Screen Dump 460

Of the world's estimated 7,000 languages, one dies every two weeks.
          - K. David Harrison, Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages

You hawked the installation with misunderstanding . . .
a French press with a migraine . . .
while your cross country junkets cameoed on Facebook . . .
intriguing tongues . . . trying to fit into the holes
dug into the script by a misdirected director

whose profile you later learned had been lifted
from a table of contents . . .
Pasts spilled out . . . time borrowed . . .
You began dropping clues with the insistence of a night out . . .

This happened, yes? . . . and continues . . .

After the alphabet, abutments were tuned to a minor key . . .
Roundabouts tried to round you up
but you loaded your brush with paint and insignificance . . .
You were told it had all been written down . . .
every last nuance . . . every misappropriation . . .
every identity theft . . . circling like a flock of kites . . .
The sketches you made in a ledger went undiscovered for over 150 years . . .
Undisclosed players hung out at a neglected ball diamond . . .
falling into the wrong chapter . . . losing face . . .

Marcin Szpak

From the Docudrama: Can't Blame Them, Can You?

(reposted from Tuesday, April 30, 2013)

I have no idea what you're talking about.
No idea what the reader is reading.
I don't understand.
I should be able to understand.
I don't like it.

I ordered the special, and expected enough for a takeaway.
It wasn't easy ordering in the middle of this chaos.
The wait staff can't hear us.
They can't hear what we're ordering.
Everyone seems to think that's OK.
It's not OK.

Grow up! Life is not a takeaway!

But I love to start the day with a takeaway!

Someone just texted me: take your time.

Yeah, OK. I'm always on the clock. We're always on the clock.
Is there an innocent bystander who could take the hit?
Doubtful.

Everyone's trying to hide
not necessarily to shirk their duty (isn't that a cool word?)
but maybe because some feel untrained and humbled.

(A statue of a police officer appears.)

Now what?

You're becoming curmudgeonly.

I'm becoming curmudgeonly? Is that a Maslowian stage?

Yes, the cardboard people on stage are paintballing the audience.

On top of that many are being stepfathered in.
Everyone is Facebooking like crazy.

And that surprises you?

From Alix Pearlstein's Moves in the Field

Screen Dump 294

(reposted from Tuesday, May 31, 2016)

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

Alina Lebedeva

In April's Chronogram:

Woman XXXIX

She says she wants to ride
and pulls up on her Harley.
I roll my Schwinn
back into the garage.

Screen Dump 459

You wake to a confused alphabet and into a diorama
with a cup of coffee following those who had stepped out . . .
and vanished . . .
The day sunshines snowbanks into hiding . . .
Today's lecture on the Gerty episode in Ulysses
held most but you found it formulaic . . .
old guys getting off at the sight of young skin . . .
There was a moment a bit ago when you had almost
thought it through . . . or thought you could think it through . . .
but that passed with Kindle's eInk . . . backlit and all . . .
You look at yourself . . . and at the trees
cavorting . . . preparing to give it another go . . .
the clockwork gearing loud and exciting . . .
Isn't it something how we grab ourselves and GPS our location . . .
following directions into the next scene . . .
which may or may not play out as hoped . . .
but so what? . . . In some strange way it's all good, yes? . . .
lowering yourself into the cockpit . . . words belted in . . .
another boldfaced expedition with you celebrating
the flash nonfiction of Li Po
in the mountains on a summer day . . .
You share it . . . then google the follow-up
which comes in at just under three minutes . . .
How to explain the pencil portrait in the corner . . .
the resemblance to Facebook sketched in someone else's hand? . . .
You continue with one hundred and eleven -
Maggie Nelson's, The Latest Winter, . . .
the whole thing coming back to your draft
and how even before the bell ended Round 12 you had managed
to skip the three chapters assigned for extra credit . . .

Screen Dump 458

Hired hands hand in school colors . . . in the nick of
the full shortage . . . if you know what I mean . . .
Incidentals brim the showroom . . . vet orphanhood . . .
The newly-hatched are cumbersome, yes? . . .
but then you like the length of autofictions
fabricating homeland depositions . . .
some remotely . . . with strings attached . . .
What did you mean by that anyway? . . .
Summer showers continue to be inducted
into a Hall of Fame of sorts . . .
the lawn . . . awaits the morning's drill . . .
Aceing the final, you are relieved of motion sickness . . .
remembering the era when slide rules became the go-to
for theme parks . . . every week strolling
amid stopgappers . . . bobbysoxers
packing incidentals on their way home . . .
anguishing over choices made . . . crow's feet plummeting . . .

Liliana Karadjova

Making All the World's Wrongs Right

The middle of the night blisters
with a phone call from the one left behind
whose head is a bobber
on a trout stream in the Adirondacks
while another fills out a health proxy
for police officers sporting body cams now that
hell to pay has checked in . . .
Luka still lives on the second floor, yes? . . .
thinking about the half-filled cup of coffee
at Tom's Diner . . . where a woman
with an umbrella studies her reflection
in the window in the bronze moments
of morning . . . before the rain . . .
K. H. Brandenburg tweaks an algorithm
for compressing audio files to birth MP3s
using Suzanne Vega's a cappella
of Tom's Diner . . . You return to the paper . . .
and to the paperless world
of the Ringling Brothers chatting up
the rhino poacher
who was stomped to death by an elephant
then eaten by a pride . . .  Karma? . . .
It's all about NPR's Tiny Desk Concert . . .
with Nichiren Buddhist Suzanne's Luka . . .

Just don't ask me what it was . . .

followed by . . . the sounds you can get
out of a guitar when you know how
to touch it properly . . .
The older . . . time-warped . . . blows curfew
color-coding unicorns
in the Land of the Discontinued:
He was 12 minutes late . . .
but the Great Train Robbery
had glued us to our seats in the Hippodrome
where our formers
saw Erik Weisz aka Harry Houdini
escape the Chinese Water Torture Cell . . .
He never got back to Bess . . .
She checks herself out of detox
chugging rubbing alcohol and hand sanitizer
and into an ICU where a voice says
You're not going anywhere . . .
but to a psych ward
and a 28-day program . . .
and the Monkey rides shotgun
through late-night streets
with James Corden's Carpool Karaoke
covering Zero 7's Destiny . . .

Soon I know I'll be back with you . . .

She flips through the paper
to William Holden's drunk stumble . . .
closing the book on one of the biggest
box office draws of the '50s and '60s . . .
his strange chemistry with delusional
Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond
in Sunset Boulevard . . . shuttled around town
by Stroheim's Max in a monster
of a town car with leopard-skin seats
and open chauffeur's compartment . . .
Little wonder the bookmaker
around the corner with the black Tesla in front
is encrypted . . .  and time-capsuled
after Grand Rounds
with a drug cocktail touted to make
all the world's wrongs right . . .
lip-syncing Childish Gambino's This is America . . .

Suzanne Vega

Screen Dump 457

Your wake-up call went south
bubble gum breathalyzer
Did it lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight? . . .
back to sleep
with news anchors of pileups on the Interstate
following the dotted line . . . again . . . and again . . .
picking up pieces of spam
interspersed with recipes
and promises of misappropriations
and guest appearances
on late-late-late-night talk shows . . .
The House of Crazy is open for business . . .
speeding along . . .
with feigned nonchalance . . .
but you knew that, yes? . . .
as the Queen of Redaction . . . a bowl of protein . . .
can't get enough! . . .
Photo albums bloat . . .
the way it was . . .
the way they were . . .
the way we were . . .
overdrawn bank accounts and selfies . . .
pockets stuffed with aftermaths . . .
they were game for anteing-up
the pot speaking a dead language . . .
Pity there wasn't an unfinished symphony
for the sawtooth ensemble to finish . . .
and now your phone is dead . . .
and you're sweating indictment for buying a burger
to get your kid into an ivy league school
and you're ready to accept submissions for your 24-hour meltdown . . .
Subsequent tête-à-têtes to air on Netflix . . .

Krzysztof-Wyzynski

Sometimes After the Alphabet

(reposted from Saturday, April 9, 2011)

Sometimes after the alphabet I would rewrite the script.
Sometimes after being thrown under the bus I would lip-sync.
Sometimes after being taken to the cleaners
I would text a random phone number.
Sometimes after preparing a meal I would eat out.
Sometimes I would wait for the light to change.
Other times I would follow the yellow brick road.
Sometimes I would sit on the bench for the entire third quarter
shouting out differences between evergreen
and non-evergreen growth patterns.
It’s all in the ring tones, I was told by an impartial opportunist
the draperies of her gestures
immobilizing me momentarily with blueness
after which I would make my way
through the throng of extras
flown in as expert witnesses
to engage an unemployed harpist caught unaware.
I’d heard of the tampering, of course, the tintinnabulation
of shutters and shudderers
but thought it best to continue with rehab
which had left me with a facial tic
and a strange indifference to Netflix
that I seemed not to care much about.
Sometimes after letting my fingers do the walking
I would check for lifting -
areas that had been damp when the first coat was applied
areas that on other pages in others books
would have been overrun with brown baggers
on lunch break feeding pigeons from forest green park benches.
This is not rocket science; it is someone’s bailiwick,
a smattering of unknowns reminded me
with the effortlessness of a man at the end of his rope
tossing his iPhone into a river
watching it sink slowly out of sight
sans disclaimer, sans influence, sans alternative.
Sometimes after channel surfing
I would dream of a life filled with recipes.
Sometimes I would dream of a life filled with blank pages
the unspoken rush that spreads from head to toe
upon being unfriended on Facebook.

Screen Dump 456

And I need you more than want you,
And I want you for all time.
          - Wichita Lineman (1968)

Indeed . . . the blurbiness of blurbs:
I write you . . . you write me . . .
bundling software for coders
as the night twinkles with bug juice in trash cans
lined with garbage bags . . .
I am become . . . a lineman for the county
splicing telephone lines . . .
as an aperitif . . . an insinuation . . .
the enthrallment of the table read
with you costumed
for yet another audition
the runner-up benched on fouls . . .
This will be a night to remember
a Titanic-ramming-iceberg night to remember
and you're buying into a stairway to heaven
to the magical realism
of a room filled with mirrors . . .
gorging yourself on ample food
at the wolf's table
the-wolf-with-groping-paws-table
before engaging the matrix
of permutations . . . and combinations . . .
the morning's ride back to the future
as time clocks Round Three . . .
and the gappiness of cubicles
mimics The Shining's snowy maze
while Freud and Jung
arm wrestle for your backstory . . .
the doubtful guest insisting she is Anna Freud
at the free-throw line
during the madness of March
which some documentarian chortled ain't much . . .
Daily we review takeaways   . . .
the guns and roses . . . and guns . . . and . . .
the bowed heads of aftermaths
squeezing through metal detectors
into three-ring circuses of misdirection:
you can't go home again! . . .

Mario Sorrenti

The Generous Logic of Friendship

(reposted from Tuesday, July 12, 2011)

Little pieces of us fall away
as we move along
through the same doors
down the same hallways
into the same rooms
sitting in the same chairs
at the same tables
using the same utensils
enjoying the same meals
the same bottles of wine.
Some across bodies of water
to float to distant shores
others through tunnels
still others into wood.
Coming and going
appearing
disappearing.
Nothing demanded.
The held hand slowly slipping away
until years later
sitting on the back porch
on a warm early summer evening
we reach for our glass
and find a piece
innocently clinging to our open palm.

Egon Schiele

Screen Dump 455

But then you find that the sensation diminishes
with repetition . . . Proust's disappointment
with his second and third swallow of tea . . .
the banality of it all . . . a constant . . .
Memorializing the parties of the unlined and bushy
slipping tongues nonchalantly
as if the clock had indeed been stopped . . .
No need to calculate the obliqueness now . . .
wait for the commercial break
when you can stretch and raid the fridge
and adjust the cushions
out of earshot of the contrarians at the gate . . .
An unstrung marionette finds words
in the redacted script . . . the basement trashed
by cleaners sent in to do the white thing . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 454

The late-winter cookout in the backyard
with everything growing silent
riding the elevator into the snow-filled basement
categorizing Kondo's declutter:
clothes, books, papers, komono, mementos
sparking photographic memories
of late-night talk shows
the predation . . . and willingness
to report that it was a joke . . . it was plastic . . .
keep your hands raised . . .
It becomes second-nature . . .
icing on the endgame . . .
the snow without surcease
as you sweep flakes into the palm of your left hand
a shopping cart out of control in a parking lot . . .
You are sprung to joy on the treadmill at the gym
while on the wall TVs
feature muted images of raised hands . . .
The color-coding continues despite warnings
that elevated bowls may cause bloat . . .
You tend to take things in stride . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 453

Armchair vacancies rant the airspace . . .
retire their uniforms in the middle of the game
and leave . . . to dissolve . . .
in the current . . .
The facsimile life . . . the well-oiled facsimile life . . .
aborts the highway . . .
curtailing alternatives with bipolarity
for archivists on coffee break . . .
How did you know the dancer
was about to attempt a villanelle? . . .
Bystanders capture moments . . .
before and after . . . after and before . . .
and again . . . but remain glued to the well-trodden . . .
And you? . . .

Hannes Caspar

Screen Dump 452

Calling your lost dog . . . who isn't lost
as if you need to tell someone
that something strange is about to happen . . .
a stylishly ill-advised moment
walking through the neighborhood
calling your lost dog . . . who isn't lost . . .
The incompleteness hits you on the ride home
and you fashion descenders
where mistakes have real consequences . . .
400 forgeries is nothing to poo-poo . . .
Simplification made simple, yes? . . .
as in the final scene where
the morning's cereal box
speaks to Scorsese's rat crawling
out the door . . .
This day like a few others lately feels rigged . . .
and grocery shopping won't be enough
to fend off the players - extras? - queuing up
at the entrance to your exit . . .
The jigsaw puzzle of attraction
with pieces scattered throughout your dreamscape
prompts you to play the mask
with a rush as diagrammed . . . at eye level . . .

Hannes Caspar

Screen Dump 451

An ultrasound tech . . . presents with pomegranates
small talks the front page
leaning in . . . as if quarterbacking . . .
Moments bespeak moments . . .
The reconfiguration of camera angles . . .
speechless at an open mic . . .
the ride home a hacked password . . .
Why now the interruption? . . .
Friends of friends arrive with leeks
count the take of the toll . . .
A scuffle in the meat department is captured on 36 iPhones . . .
Bigger . . . and BIGGER protein . . .
Is a life lived in faux fur a life lived? . . .
Another interruption . . .
You retreat to a labyrinth of overheard words . . .
grammatically indifferent words . . .
words in yellow vests . . . SANCTUARY . . .
Your impatience with the inanimate
grows with the stick-built . . .
the accountability of staking seedless tomatoes
as artifacts for the impossible . . .
Are the wine legs as they should be? . . .
You know the drill . . . when will you decide? . . .
Self-starters are bused to a starting line
confused by lifestyle changes
and made to consider a cache of meds
with no guarantee . . .
The comedy of monotony informs your late nights . . .
There was a time . . . not that long ago . . .
Take this down . . . breathe in . . . hold . . .
breathe out . . . Here's another . . . breathe in . . .

Ellen von Unwerth

Screen Dump 450

Waiting for . . . then waiting again . . .
Recruiting sandmen for graphical interfaces with sans serifs
brought back as uncommoners . . .
Imagine the confusion . . . the scale sliding
all over the slippery slope of mastery
operationalized as blips in a sea of screens . . .
monochromatic life savers
wrapped in tinfoil . . .
The scene opens with paint-by-number distractions . . .
Odysseyites clamor steamer trunks
when last calls led to back rooms where
opportunists drifted in and out of snowcastles
pocketing nonchalance for iPhone moments
saved to the cloud . . .
gaming tables alive with soup(er) bowls
for aficionados awaiting pat-downs . . .
the halftime show drawn and quartered amid controversy . . .

Screen Dump 449

The physiological component is a tired genre . . .
          - Anon

After which variations on themes . . . enter the frame
goop fogging the brain . . . neural networks and all that . . .
irrespective of how much
you practiced impossibilities
which took time
away from being held upside down until you got your balance . . .
Mosaic faces urge you to monochrome your life
to recommit to sobriety . . . hedge your bets
while odysseyites board short stories
with subtitled cigarettes
inviting you to re-up . . .
Miscounts abound . . .
Most if not all seek this, yes? . . .
Yet somehow, somewhere, there are average nuclear families
living in average nuclear waste dumps
trumped-up with average nuclear happiness . . .
Blond best friends are trying to make a go of it . . .
convinced they are destined to meet
the most famous person alive . . .

Jarek Kubicki

Today

(reposted from Sunday, April 5, 2015)

The world . . . calls to you like the wild geese, . . .
          - Mary Oliver (1935-2019)

to celebrate
I went . . . to the woods . . .
some snow still
the creek's gurgle
the trees
and then above . . . wild geese
return . . .
harsh and exciting . . .

Mary Oliver

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.