . and fail . . . fall? . . .
they . . . yours . . . a cache of pics . . . and then . . .
you as speedbump . . .
as pickup . . .
and a close encounter of the unkind
in the sleeper cab of a big rig . . . Again,
the cupboard as bare as the moat . . .
the drawbridge . . . drawn . . .
expecting to feature . . . Forsooth! . . .
Texts seek deep house . . . earwormed, yes? . . .
You begin profiling players' carbon footprints . . .
following them into the rehearsal space . . .
You are a central intelligence agency . . .
in a right-to-farm zone
with incidentals from soon-to-be-released boxed sets
showcasing this week's top 20 hurdy-gurdiers . . .
Form follows function . . . out the door . . .
There are no puppies in your REM sleep . . .
the dream sequence having been abruptly perchanced . . .

Double, double toil and trouble!

Screen Dump 428

Squigglers from a long-ago Saturday morning kids' show
are downstreamed by a female bareback rider
trying to recreate the exchanges
that shaped the present moment . . .
postcards from the entrance to a sideshow
do their part
but translation's loopholes
trap the emptiness
which despite your apps hold fast . . .
Something about impermeability . . . and the years
spent woodshedding with a clown . . .
honing one's craft . . . and all that
as if that was the silver bullet missing
or left out of the instructions for dancing . . .
How release carries you across the moat of time . . .
The odyssey's pull . . . its impulsivity . . .
Everything coming together . . . then not . . .
You were here . . . languishing in the inevitable . . .

William Laxton

Screen Dump 427

The soon-to-be-announced clog the airspace and, despite fluidity,
make-do with the accoutrements on tap . . .
A Bud Light . . . then a doublewide . . .
equating the lack of erudition with a sad impulse
begging someone to speak volumes . . . to deconstruct past players populating
imaginary dioramas with wannabes from Golden Books . . .
Vegetation's understory forecasts acid rain
while offshore an Orca grieves her calf . . .
Will you please google the answers before the endgame? . . .
How many minutes on the clock? . . .
He/she will be retired to a type of Walmart . . . in the high peaks . . .
Impartial, if you will . . .
Your mentoring festers in a circular file . . .
let go when downsizing seemed inevitable . . . this too Instagrammed . . .

Julianne Moore by Peter Lindbergh

Screen Dump 426

And now the esotericism of tandem surfing . . . grounds you . . . isolates you . . .
and you're all about bragging rights . . . nit-picking
with a falsetto's exactitude . . . overwhelming the unsuspecting . . .
You're good with that . . . and other things too . . .
dissecting the lives of players who odyssey'd your perspective . . .
post-coital images seeping through the day's fringe . . . infinite . . .
in their looping . . . The octagonal sign . . . full-term . . .
to fill the spaces left blank by unidentified mannequins
who of late have insinuated themselves into your hand-wringing . . .
the substance of which matters not . . .
If only you had stopped off at the corner butcher's . . .
Listen . . . time and again . . .
Why bother rearranging the decor
when, from the horizontal, every move you make will sting? . . .
What was his given name, anyway? . . .
Your dresser awaits . . . Act One Scene One: The Fall of South Troy . . .
Floral patterns will go well with the Pinot Noir . . .
easy on the palate with fresh cherry and strawberry and super-subtle tannin . . .
Even your white-wine-only guests will find a friend . . .
A dismantling of the exhausted light is one way . . .
Again, the opening line? . . .
Parlaying the quintessential location . . . location . . . location . . .
with an heirloomed rant . . .
Noteworthy . . . you managed to conglomerate on cue . . .
and returned ever-so-briefly and ever-so-quietly to the streets
of your middle period . . .
You became expert at profiling purple . . .
replaying the cinematic collage driving the bus . . . simply to taunt . . .
The normative signs of disaster
that constitute everyday life . . . humiliated . . . adored . . . continued . . .

Screen Dump 425

The rain sends you into Brief Lives of the Brontës
before you touch down . . . without flourish
as if the three sisters stepped out of dissonant voices . . .
Filigreed, of course . . .
homespun . . . without the bullpen of images
by naive writers
from the one-way streets of hometown . . .
Stay the course?. . .
You squeeze into a club . . . with your sister . . .
eyes pocketing change . . .
short stories all . . . as if . . . little matter . . .
With the right mix . . . and nothing unexpected . . .
A minor key to a door etched with algorithmic code
especially now . . . the DJ . . . pumped with smokes from
little-known addresses . . .
A welcome interruption . . .
and more . . . just beyond the breakers . . .
A friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, yes? . . .
Objection, your Honor . . . the question spun around . . .
reintroduced . . .
There are 50 people . . . and then some . . .
Suddenly, the dialogue (or diatribe) turns weird . . .
you exit with the cast
from West Side Story at Glimmerglass . . .
A parking lot in Garfield . . . rethinking the Chinese menu . . .
the horticultural exactitude of the passing years . . .
amanuenses at your beck-and-call . . .
You are here . . . he knew . . . and you knew he knew . . .
the return trip in the back seat of a Rolls . . .
(Is this on? Please ignore the last line. It's a typo.)
Immersion-A-Plenty . . . and you're down a freebie . . .

In the Mountains on a Summer Day

by Li Po

Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-trees trickles on my bare head.

Screen Dump 424

As imperfect a day for banana fish, yes? . . .
the editor changing fine to perfect . . .
the tale suddenly engorged
with character development on the ledge outside the window
loaded with pop-ups dealing fireworks . . .
You enter into an agreement -
an agreement with the other person in the room
he/she conflicted . . .
Costumes . . . a crapshoot bought and sold . . .
Does the name of the game mean anything? . . .
The cruelest month comes and goes and returns
as a revenant . . . with thirty pieces of silver
and a free app for tears of joy and sadness . . .
You are recruited for a walk-on

in a soon-to-be-released rom com
bubbling innuendo . . .
Gutsy and captivating, your nanosecond demonstrates
an edginess that merits a double-wide audience . . .

PJ Harvey

Screen Dump 423

Irrespective of what . . . you ask? . . .
Irrespective of nothing . . . autopiloting
across the paint-by-number peoplescapes
the great ship's casualness . . .
curbside . . . stalled in the last quarter . . .
unbeknownst to all . . . and you . . . again . . .
following up as requested . . .
But requested by whom? . . .
Do you know? . . . Do you care? . . .
Suddenly everything recedes . . .
the chapter headings blur . . .
the entrance full of afternoons . . .
you meet the conundrum head on for lunch
underwritten by unknowns
who wait for emojis to translate the moments
which fade with every serving . . .
There will be a sharp turn in no time . . .
You're ready for this, yes? . . .

Ruven Afanador

Two by Donald Hall (1928-2018)

Her Long Illness

Daybreak until nightfall,
he sat by his wife at the hospital
while chemotherapy dripped
through the catheter into her heart.
He drank coffee and read
the Globe. He paced; he worked
on poems; he rubbed her back
and read aloud. Overcome with dread,
they wept and affirmed
their love for each other, witlessly,
over and over again.
When it snowed one morning Jane gazed
at the darkness blurred
with flakes. They pushed the IV pump
which she called Igor
slowly past the nurses' pods, as far
as the outside door
so that she could smell the snowy air.

The Ship Pounding

Each morning I made my way
among gangways, elevators,
and nurses’ pods to Jane’s room
to interrogate the grave helpers
who tended her through the night
while the ship’s massive engines
kept its propellers turning.
Week after week, I sat by her bed
with black coffee and the Globe.
The passengers on this voyage
wore masks or cannulae
or dangled devices that dripped
chemicals into their wrists.
I believed that the ship
traveled to a harbor
of breakfast, work, and love.
I wrote: "When the infusions
are infused entirely, bone
marrow restored and lymphoblasts
remitted, I will take my wife,
bald as Michael Jordan,
back to our dog and day." Today,
months later at home, these
words turned up on my desk
as I listened in case Jane called
for help, or spoke in delirium,
ready to make the agitated
drive to Emergency again
for readmission to the huge
vessel that heaves water month
after month, without leaving
port, without moving a knot,
without arrival or destination,
its great engines pounding.

Become Ocean

Listening to it we become ocean.
          - John Cage on the music of Lou Harrison

You become ocean . . . tangoing

with Joycean footnotes
an out-and-back watery trance
with John Luther Adams
at the end of the blur
the same views not the same
from opposite directions . . .
your words triadic harmonies which
despite the welts marching up your arm
attributable to the strands of poison ivy
that hitched a ride into your house
on the back of the standard black short-hair
who presides over your domain
and whose mewling will continue to crescendo
until you replenish his food dish
release us from us
into metaphysical reveries of blueness.
Your obsession
with the somnambulistic leanings
and bad press
of weedwhackers
segues to March 28, 1941
a little before noon
when Virginia Woolf
with hat walking stick overcoat
and large stone
wades into the River Ouse drowning herself.
She was an escape artist
who mapped the extraordinariness
of the interior
not unlike Anthony Bourdain
who wanted to be remembered as an enthusiast
introducing us to the wonderful world of food
in all its wonderfulness
before hanging himself
in a hotel room in eastern France . . .
so too the once-abandoned drive-in
on Route 32
now resuscitated revitalized and welcoming
with fanfares
for the common man and common woman.
Become ocean . . . all become ocean.
We hold these truths to be self-evident
prestidigitating words words words
into cauldrons of delight
the double double toil and troublers
given 24 hours to get outta Dodge
while you like Proust
for a long time going to bed early
seduce the watcher at the gate
slip past the dozing Rottweilers
in the warm fragrant kitchen
and into the hidden room
behind the stacks in the library
to gaze upon hundreds of portraits of beauty
from the comfort of a Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
white leather Barcelona chair
circa 1929
before being eyeblinked back
to Tanglewood
surrounded by shadowy strangers
plodding toward the parking lot
united in their quest
for their anxious vehicles
chomping at the bit to traverse
lonely upstate two-lanes
on their late-night return trip home.

Screen Dump 422

Feelings of linearity . . . traced back to elementary school
and your fear of fat . . . and looking at strangers . . . but not really . . .
bowing to your mother's warning
that it's dangerous to meet their eyes . . .
The woman on the subway smelled of food
and wore a brooch that you are sure had a story to tell
but no one was listening . . .
perhaps a long ago interlude of intimacy . . .
Your palms sweated onto the cover of the book
you riffled through in the bookstore but decided not to buy
and now soaking away the day in your tub
with the Kindle'd edition
you're filled with remorse for not supporting
neighborhood moms & pops' . . .
The minuscule battles which daily weigh heavily . . .
despite the profusion of irony on the logos of t-shirts
on passersby in flood pants . . .
Soon there will be something somewhere
behooving you to engage . . . until eventually those too
will quietly fall off . . . and you will be left second-guessing
your moves as you play chess against a glass of Cabernet . . .

Christina Hoch

Screen Dump 421

Sentences parsed on off days when somnambulists gather dust in makeshift libraries where amanuenses per diem'd mine the gasps of ghosts . . . The Hall of Incidentals opens for business as usual . . . shards of glass dropped in a labyrinth wait to enter your words . . . an amalgam of riffs on emptiness . . . held back in the early grades . . . There was a window . . . is a window . . . will be a window . . . I am working in the garden with voices lining up for handouts of iridescent themes . . . I know you know the opening lines to the nights that curl around you to caress you as scripted . . . This much of course . . . But so? . . . 

David Benoliel

Screen Dump 420

Your stint as resident insomniac
coughing up night terrors
silent screen stars speeding into the valley
thick with cloudcover . . .
Interior monologues terrifying the what-ifs
cowering in the corner of your bedroom
where nightly tête-à-têtes
announce imaginary numbers
to the worrisome packaged in plastic . . .
Better late than never, yes? . . .
Buckling up . . .
the backward logic of go-betweens
infinitesimal touch-ups
the ifs ands buts of moments
otherwise known as forever . . .
Do nothing . . . the tune earworms . . .
sidewalk cracks point the way . . .
You will be badged - and badgered -
in due course . . .
nothing else if not . . .
I can't help but think about the resurgence . . .
Yes, there will be more . . .

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Screen Dump 419

Maybe I'm amazed at the way you pulled me out of time.
          - Sir Paul McCartney

Writing ad copy for bedside pilgrims catapults you
into an altered state filled with past players . . . while token rituals
garner support from special interest groups
currying embellishments . . . There will be no extra credit
for your appreciation of footnotes or anything encapsulating
your past escapades . . . You like most have apparently forgotten
the mandatory reshooot of your life in which icemen
are jettisoned the one too many mornings after
before footage is returned to the underperforming film crew
with postage hampered by magical thinking . . .
Taking center stage with five minutes left in the quarter . . .
this ankle boot with socks thing bodes well for idiosyncranicity . . .
When was the last time you asked yourself? . . .

Screen Dump 418

You cardio in a sea of idiolects . . . diagramming interior monologues . . .
The right stuff is within reach of  the polyvocality of recyclers

taking recyclables to a redemption center . . . Suffice it to say what? . . .
A dead zone exchanges inanimates feeding quarters to blown-glass avatars

while questioning the preparation instructions jotted down in haste . . .
Your pockets bulge confusion . . . and continue as secular entities . . .

A go-between oozing cheap cologne you rarely go into the yard
where the sundial does time . . . every once in a while . . . Of course,

this is all from Stage 1 players who smoke the endgame with lush abandon
tsking you for dealing a bag of KFC extra hot wings at the head shop . . .

The aluminum block from the melted-down cans of your childhood
triggers something . . . perhaps the shortest straw exiled just out of sight . . .

Eugenio Recuenco

Screen Dump 417

And now you're gung-ho about the suffix esque . . .
immersing yourself . . . in the other . . .
the pieces coming together effortlessly . . . bumping you up
to the next level of engagement . . .
soundtracked by the brain's 40 Hz hum . . .
That the criteria remain unmet is irrelevant . . .
That the costumes are ill-fitting . . . incidental . . .
The slippery slope slipperier as you misplace your self . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 416

To lose yourself in the pages of a softcover . . .
the pages of a graphic novel . . .

to lose yourself in the action of a graphic novel . . .
in the one two three of a graphic novel . . .

between the stacks . . . in the sanctuary of a bookstore . . .
the sanctuary of books . . . of words . . .

someone somewhere is talking to you . . .
trying to insinuate himself/herself into your life . . .

into the graphic novel of your life . . .
into the who what when where why of your life . . .

Again . . . the same voice . . .
but different from the black and white . . .

You try to follow its dotted line . . .
along the canal . . .

leading out of here . . . wherever here is . . .
leading to unmapped areas . . . imaginary areas . . .

A patron . . . patron saint? . . . talks revitalization . . .
somewhere . . . here? . . . where points

are made by those easily led
into the dawn of a new day . . . another day . . .

beginning mid-chapter
with sun . . . then sleet . . . then snow . . .

The playbook turns on its heel spurring motion-
sickness for those taxiing . . . you among them . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 415

The day unfolds flat with allegations prompting you to engage Death
in a game of mumbly-peg, channeling Scrooge with the tiresome
But does it have to be? . . .
The barleycorned life and times of, yes? . . .
Will the plug be pulled? . . .
Will it morph into an Oscar Week? . . . an Oscar Wilde? . . .
Will your knight advance to the podium
your head choked with streaming videos of the good old days . . .
some of which were indeed good enough
to fetch an Oscar . . . had they been nominated? . . .
You ride the crest of here/not-here
filling the concave mirror in the Fun House with mothballed
dress-down-Friday costumes and brittle unkept promises . . .
your entourage feeding your rock-and-roll role . . .
But the center - as expected? - doesn't hold and
I don't give a damn is a wet towel tossed into the ring at the end of the ninth
when amid the full catastrophe you are ticketed for rambling . . .
for drifting off-pointe at the barre . . .
with a bullseye henna'd onto your unlined forehead . . .

Caught

I caught a tremendous fish.
          - Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish

But then the little engine that could couldn't
and you were set adrift . . . on opening day . . .
crib notes . . . encrypted . . .
a tale of blue cities in your creel
on life-support no less . . .
but this time time stops
as you reel in Liz's tremendous fish . . .
battered and vulnerable and lonely . . .
and examining and inspecting his sullen face
and five-haired beard of wisdom
you are awestruck by the rainbow, rainbow, rainbow
and by the happiness of happenstance
as it parallel parks
your day . . . and you too let it go . . .

Screen Dump 414

The queue gluts with auctioneers of language . . .
of stage directions with backstories of childlike mischief
high-topped and burqa'd against the wind
not unlike the polyglot introducing your next odyssey in
the language of your dreams . . . the language of your past self . . .
You have tried to flee recognition . . .
but there's always someone . . . somewhere . . .
with a memory of your bedroom's glass menagerie . . .
untouched . . . memorializing the tongues of insinuators
who GPS your movements for YouTubers poet lookalikes and reenactors
about to embark on a journey into the heart of some darkness . . .
It's all SRO . . . for a while at least, yes? . . .
at least until strangers begin sexting strange images . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

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