Intermission To Boredom

Head-to-head with kneejerk channel surfing

like a magician's patter

misdirecting the eyes of beholders

intent on mapping unlined terrain

you open with the Queen's Gambit

to control the board's center

gleaned from years of analysis:

Have you considered Hotel Management? . . .

Eyeballing your bloated dance card

you hype a pretend candlelight din-din

and hightail-it to the No-Tell Motel

backpack stuffed from 7-Eleven:

chips, salsa, 12-pack of Natty Light . . .

In that moment of ecstasy-in-training

echoing Bernini's three-dimensional take on Saint Teresa:

head thrown back, eyes half-closed, lips parted 

the chorus ascending the stairway to heaven . . .

you are this . . . and more . . .

feeding momsy and popsy's A+ delusions of the good(er) life

until tomorrow's all-too-soon re-entry into Acme High . . .

from the '90s . . .

Varsity

The leaves would tell us, 

changing their colors,

patterning the ground.

And the crisp Saturday

afternoons.  Sweaters.

Great-looking cheerleaders.

Steaming coffee.  The din

of the marching band

mixing with the Icy Hot

in the locker room.

Joking around.  Towel

swatting.  And Coach

listen up ladies

with his righteous,

almost reverent, words. 

Heads bowed.  Awaiting 

the anointing with tongues.

The circle of hands. 

Helmet smacking.  Head

butting.  Getting psyched.  

Chanting.  Running through

the dim, damp tunnel 

into the roaring brightness.

Prancing across the field

on coltish legs.  Nerves

bursting.  The national

anthem.  Waiting for the

kick, the pigskin bullet.

This holy grail spiraling

toward us, sending us,

charging, at the armored

visitors, under the 

scoreboard's mocking glare.

 

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The talking heads in your dreamscapes

masked and bottlenecked

disappear into Chopin's études

insufficient funds barking the background

escorting you to a misandristic moment . . .

Of course you're out there with the wherewithal

holding the key the code the answer

in full Sphinxian getup . . .

Look on my works, ye mighty, . . .

Perhaps this aura brings you pleasure . . .

a respite from the unsettling . . . such and such . . .

the entire about-face shape-shifting slowly . . .

slowly . . . counterclockwise . . . a throwback . . .

time sucked into a maelstrom 

but not, yes? . . .

You as supplicant . . .

playing the field as it were

ticking off ifs ands buts . . .

It wasn't enough that you knew this from the get-go . . .

It wasn't enough to shore up the rationale . . .

You had to go weird-ass

with a conglomeration to boot . . .

And now the ruinous global circumstance . . .

the tide wearing away the details of your sandcastles . . .

your one-hundred-and-ninety-seventh attempt . . .

Platon Yurich

 

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The history of this . . . fitful, spasmodic

with a soft spot for irreverence . . .

an easy mark for spit-shiners . . .

lunging, irrepressible, desperate . . .

squandering any lasting claim

to noteworthiness . . .

An epic melodrama of legends of the fall

with colorfast etchings

recording the elementary logic

of remorseless joy

despite your images littered with loss . . .

To confess boredom, yes? . . .

Daily upticks of virtual victims . . .

The spinning out of control

and the return to humdrum

notched with fantasies of truth or dare

in the middle of a bridge

spanning there to here . . .

It was enough to reassume the position

no need to feign forgetfulness

with gestures reminiscent of decades past . . .

Reach into your toybox

and remove the circumstantial evidence of interiority . . .

of being you and not you

of being here and not here

of being then and of being now . . .

Felip Mars

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There was an off-handed knowingness . . .

an instability to the morning

that ran red lights and took corners at unsafe speeds

and yet the arrow didn't budge

in fact it seemed to egg on odysseyites

who had been flown in at the last minute . . .

You were landlocked

with reams of paper

and a willingness to map the contours

of life . . . unrolling the record . . . smoothing

it flat . . . turning autobiography

into cartography

no doubt dressed for the part

which had been reshaped to fit the fork in the road . . .

moment . . . or moments . . . palpable . . .

seemingly seamless . . .

This was not about loneliness . . .

the murkiness of loneliness . . .

It had been written up as such

but then a call came in from above

and the wording was changed . . .

We had no idea where you were headed

with your thesis . . . but after a while

it didn't matter . . .

There was something about the journey into the interior . . .

something about the interior design of a mind

that seemed to be plotting a way around . . .

or better, a way out . . .

Paulina Otylie Surys

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So it maps a geographic question mark in and around Dublin . . .

Listen to the music . . . Let it wash over you . . .

Jump in and bob along . . . on a journey

not unlike a mind that found itself

whose suicide was foiled by a flower bed . . .

And so on . . .

Because they could see I enjoyed it

immensely

and really what's not to enjoy

what's not to - as Joyce - love loves to love love . . .

You immerse yourself . . . in all seven levels . . .

the chancier the encounter the better

the higher the high . . .

The shoe store . . . and the heels . . . which later - much later -

provide a metronomic accompaniment

following your exit stage left

but was it right? (yes, it was right) -

through the gift shop . . .

Stay the night . . .

The bread truck awaits . . .

Leave them to decipher your scribbles

and phony phone number

a Rubik's Cube on a Post-it

The boardwalk as padded cell of catch-and-release . . .

Impenetrable motivation leading to an A+ . . .

For what? . . .

That you emerged seemingly unscathed . . .

Yes, I suppose, one could argue

but to what end (à la Cicero to Catiline) . . .

mayhaps, your unruly big hair anointing the heads of players -

faceless extras in need of a community one-act -

transforming them into twitching uniformed schoolboys . . .

satchels bursting with how-tos . . . how-not-tos . . .

stumbling home to the sanctuary of mommy's milk and cookies . . .

Angeline Ball as Molly Bloom

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Trapped in retrospection you are

seasoned by loss

seasoned by disappointment

destined for the ground . . .

Your worn-out metaphors ask . . .

what now? . . . while you . . . adrift in frippery . . .

paddle upriver . . . dissecting loneliness . . .

panicky . . . signing a treaty with cycles of longing

played out in brilliant one-acts . . .

Your last tapes remixed:

costumes abound

yellowing photo albums abound

past tenses abound . . .

You have become memories of sick rooms . . .

Paulina Otylie Surys

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The last time was how many years ago? . . .
You called it "sperimenting," yes? . . .
Glutted with symbols of foreplay
during socially distant close encounters

in sidings slotted for emptiness

you choreographed pas de deux

to the delightful confusion of partners

who had mistakenly thought they had signed on

for a full semester . . .

They received incompletes

as the ordinary heaved . . . and morphed

into the eerie the uncanny the berserk . . .

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You accept the role of role model for thumb-twiddlers 

amassing humdrum

through half-closed portals . . .
Visiting a somber mood
you cross paths with ghosts
bearing warnings from the Great Plains . . .
Scavengers rip into your dreams . . .

Reality augments . . . sights and sounds are off-key . . .
Streets . . . unstable . . .

This will be free from rule . . .

You embrace the freak moral logic

of that era's grim strays
who seem to say: we were there . . .

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Trotting out the fully formed from the head of Zeus

segue to the wedding

and grampa's comeuppance fueled by heavenly Chock full o' Nuts

pages torn from Freud's Mistake Book . . .

after Y M C A The Macarena This Magic Moment 

a tête-à-tête with intimations of serendipity . . .

Thrice-removed, yes? . . .

The full-frontal of he-said she-said

at the drive-through Golden Arches with this vegan-thing

in pink pinafore

then on to Storytown's cute cropped gingerbread houses

climbing on and up

and before you know it you're in over your head . . .

covering Lady Madonna

creeping like a nun . . .

bald-faced lying . . . on the bed . . .

but you overlook the overheated and give it your best shot . . .

tick-tock . . . tick-tock . . .

while in the confessional . . . the none-too-soon shrinkage

followed by I'm outta here! . . .

while back at the ranch the wedding party parties on . . .

splattering moments of gladness . . . badness . . . sadness . . .

Someone bought the farm! . . .

fessing-up to being born-again

and you in knee-jerk mode Facebook friend him/her . . .

Appropriation tell-me-a-story time:

The noctivagant person-of-interest as tugboat captain

charged with second-degree black belt . . . towing in the big ones . . .

coached for Bernard Pivot's Questionnaire

as administered by James Lipton on Inside the Actor's Studio . . .

What turns you on? . . .

The ripple effect of Richie Havens

arriving without suitcase making ends meet mending stockings

on never-ending Tuesdays . . .

But who pays the rent? . . .

And so it goes: buttered popcorn with episodes of The Office . . .

Screen Dump 520

As if a bodega at the nineteenth hole
intimate . . . edgy . . . unapolologetic . . .
with you again . . . birding . . . again in Jellies . . .
again the culmination of opposites
almost always the same geometric problem
wending your way . . . ticket in hand . . .
notebook bulging with sightings
and now the painted streets
war zones
confrontations with the Breaking Wheel
trying to upend paintings
disguised as sketches
lines redacted
words enough to encase them
in six by six by six foot cubes
with looped recordings admitting
wrongdoings . . . misappropriations
of the facts in the case of . . .
The case in the facts of? . . .
Do you trust the ramifications
in the jetty jutting into the sounds of silence
letting it be
the audience altogether now reminiscing
if you have nothing to say, say nothing . . .
hamstrung by the kneejerk
by the inconsequentials
by the tools missing
from the pleasure principle? . . .
The knitting continues . . .
A train marks the beginning
of the middle of the night . . .
It's time to reinvent yourself . . .
to reinvent your story . . . your backstory . . .
You don't mind the face masks . . .

their discrepancies
inconsistencies
hypotheses . . .

There are too many issues trumping
the syntax and semantics of  line-cooks
whipping up pre-shift staff suppers . . .

You want to be a part of it . . .
Again the question hacked . . .
Again the question overtalked . . .
But . . . how then should a person be? . . .

Screen Dump 519

Everything can compress . . . and eventually collapse . . .
But why now on a Sunday morning

in the frozen food section? . . .
The UK mathematician who won big for unscrambling
a nightmarish family of equations

as if aliens were driving the bus
is over there puzzling a shopping cart . . .
You continue to fret the scale . . . and plow into
a pretend cluster of stochastic analyses . . .
It's all about the math of things . . . the mask of things . . .
the snarky randomization

that turns the simple into the complex . . .
You search through the junk drawer in your kitchen

travel back in time to the unreality of your basement . . .
to friends arriving and departing
as predicted by the wonderfully seamless unraveling
of imaginary numbers . . .
You pined for an imaginary number that dewy evening
when imbalance shadowed your footsteps
and made you the target of indifference . . .
You are sure someone somewhere wrote you up . . .
the comealongs exacting their toll of inequality . . .
Sharks and Orcas are behaving so badly they make no sense . . .

Race Point, Provincetown, MA August 2020

Screen Dump 518

You're going on about Hidden Mothers
in daguerreotypes and how in the masked world
we are holding onto our own shoulders . . .
tap dancing the frames . . . (I don't know
what brought this on . . .
maybe the painted streets
maybe the instructions for re-entry
maybe the confrontations) . . .
A steam train on YouTube argues a grade . . .
a respite? . . .
then something about dropping sand
for traction
as if we too could gain a foothold
from a similar application
and wince ourselves into a newer normal . . .
The birds in the tray feeders outside
remind me of the flying saucers
in War of the Worlds
the matinee my mother in her housedress
took me to in the summer of 1953 . . .
Did Orson see this coming as well? . . .

Screen Dump 517

A sudden intrusiveness . . . all well and good . . .
with thoughts carjacked
the best laid . . . and all that . . .
Did you think otherwise? . . .
Remedies are short-serving . . . with prognosticians
speculating gold fever
doing their best to make it through to lunch
for the day's special
at the top of the fifth . . .
Winsome of course . . .
of course he/she gets sidetracked of course
lost amid the swirl of words
and the vehicle of moderation again stalls midstream . . .
You release yourself . . .

apieceapart.com/woman

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Thumbing through your narrative . . . bristling

with Post-its . . . I find . . . mirrored . . .

without flinching . . . the shouldn'ts . . .

as if treading water in shark-filled surfs . . . categorizing

storefronts . . . busywork for the them-that-got . . .

without trying to interpret the world of illusions

squeezing into your mind's broom closet

that lately has taken on the role of night train

with its tell-all version of improprieties . . .

You pine for the sand box's epicenter . . .

halcyon days when your footsteps left no prints

and fellow birders

admired the sporting look

of your Jellies in rainbow colors . . .

You removed subsequent pages

and followed the dotted line into a backstory

that continues to hold you with its nimble fingering . . .

teasing you unconscious . . .

The days arrive in a freightyard

unpacking the unspoken until the shortlisted

begin their departure to unsung unknowns . . .

apieceapart.com/woman

I Don't Want To Do This Anymore

by Hana Sheedy-Corrado

I fell in love with his eyes.

Now, when I see them my heart stops.

The lump in my throat

the knot in my stomach

the tears in my eyes.

But I won’t leave.

Not just yet. 

I need every comforting moment I have left.

I know it’s time but I’ll hold on to these last few minutes as long as I can.

I watch him play with his curls.

The lump in my throat grows.

The knot in my stomach tightens.

Knowing this cannot be my life anymore terrifies me.

I know I’m not in love with him anymore

but I love him so fucking much.

I wonder why I’m still here.

I bring myself to this place

where all I feel is nothing.

But isn’t nothing better?

Isn’t it better to feel numb than to hurt

than to feel so overwhelmed

that you’re drowning

peacefully drowning

and although everyone is watching

no one bothers to help

because they don’t know what it’s like, right?

To drown but you don’t want help.

So you let yourself drown

until you find the courage to let go.

I don’t want to do this anymore.

Jarek Kubicki

DEMOCRACY 101

by Tom Bonville

Another month

comes and goes,

and the virus

seeks another  .  .  .

The public outcry,

the screams for freedom  .  .  .

Let one thing be said:

Ignorance hides nothing.

Mass graves in Brazil

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Masked essentials shepherd IV Trees

along yellow brick roads

into medicated corridors

where everything is amuck

and playing it as it lays is out to lunch . . .

Cats hawk BOGOs for home-schoolers

embarking on a journey

into the heart of darkness

and disorientation . . .

the body . . . at six degrees of separation

retreats . . . curbside . . .

as tailors expand waistlines in wastelands

where fat is a conspiracy theory

disguised as a friend . . .

The last person you socially distanced

slipped out of town

with a new face

and was later spotted

on a gurney

crusted in salt

accessing redactions with a smartphone . . .

Can you imagine? . . . Yes, you can . . .

Mia Wasikowska

HE, SHE, IT, IT, THEY, THEM

by Nancy Dyer

HE, SHE, IT, IT, THEY, THEM,  I, YOU

Once I learned THESE, THEM, THOSE, HE, SHE, IT, IT, Mommy, Daddy, THEY, THEM -

Didn’t my humanity leave me?

Yes, perhaps we need a lexicon to not point and grunt . . .

To let our friends and neighbors know: “The lion is near.”
And “Pick up your children and RUN . . .”

But now I point: “YOU, YOU, HE, SHE , IT IT, THEY, THEM” and blame
Or deflect
And see YOU as SEPARATE, loved or hated
Applauded or reviled

That YOU means YOU, not your actions, not your words

How PROUD I must be
that I can point and see what is right and wrong,
good and bad about YOU, YOU, HE, SHE, IT IT, THEY, THEM.

About humanity, my city, your city, my family, my universe.

HE, SHE, IT IT, THEY, THEM

Don’t these words just give me
LICENSE to be some POMPOUS, judgmental,
You know what . . .

WHAT am I CREATING?
Really . . .

Really, just for now PLEASE think about it.

Because, really, it is more like what am I destroying?

Pompeii

Screen Dump 514

In the parking lot the socially distanced
pine for anything-other-than
grappling with returnables while practicing etudes
assigned years ago by an unknown . . .
You are given an assignment
directing you into unread chapters
which makes it desirable to a host of others . . .
You struggle to keep up with notetaking . . .
balancing your notebook on your knees
while maintaining a social distance
from inquisitors which takes you back
to Friday, July 23, 2010
though you don't remember why . . .
It seems everyone wants a piece of something . . .
You opt for obscurity . . .
Someone begins distributing broadsides
showcasing pick-me-ups from the four corners . . .
Pick-me-ups are always a treat . . .
They make the trip worthwhile . . .
navigating the bumper-to-bumper real estate
with boulevards thrown in . . . whenever
no one is looking . . .
a way to prune the edginess from the then-and-now
which seems to be gaining speed . . .

Jan Scholz

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The scene opens . . . the dance commences . . . you and not you . . .
the happenstance of eroticism driving the bus . . . with you
pin-spotting lexicons from the used bookstore around the corner
where the owner's calico eyes you from atop the rolltop
as you page volume after volume
trying to recapture something important that maybe got lost . . .
Did you find it? . . .
Did you find what you came for? . . .
The tell-tale euphoria . . . or paranoia . . . whichever . . . guiding you
through past's portals to that mid-summer afternoon
long ago . . . at your favorite kettle hole on the Cape . . .
the water warm clear inviting . . .
Later . . . someone editing memories . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

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Someone says the time is not right . . .

Indeed, it is not the right time
but why then are you plotting options? . . .
OK, the other day after texting masked,
socially distant experts in erasure,
you said you had had enough
with up close and personals . . .
That the end point had disappeared . . .
that there was no end point . . .
no convergence so to speak . . .
Wait, you saw it in which film? . . .
I don't think so . . . besides
you have just handed in your grades . . .
There will be no after-hours anything . . .
Being dragged to the surface? . . .

Isabel Toledo

Today on Mike Maggio's blog showcasing COVID-19 poems:

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You are masked and gloved . . . and socially distant . . .

orbiting the silent film Orphans of the Storm . . . gingerly

navigating the crapshoot of grocery-shopping . . .

An essential to the soundless

you eat the loss of the future tense

with its enigmatic typescript captioning

It's a Wonderful Life . . .

Someone somewhere is about to pull a ripcord

to float shamelessly and selflessly into the enveloping ether . . .

There will be others . . .

Jarek Kubicki

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The irregular dance of false starts

with its preoccupation of place that engulfs the blue moment . . .

the moment examined . . . incomplete . . .

The doors shut . . .

Was there a romantic link . . . perhaps temporarily? . . .

The ears . . . unblinking . . .

as if a thrill to cease . . . and desist . . .

You're wondering about the aftermath . . .

Not sure what you're talking about . . .

You know . . . it's kind of like when you're expecting delivery

and the scene shifts with players rolling their eyes

over costume changes that for some reason
seem ill-advised . . . ill-fitting . . .

Jan Scholz

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Tomorrow is now that day . . . choked with mutations . . .

monochromatic landscapes soundtracked

by those who have missed the unfollowing underway gradually . . .

This too smacks of spam . . . drawn slowly and all that is new . . .

The numbers climb . . .

Wrapped uncontrollably in festive cloth no more . . .

Did you think essentials would move like languages

through the outer regions . . . missing from the latest tally? . . .

You bought into that too, yes? . . .

Introspection is a no-no in those skimpy moments

when all you can think about is the way it was . . .

Someone hit the override button suspiciously

sending trailers to editors prior to

an ever-increasing awareness that gravity will do us in . . .

You too were thrust into the mirror . . .

What business of chastisement stands aloof? . . .

Can you imagine beaches without knowing anything . . . really? . . .

Unrecognized priors dictate the future

with little happenstance in their arsenal of apps . . .

Notions based on fluff . . . what now? . . .

OK, dissect the speculation put forth sans disclaimer . . .

With the drum and bugle corps abandoned midstream

the kickstart was left flopping around on the shore . . .

Nothing of these toppled times but conjecture 

and far be it from anyone to suggest a workable alternative

though that might be a tad harsh . . .

You have the right to an attorney . . . as if that would make a difference . . .

Nora Attal and Elfie Reigate

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Begging the rhetorical question is a joke you carry
in your hip pocket to pull out in the wake of an auditionee

soundtracked by silence in the streets . . . 

The humor is lost . . . or so it seems . . .

No one wants to cross over . . .
The line is drawn in the white sand . . .
The problem launched . . . Can nothing be done? . . .
Eye-glitter duped . . . and so it remains to be seen . . .

Can you adjust the spectrum . . .

or are we locked as well into that pattern of denial? . . .

Far too many . . . uncatalogued . . .

Why now the cups and saucers? . . .

The sit-down drags on amid the fluster of angles

spun by major leaguers . . . or is that too my imagination? . . .

Mario Sorrenti

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Margins of error plague your daydreams . . .
You count to five slowly after a flash of lightening . . .
welcoming the dissonance of thunder
and you're inside an upright bass
walking the notes . . . someone somewhere running the changes . . .
Under the right . . . or, maybe wrong . . . circumstances, yes? . . .
The supermarket - masked - barks out specials
in concert with coydogs
who roam the woods at night
searching for orphans . . .
cataloging drops vis-à-vis correlations
between down time
and the uptick in shootings
over what some are calling the new normal . . .
But he's not reading the reports! . . .
The debriefings anachronistic . . .
You wanted to pick it up from there
but the bus stops have been decompressed
and stuffed into clichés with little afterthought . . .
And this is someone's finest hour? . . .

Germaine Dulac, The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923)

SUN SET

by Nancy Dyer

What does it take to let a sunset into your heart?

To NEVER FORGET the colors?

Why is it we only keep the bad memories?

We crave the “bad news.” And then we share it.

Why do we let “them” put the big “Corona Virus” picture on the screen all day long
impervious to what it is imprinting in our minds?

What it is creating?

Will we never think to replace it all with sunsets and rainbows?

It’s just a decision, isn’t it?

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Ramifications? . . . What ramifications? . . .
A show of hands . . . palms open . . .

continuing the conversation across lockdown months . . .

This requires a reset . . .
The script qua floorplan enough to carry you through
until whatever phase includes feeding the flame . . .

You immerse yourself in hospital beds

tallying sheets, pillowcases, blankets . . .

What happens next? . . .

As if the Questioner of the Sphinx had opened

the gates of hell . . .

Remind me when the time comes . . .

Cold water will be such a treat . . . followed by no idea . . .

The sound of your voice ups the ante . . .

fading in and out . . . people checking in . . . and all that . . .

I've lost count . . .

Look . . . a cat approaches . . . head bowed . . .

Germaine Dulac, The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928)

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The streets fill with consequences . . . and eBikes . . .

and soundscapes for tomorrow's ticket-holders

enamored of dissonance . . .

Of course the hard damage of pianos

when in a false moment

you reach out to blindsided razor scooters

hoping for the next best thing . . .

Inasmuch would be too much

so we drop back . . . as the water level

creeps upward . . . threats the size of the third factory . . .

You recall burned-out players

sequestered in abandoned fallout shelters . . .

strings attached . . . fretless necks . . .
rehearsing what-was-then . . .

feeling free to take whatever . . .

The cost is about to weigh in . . . with yet more

incidental information disguised as nothing of late . . .

You too should have been there in the crowded atelier . . .

the underpinnings . . . substantial by any stretch . . .

The streets . . . back to the streets . . . yes? . . .

Germaine Dulac

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A warm breeze off the water
thinks twice
after being t-boned by the smell of the city . . .
You are tempted to retreat
to the chapter on white sand
and blue surf
where you have been told
many have fled . . .
There is no escape . . .
Your style . . . like so many others . . .
has been retired . . .
your script redacted . . .
The alleged perps last seen
after shredding the wheels of a moving violation
circling a roundabout . . . hot on the trail
of knockoff designer face masks . . .
Identities are cloned . . .
The plague is with us . . . within us . . .

The 1918 Great Influenza

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The world fills with Eleanor Rigbys

buried without funeral . . . without music . . .

with fossilized smiles

while looters . . . making off with paper weights

disguised as MacBook Pros

demand compensation . . .

Barricades seethe with anger . . .

Your favorite things lie smashed curbside . . .

The healing grows incredibly slow

as if cells object to expending energy on a jalopy

en route to the scrap heap . . .

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son? . . .

Screen Dump 503

This mail-order thing is distracting . . .
Take the other night for example
facing blank pages . . .
Rehashing the reinvestment
when your vanities took hold and ran wild . . .
You had time, yes? . . .
So why worry the dictates of taste? . . .
You were inclined to have no idea
how to redistribute the silence
that seemed to grow exponentially as you jotted down
what you took to be future options . . .

Eugenio Recuenco

Screen Dump 502

Instead never happened . . . it was cancelled
along with ghosts
of those awaiting word in six-foot bursts . . .
Shout-outs are shouted-down
the universe upended
even metaphors . . . bobbing along
with the flotsam
as confused as the rest of us . . .
struggle for how-tos . . .
And you? . . . You insist on photo-montages
scrambling for the high ground
as floods wash away
hopes and dreams and memories . . .
Why concern yourself now
over oxygen levels
while players instagram the remains of the day? . . .

Alina Lebedeva

AT the KITCHEN WINDOW, now

by Nancy Dyer

At the kitchen window, now,
eating breakfast.
Sliver of the river off in the        distance
Butterfly flutters past on the background of eternity.

Screen Dump 501

You pick up breakfast curbside . . . at your favorite diner
clock the high drama of lockdown
the air . . . filtered . . .
the reunion on hold
mom and pop's shuttered
memorializing . . . a day in the life of . . .
no intermission . . . no meet and greet . . .
From now on you will be responsible for carrying out
what you carry in . . .
When . . . to begin again? . . .
Didn't I tell you? . . . Sorry, I've forgotten . . .
It's always this . . . not unlike a magical addendum paraphrasing
the story line for first responders
who by choice or chance
enter the arena . . .
the wherewithals having left with spotters of notions
costumed for one last turn through the roundabout . . .

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 500

The room you are in fills with words . . . big words small words
color-coded . . . but the colors change as you collect the words
in your bucket for delivery to the empty marketplace . . .
The mooring of starting out . . . as good as any
while crossing Brooklyn ferry
with other swingers of birches . . . no more . . .
A line of people stretches out of view . . .
you recognize some . . . past players . . . here . . . not here . . .
fabricators of the now old New Next . . .
as well as extras for roles in a future film
that may open someday at the Bijou
in Wherevertown . . . its frayed seats having hosted
your journal entries . . .
and several of your play-by-plays . . . Becket's Krapp
listened to tapes recorded over the years . . .
mining his life . . . excavating his life . . .
with big words small words color-coded words

that became earworms . . .
mental Post-its for how a person should be . . .
Indeed, not wanting for things, yes? . . .

Screen Dump 499

You are masked and gloved . . . and socially distant . . .
orbiting the silent film Orphans of the Storm . . . gingerly
navigating the crapshoot of grocery-shopping . . .
An essential to the soundless
you eat the loss of the future tense
with its enigmatic typescript captioning
It's a Wonderful Life
for those in search of closure . . .
Someone somewhere is about to pull a ripcord
to float shamelessly and selflessly into the enveloping ether . . .
There will be others . . .

Jarek Kubicki

Screen Dump 498

There was nothing you could do
about it . . . then or now . . . as if
the back door had become unhinged over
its inability to understand . . .
The comfort of connections . . .
the connections we seek . . . and need . . .
the wet, heavy snow igniting
cardiac episodes . . .
Grocery carts roam empty parking lots . . .
Spring unsprung . . .
everyone - well, most everyone -
masked, gloved, giving
wide berth . . . not unlike
ships at sea . . . Michael Moore's
Planet of the Humans shakes you awake
at 3 AM . . . big-shouldered
extraction companies overharvesting
resources . . . to page through
yellowing notebooks . . .
for Hawking's uninhabitable . . .
This was done . . . then, nothing . . .

Jarek Kubicki

In April's Chronogram:

A Piece of Nothing

And then, again, you decide
to look at the sketches
of domes in cities
you've never visited,
and probably never will,
the domes having
insinuated themselves
into your reading
and into your life.
You don't even know
the names of the cities
and towns but they're
pleasant to look at,
and spark images of travel.
There are moments
when the armchair
you're sitting in
by the window
overlooking the park
seems to lift off
and float above
the canals in the cities.
You strike up conversations
with strangers in languages
you don't even know.
This could be a wish,
or a piece of nothing,
connecting you to the world.

Screen Dump 497

You're messing with the script
trying to dodge it
short-circuit the craziness . . . life out of balance
but the ruts are deep
and you keep sliding back in . . .
An instruction manual offers suggestions
but we'll have to wait for the next installment . . .
A lapse in the rain graying-out
the morning's options
fills your pockets with seeds . . .
Is it time to turn the soil? . . .
to add fertilizer? . . .
Last year was a bust . . . nothing . . .
Maybe this year, yes? . . .
As if elephants appear out of a nightmare . . .
downsized . . . Aren't we all . . . downsizing? . . .
Isn't everything downsizing? . . .
You decide to make matters worse by tagging the elephants
that have joined us to break bread
around an empty table . . .
You opt - quite heroically I should add -
to include boulevards in the lockdown . . .

Kate Moss

The Albany Poets, in the spirit of community, is encouraging local poets to post a video of themselves reading one of their poems. Here's mine:

One Could Do Worse Than Be A Dumper Of Screens

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

Screen Dump 496

So by half exist you mean what? . . .
The head boards have control of your head
and they're using it to illustrate
the ebb and flow of counterintelligence . . .
Someone intuitively selects a circle
to contain the argument which is making
its way along the rutted road
that runs alongside your dream house . . .
There's a run on everything I suppose
if you assume the unpopular stance
that there's no significant difference
at the .01 level . . . at any level
for that matter . . . but even then
hyperventilation cannot redeem
the world . . . and AI is out to lunch . . .
at least until 1:30 . . . Rewiring skin tags
begs fluctuation . . . wouldn't you agree? . . .

Anatoly Gladkov

Screen Dump 495

Humpty Dumptyites insist survival is predicated
on accepting disappointment . . .
Even health care workers are buying into it . . .
balding boldfaced burnt-out self-quarantined
in face mask and sandwich boards
pushing a fractal approach . . . while walking on
the frozen surface of a body of water . . .
billions and billions
on a tiny pale blue speck of dust . . .
wait to be loosed into the cosmic boondocks
of the late Cornell astrophysicist Carl Sagan
who shared the secrets of the Cosmos
with insomniacs while appearing
more than two dozen times
on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson . . .
Price gouging spikes . . .
for toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizers, hand wipes,
cleansers, detergent, disinfectant sprays . . .
Doomsayers wander empty supermarket aisles
plugging black holes with emptiness . . .
A conspiracy of cats contacts you . . .
Aquifers bloat watersheds . . . spark confusion . . .
Why does why invite seepage? . . . something unexpected . . .
Window-shopping for answers you encounter
an urgency with no recognizable context . . . and so it goes . . .

Humpty Dumpty circa 1873

Screen Dump 494

But then in the middle of the Alfredo you break it off
running tabs aerobically . . .
effortlessly . . . on one of your cardio days . . .
The morning coffee . . . altered
the plants sprayed
the cats fed . . . and watered . . .
It wasn't on the list, was it? . . . I mean
this offset color . . .
arranged I suppose in a rainbow of personals . . .
The language . . . inside and out . . .
suppositions . . . (with addenda) . . .
There's little here for watchers
if you discount them over there doing planks . . .
breaking through the fourth wall
with Cream of Wheat oversold, yes? . . .
elevating obscurity
at least in the red white blue states
somewhere here buried in the regs . . .
You alas as such . . . no, more, yes, more . . .
cultivating an avatar with rapidographic seizure . . .
the morning after . . . and then . . .

Wendy Bevan

Screen Dump 493

It's all about degrees of freedom . . . costumes, angularities,
shadings . . . navigating an intersection . . .
midday . . . odysseyites treading water . . . again . . .
people spinning . . . accoutered with options . . . nothing makeshift . . .
private messaging their own doom . . .
highlighting with regret the ones that got away . . .
the clanging metaphor . . . laughable . . .
The colors of the day trot out . . . elsewhere
tendings accumulate . . . recalling morning breaks
and the rigmarole of the starting line. . .
iPhones punching in . . . around water coolers
with recaps of news items
that come and go . . . come and go . . .
Eking out a cover as if line-a-plenty were key to the labyrinth . . .
A practical guide . . .  at least according to some passersby . . .

Jan Scholz

Screen Dump 492

You wake to a migraine of skates, draw a rink . . .
Your brain clots false binaries . . .
worrying the next of seven levels
knowing gropings and reversals have their own weird logic . . .
iPhones snap up your moves . . . exquisitely . . .
escaping overcooked Facebook chatter with elasticized joy . . .
Someone somewhere is about to walk into a room . . .
Again, the past . . .
Odysseyites make house calls with action figures
resurfacing February's frozen pond . . .
Schools of fish swim a snow day . . .
The understanding is white coral
interspersed with coffee breaks and fine china
and magicians - yes, magicians - with brown paper bags
brimmed with magic dust . . .
You continue to finetune your moves . . .
fueling the excitement of masked goalies with ulterior motifs . . .
Your mother kept the piece, downsizing a dream come true
for those dissecting the afternoon's fallout . . .
Transfixed, you enjoy bus stops that jolt you into journaling
your life partying with snow angels more often . . .

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 491

The day reeks of snow . . . and lines from Gatsby . . .
borne back ceaselessly into the past . . .
The Stutz Bearcats . . . unsuspecting . . . put upon . . .
dabble chatty bangs . . .
runners up . . . misinterpreted . . . and late . . .
Daisy's white roadster appears . . .
as players are benched . . .
harvesting evidence for review . . . with a smile . . .
decades hence . . .
You arrive with Crayolas . . . the walls of your room rearranged
to better escort the inexperienced . . . drifting into invisibility . . .
into the land of prematures . . .

Mario Sorrenti

Screen Dump 490

You're paging through . . . spelling redemption . . .
sinking a bunch from the free throw line . . .
eyes on the key . . . the steroids in the back room pushing big iron . . .
amused . . . you miss a spot . . . go back . . . and back . . .
back to your OCD . . . in fuchsia high-tops . . .
receptionists-a-go-go filling in the gaps
with furniture music from a hilltop factory spewing polyethylene . . .
shout-outs to the hyperventilating . . .
You propose a scavenger hunt with nanoseconds
the door ajar to a room festooned with period costumes . . .
The length enticing . . . the game continues . . .

Screen Dump 489

You miss the exit . . . and begin transcription
the backseat drama unfolding . . .
an overabundance of footnotes . . . trolls following the dotted line
into backroom bookshelves . . .
but this is what you wanted, yes? . . .
Thinking salutations . . . sulkily, you become a minion
searching the trash for disclaimers . . .
mapping the terrain of the argument . . .
If only odysseyites had proofed the pudding . . .
nosebleed sections deconstructed, labeled, reassembled . . .
Guiding the hands of players . . .
this from your notebook jottings
embellished with promises from would-be martyrs . . .
Removing transitionals from how-tos made it seem almost real
with more than enough space for everyone . . .

Wendy Bevan