Screen Dump 599

Nobody knows anything about the future.

          - Louise Glück

Once upon a time with several backstories . . .

Listening to the pages of books

you want to return to where it all began . . .

How it came down . . . and continues . . .

The survivors . . . masked . . . mundane . . . surreal . . .

Little sense renaming things . . . the overflow gesture

will surely bottleneck . . . not unlike most in the script

which you insist on trotting out . . .

The bus stops though are magnificent

but we must wait for later angels, yes? . . .

A good idea to spend time cataloguing various happinesses

both obscure and profound . . .

And now you endeavor to fabricate your own happenstance

which if done properly can be adopted by others

who have decided to make-do with leftovers from Pizza King . . .

I know . . . I know . . .

Never forget the sound-hemmed

or those who say the least . . .

Ghosts in the green mirrors of yesterday

continue to appear in your Facebook album . . .

Why did you deconstruct the bed before leaving? . . .

Was it the square wooden shoulders peering through the glass? . . .

Darkly? . . . Not to say . . .

Spending the day in a parking lot . . . waiting

for words to arrive on a Greyhound . . .

You were promised a box of pencils when stop-action coydogs

beyond all invention howled the passcode to your hip pocket . . .

As if experiencing tears for the first time . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

 

Screen Dump 598

The Shining's hedge maze with single digit temps

is a one-way ticket to elsewhere . . .

Odysseyites amuck with Coen's Macbeth

When the hurly-burly's done . . .

all doors open . . . hoo-ha . . .

Again, again, you try to capture the detail

with a nervous camera

like again you're obsessing The Da Vinci Code

earthenware digits reversing

the order of operations

to see if the end product morphs into a takeaway . . .

Trying to restart the Method . . .

Rearranging yellowing photos

from The Land That Time Forgot

(or should have)

you dream witch's garb

contorting into prophesy

with first person shooters at Rodin's Gates of Hell . . .

Flipping burgers in some greasy spoon

with hangers-on from a trilogy

that never got off the ground . . . whose words

are etched in someone's granite . . .

The mirror's images symbolic

of foul but give fair advice to heroes and cowards . . .

Kathryn Hunter in Joel Coen's Macbeth (2021)

Screen Dump 597

Your memories avalanche . . . their redundancy

taking you by the hand . . . misleading you

through the maze of your heart's back alleys . . .

How not to personify the habitual . . .

goofy shifts and the beauty of the clunk close to convincing you

to dispense with the endgame . . . the proper

though not necessarily acceptable solution . . .

A plague of hideous narcissists enters

full of sound and fury

local littlenesses piggybacked with false promises

take to the streets with anarchic images

from the backpacks of recognizable strangers

who are quick to trade identities

signifying nothing . . .

A contrabass flutist strikes a dischord

and is recalibrated by a wandering minimalist

intent on delusion . . .

The night puts out feelers . . .

Many experience a faux aha . . .

You see it coming despite your backward glance . . .

Paulina Otylie Surys

Screen Dump 596

Something about the web of indifference . . .

No retelling the clutch . . . it was there . . . you were there

as if tap dancing in the bardo . . .

Then you dropped the ball . . . outstripping silence . . .

Odysseyites began speaking from hard-won experience . . .

You Ubered home at 1:30 AM

playing stopgap with a year's reprieve

dust bunnies cavorting . . .

Why bother the naiveté of Positively Fourth Street? . . .

You have no faith to lose

in your celebrated future waking life . . .

Can you recap anything? . . .

Is there a documentarian? . . . a videographer? . . .

You are repainting the rooms . . . yes, I understand . . .

The cake was indeed left out in the rain . . . period . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 595

On bed or sofa . . . you adjust the volume

to accompany your departure

the departure of others . . .

The stillness captured

epic tales of whiteouts

hunkered down . . . waiting . . .

So now is the time to hoard it in your heart? . . .

Again and again . . .

Let's broach continuity

for the sake of . . . for the sake of what?  . . .

It sounds fishy doesn't it? . . .

I mean when was the last time you opened

a how-to with bits and pieces a-plenty? . . .

Should we go on? . . .

dump everything into a disambiguation machine

and see what happens? . . .

Maybe it'll surprise us . . . though I doubt it

what with the transparency

mottled at that . . .

Bloom of happenstance . . . then the close . . .

Shannon Hartman in Ill Seen Ill Said by Samuel Beckett (2017)

Screen Dump 594

Your uneducated palette makes haste

and so itself belies . . . snow creasing consciousness

as when lost in the stacks

you made the most of words

the clock flipping the storyboard

awaiting yet another invasion

this one more contagious

outmaneuvering makebelievers

pulled in to make space for makeshift whirligigs

atop unmarked cars . . .

Bells ring unendurably . . . as if entombed . . .

Many try to stay the four-credit course

with a lab from one of those

insufferable unaccountable kennel farms . . .

Those in the wake of your wandering to what end . . .

Just enough cover to be visible

the tracks of odysseyites

cunningly contrived by the unfulfilled . . .

Shannon Hartman in Ill Seen Ill Said by Samuel Beckett (2017)

Screen Dump 593

You took umbrage out for a quick question

entering a labyrinth . . . the idea sprung from the Middle Ages . . .

Impenetrable to intruders . . . yes, that's it . . .

But what about the audience? . . . those accoutered in chain mail? . . .

Mostly opera buffs

incidentalists who looked after the impossible

years and years . . . and years

when those contemplating bigness stepped forward

drawing lines in the sand

leaving odysseyites with next to nothing

and strange tales of the forgotten who were beside themselves . . .

Isn't it wonderful to feel the first soft flakes? . . .

I mean, prepare yourself for an extended commitment

to combat boots . . . some bearded . . . wearing overcoats

not knowing when to stop and take it again from the top . . .

Marie de France (1160-1215)

Screen Dump 592

Haunted by the weird aftertaste of the word-drunk

you proceed to fill in the blanks

only to arrive like a rumor at the tail-end of a long train running . . .

Costumed out of desperation for three scenes hence

in no time you run out of words

tweaking the coordinates

and move into a double-wide consciousness . . .

You begin visiting on odd-numbered Saturdays

logging innuendoes for TikTok

celebrating incidentals

parsing the friendship of a conundrum as if it were celebratory . . .

You are fit to be tied to your lit-life

rescripted by scholars emeriti brought in with field recordings . . .

A door is left ajar by odysseyites

who flee Zoom's parameters . . .

The world keeps ending on Netflix . . . but it doesn't . . .

You thought you had deleted your account . . .

You were sure of it

but a glitch appeared in the middle of your nightmare . . .

Screen Dump 591

You commit to dreams-a-plenty

to an allotment of time

to delusion

to a slightly skewed morality tale . . . interrupting the moment . . .

You gather dust when you least expect it

when the penultimate scene fails to engage

the magical mystery tour of the apartment

where your erotic other waits . . . hands bronzed . . .

One must have a mind of . . . and so it goes . . .

Bundled against the sharp wind

your childhood friend becomes the Joker

following a plastic surgeon's dotted lines . . .

Dreams-a-plenty, yes? . . .

Pushbacks threaten . . .

You TikTok the day away with addled wine obsessives . . .

Outside, jays hit the feeders with an arrogance

that scatters seeds to the ground . . .

You become a ground-feeder, gathering the seeds . . . waiting . . .

There are rules and regs for all

our parts edited, updated, polished . . .

To relinquish nothing . . . to take no prisoners . . .

Screen Dump 590

Mirror in the mirror.

          - Arvo Pärt

You read the lines in the face in the mirror in the mirror . . .

The bird has flown away . . .

Iambs carry you into a spare, unoccupied room:

odysseyites tethered to where you were most . . .

Retracing your steps, your moves, the players in your play . . .

Not the one you wrote . . . labored over for how many years? . . .

but the one you picked from a stacked deck 

when the dole was doled to the doles

and you disembarked . . . bright-eyed and bushy-tailed

to play their game . . . because, hell, why should it be

only their game? . . .

Indeed, it was fun . . . manipulating the scene

sparking the moment . . . seducing the seducers

clocking the clock . . .

All the while the lion watching . . .

You were costumed in the skin of a lion

having scraped and cleaned and soaked and salted

and smoked and dried it

according to the voices in your head . . .

Always the voices in your head . . .

How often? . . . How many? . . . How now brown cow? . . .

Inquiring minds want to know . . .

You had mastered the rounded vowel sounds

and found them enticing . . .

Oncomers came on and in no time fell under your spell . . .

Come one . . . Come all . . . Come hither and yon . . .

Of course you'll have time to return in time . . .

But the cupboard is bare

despite the cornmeal con with legs-a-plenty . . .

Odysseyites spent time in the mooring of starting out

were written up and released into their own rom-coms . . .

Gaming tables laughed to see such a sight . . .

Discos spooned . . .

Enter again the lion

the elephant raising and lowering his trunk in time to the magic . . .

A house in glass . . .

Occupants in invisible ink . . . held up to a lightbulb . . .

You cannot escape yourself! . . .

Leaving before the credits with Max Schreck aka Count Orlok

all tricked and treated out in 1922's Nosferatu

clickety clack on the sidewalk crack . . .

The lion in a delivery van far from the madding cow . . .

Screen Dump 589

Those days when both of us are on different wrong pages

or different wrong sides . . .

I know you thought it was a dream

or an instant replay . . . but no, the morning

was elbowed out by some startup's beta version

all promises and what have you

new and improved . . . supposedly better

the relativity of GoFundMe better . . .

Nonetheless the streets have been prepped

for something . . . yet another dethroning

of  politicos? . . . The incumbent impediments

and control of the center of the board . . .

Please don't hope for the best . . .

Who me? . . . I don't think so . . .

The weird thing is I've misplaced the passcode

to your voice

and now I'm in the throes

of  reconstructing the front end from memory . . .

Why the itinerary of thoughts? . . .

Is it time to go? . . .

Yes, wake up, get dressed, it's time to go . . . I am smitten

with to-dos and can't wait to see how today plays out . . .

Lydia Roberts

 Screen Dump 588

Time speeds through you . . . bidirectionally . . .

The ceiling fan spins tales of inundation . . .

How emulators seek justification

for hoarding . . .

The need to hold onto some semblance

of your past waking life

in all its preciousness . . .

The get-gos are gone . . . and will not be back

anytime soon . . . if at all . . .

There was a time and place

for some of us

but the clocks changed

so the players anteed-up

thinking they'd return and decide what to do

as if their lives were haikus without seasons . . .

Lydia Roberts

Screen Dump 587

Then they asked about directing solo performances

the credibility of misplaced modifiers

whether it was more difficult than directing a group of actors

and you knee-jerked

manipulating the interior monologue

for all to see

words and images bailing

arms raised . . . as if opening the book to the moment

the stage suddenly overrun with excerpts from

Didion's Book of Common Prayer . . .

But it's not really that, is it? . . .

What do you mean? . . .

You know . . . the commonplace we all inspire

when tackled mid-run

the instant replays . . . in slo-mo

buckets brought out as if this had been written

the well-intentioned escaping in their high-end SUVs . . .

You reopen to the dilemma of desire

your crib notes wrinkled by the winters of our discontent

featuring quick-study shadowers

who bronze footnotes of hidden agendas

that by force and against their will you made them eat . . .

The truth grieves me . . .

It grieves us all . . .

despite the rules against showing pain . . .

The seduction of the arrival gets their goat

and they more often than not collapse into the fourth wall . . .

Directing solo performances? . . .

Of course, proceed with an enigma dried to perfection

showcased against the missing . . .

Meg Sullivan in MegAnneMaud (2009)

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Your early old age enters the Land of Foreign Bodies

where quick-to-ensnare logicians emeriti map rescue distances

always rescue distances . . .

It's not something for the pulchritudinous

who would insist otherwise with their twittered tattoos . . .

The community idiom is at the top of someone's list

of inappropriate pours . . . on-site distractions

glance-thieves all . . .

I am beside herself, yes? . . .

The Real Deal has been kicked up several notches . . .

As requested, I too have submitted my request

to the shadow boxers on Main

running in place with ankle weights

ramped-up with ebikes . . . their relentless

pursuit of dotted lines almost says it all

but without the missing pieces the end-all totters . . .

Why the snaps of an empty room? . . .

You must know he/she in solo garb meant well . . . I suppose . . .

The waters beyond the Great Barrier Reef

with its 14 degrees of latitude

continue to trump our six degrees of separation, yes? . . .

C-3PO

Screen Dump 585

But the hands are a dead giveaway . . . then too the drama of the face . . .

The moments of anticipation . . . excitement . . . inklings

into the perhaps . . . retooling yourself for elsewhere

as if the curtain call had been recalled

and you boarded the ship of happenstance . . .

Meanwhile upticks in loss continue . . . increase . . .

There will be no retake . . . no remake . . . you disembarked at that point

and set out . . . this and not this . . . that . . . etcetera . . .

Anka Zhuravleva

Screen Dump 584

Downward and downward

as if a prayer for words that holds open the door

to a dreamscape with you in an orange grove above the sea

and once a mountain covered in snow . . .

You found comfort at the entrance to a covered bridge . . .

Odysseyites provide blankets . . . at times a postcard . . .

Each day the stone steps of the climb

to a hillside town with costumed go-betweens

reciting lines long lost carry you . . .

I would have preferred collecting paper cuts

but you insisted . . . then everything changed and we were left

with a set of hieroglyphs for reassembling life

suited to the colorways that were chosen

by drivebys on their way out with diminishing returns . . .

Alina Lebedeva

Screen Dump 583

No, not never . . . the end flashing on the screen

collecting empties from the thems that got

surprised when looking through the wrong end of a telescope

everything . . . and everyone . . . small . . . manageable . . .

Of course, that's when the scene ends

and the midnights elbow in with rewrites . . .

You, under cover, I mean, you, under the covers

replay the drama of rain . . . looking through the glass

as extras plod across . . . Across what? . . .

I dunno, across the moors, how's that? . . .

Did you say you got a callback? . . .

You pulled out the stops to your life as remainder

threw open the drapes . . . Proust-like . . . and now? . . .

Look at the trees at the edge of the world . . . 

They're talking to you . . . recounting the time

you wanted to run . . . go back . . . as we all wish . . .

Am I spinning my wheels here? . . .

Is it all bullshit . . . all window dressing for the camera obscura? . . .

Or are you readying yourself once again to get

into the driver's seat . . . despite the cracked pleather

and transform yourself into a journey

back to the blank page with odysseyites clamoring for more? . . .

Spectators flown in to populate the front row

await assurance . . . and who can blame them? . . .

They've walked the walk of sidewalk days

trying to find the door that you told them would welcome

their penmanship . . . their words . . . within which . . .

Aneta Ivanova

Screen Dump 582

The joy of opening your eyes to the previously unseen

moves you to freefall . . . to cast yourself off . . . oarless . . . 

You traffic in fragmentation . . . savoring the elements

that seem to defy comprehension . . . The exciting almost

of the flight of nearness with you on a bicycle

speeding downhill . . . enjoying the random blundering

in concepts too fine for the timid . . . embracing the inevitable

record of failure . . . of not saying what you want to say

not because you shy away but because words fall short  . . .

Beverly Peel & Tyra Banks

Screen Dump 581

Ghosts of gentle lunatics guide your latest revisions

the irregular folds of happenstance weigh in with blurbs

from spiral-bound collections of origami . . .

Your world has become labyrinthine . . .

You retreat into your altered ego, dreaming yourself

an alien inventorying costumes

in a shabby off-the-grid B&B

brimming with knockoffs of Golden Books

a sort of meta-metaphor for time ill-spent . . .

You await your cue to enter the scene

of a wake . . . half-expecting a downpour but the anonymity of rain

surprises you . . . flooding the reshoot and washing away

the drafty monologues of auditionees . . .

Nina Hoss in Returning to Reims (2018)

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The revised ambiance unsettles go-betweens . . .

Many remember overhauls with a sparkling clarity

which seemed to ease their entrance . . .

With so many awaiting callbacks

why bother craning your neck to grab hold? . . .

If only I had an app, I would . . . indeed I would . . .

What's with the smock? . . .

Do you anticipate a splattering of the nonsensical?

a reassignment of metaphor? . . .

Now there's a welcoming conundrum . . .

Of course, without more to go on, it seems as if

the hodgepodgers are in ascendance . . .

Nothing much to add, so you may as well head out . . .

Nina Hoss

Screen Dump 579

A casual craziness-troubling genre

informs your carefully choreographed appearances

the bird's-eye view stuffing your pockets

with to-dos . . . Odysseyites found

in translations wander Commercial Street

among the masked . . .

The lunch hour bottlenecks at the food truck

which sports a new paintjob and new menu

redirecting you back

to your elementary school cafeteria

where you usually sat . . . alone

at a crumb-encrusted table . . .

You manage a wrap . . . then slip back

into seclusion . . . into the solace of words

fabricating fake dramas populated by flâneuses

who take explorations of cities

as their calling . . . and are rewarded

their occasional unstable footing forcing the body

to adapt to a new balance . . . a new world . . .

Screen Dump 578

And at dawn, armed with fiery patience, we will enter splendid cities.

          - Arthur Rimbaud, A Season In Hell

You are the perfect subject . . . rehearsing

monologues of introspection . . . flip-flopping

intuitive . . . costumed . . . in an enigmatic "don't ask me how" way

as if inhabiting a meandering fortune cookie

managing chance . . . hoping for the best . . .

Your incomprehensible gestures tag folly

and make for an exquisite shoot . . . little matter that

the limo's tires are flatted fifths

documenting your ebb and flow . . .

No worries that you will not get your due

that you will miss the opening

and be set adrift with an uncharted script

that the unprimed span of canvas

will not give you enough room to breathe

to stretch out, get air, vet your place in the sun

without a mime's sounds of silence . . .

The gates to splendid cities open to you . . .

There have always been . . . and always will be . . . illusions

fertile destabilizations . . . like a disordered collection

of yellowing snapshots from your celebrated future waking life . . .

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 577

Like an MRI of your alphabet asking for seconds . . . and thirds . . .

There are options . . . always, options

selecting players randomly using machine language . . .

Your 50-minute hour mutates into a mini-doc 

of 20 faux pas . . . with odysseyites flown in for a re-enactment

that has nothing to do with anything . . .

You have become enamored of place . . . this place . . .

The way it was . . . The way it is . . .

Your distant closeness colors the world . . .

Your periscope however stubborn locks on the loneliness 

of marionettes . . . whose strings are tied to rehearsals

of twelve-tone musical compositions in forsaken music halls . . .

DiFilippo Marionette Theater Company

Screen Dump 576

And their stories of course . . . sometimes two three four deep

too deep? . . . their riddles . . . idiosyncrasies

their egos . . . following the dotted lines . . . boringly

always the same . . . costumes googled . . . gestures formulaic

predictable . . . yet humorous . . . entertaining . . .

So you do whatever you do to step up to the plate

to placate them . . . tease them . . . with movements-a-plenty . . .

Is this getting old? . . . Is it? . . .

Quickly . . . cover it with books, envelopes, yesterday's mail . . .

I can do this . . . yes, I can do this

and get something out of it . . . the gold ring

of the merrier-than-thou-merry-go-round . . . 

A flash of your father at an amusement park lifting you

onto a wooden horse . . . the Trojan Horse of your adolescence

stuffed with horns-a-plenty

when you stepped out of your chubby self

and into the lights and drama of the fashionistas' world . . .

You should have seen me then? . . .

But I did . . . and I was stamped with pleasure which ran up and down

and through me like wolves on a hunt . . .

The slack waves listed . . . deconstructed . . . like nothing else . . .

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 575

Not unlike the churning poor . . . the begging-off

too small to bother with

to remove from the back seat

like a short story or piece of flash fiction

as if waddling along the wood's edge

the weariness, yes, the weariness

of driving through rain

to reach the end . . . of the scene . . .

Deadbeats mastering backbeats

waiting for the waiting for . . .

the ramifications thereof . . . the sidewalk

middling midterm midday midtown midsection . . .

I am become Godot . . . engendering happenstance

the nomenclature of pigeonholers on break

when the urge becomes as overpowering

as kayaks through whitewater . . .

Collecting the memes of arias . . .

There is much to be savored

on the screen at a weed-choked drive-in

the struggle with the speaker on the window recalled

the choreography of the tenacious front seat

then the stimming accompanied by

the truth taking stare state of mind

that precedes a breakdown/breakthrough? . . .

Marta Forsberg, Composer

Screen Dump 574

You collect blow-ins from magazines for collages

of skateboarders shredding abandoned screenplays . . .

Curators off-camera interview orphans

in Adirondack chairs . . . connecting the dots

to the nonsensical as if in response to What did you expect? . . .

But it's all there . . . well, sort of . . .

Your fascination with figuration

your writing between the lines

walking the dunes to the lighthouse

during low tide's non-credit course

which you audited as if the brittle microfiche

would point a finger at incompleters

who partied with odysseyites

before disappearing in a late-model non-sequitur . . .

Then it was back to the blue screen

with Miles playing Bill Evans's Blue In Green

making it a loss for words . . .

Besides, this time next year will be the same time this year . . .

You can't not imagine how . . . how the heavens opened

and post-impressionists weighed in

with a muted palette 

while a storm waited at the blue in green light

prepping us for tomorrow's time trial . . .

David Benoliel

Screen Dump 573

After that there was little left to say

especially with the rain . . . which fell

past the place settings . . .

Instead of bailing, you disappeared

into the anomalies of time

but now you're back in the middle of an aria . . .

Quite providential, yes? . . .

There have been days of high drama

with few breaks in the dialogue

which made its way along some coastal route

pinned with tourist traps . . .

The filming continues . . .

especially the avatars of time and place

as if in the heart of darkness someone said

Thanks for the memories . . .

You had asked for the full catastrophe

and were taken aback by the preponderance

of rehearsals . . . all for the better one would hope . . .

David Benoliel

Screen Dump 572

The discrepancy rang in for the mandatory eight

while you . . . and your shopping cart . . . continued to check

for underlines which would have fit in very nicely . . .

It's really too early to say

but I would urge you to go ahead

before the principals leave the stage for the coda . . .

Have you encouraged others? . . .

Has the segue arrived? . . .

It would indeed be a coup if . . . and only then I might add . . .

So . . . the apps did the trick, yes? . . .

Were the blue books collected mid stream? . . .

Someone came forward gushing appreciation

which is always a hat trick

conjecturing this and that as if tomorrow was yesterday . . .

Peter Lindbergh

Screen Dump 571

It's not about getting it all down

again feeding your obsession 

a mirroring of psyches

(whatever that means) . . .

Now is not as good a time as any . . .

Your aim is off . . .

The rain . . . a narrow gauge

through backstories

in back alleys all but spent . . .

Odysseyites stocking up on staples

for wintering the summer

at the shore . . . their notebooks

street smart and ready for

close encounters with figments

of  consciousness

hurled out of second floor windows . . .

Insist on paper and pencil

for up close and personals . . .

Maciej Boryna

Intermission Piano

Your cousins are in the water.

But you're not.

You're playing intermission piano

on this early July morning

that's just beginning to heat up:

the sand just starting to sting

the voices of your cousins

just starting to get louder.

So you're playing intermission piano

on this early July morning

because sometimes the water is just too cold

sometimes your cousins play just a little too rough.

Intermission piano.

It's kinda scary.

Walking the edge without a musical score

going on what Frank O'Hara called nerve

when he talked about being chased

by someone with a knife.

Intermission piano.

On this early July morning.

So it's good that grandma's here

on the beach

in her housedress

with her beach chair.

And it's good that she's invited you

to sit on her lap for a while

watch your cousins in the water

and slowly wade into the day.

Screen Dump 570

Buying time to rethink the restoration . . .

When last was just before

and you laid out specs for go-betweens

knowing the endpoint would fade . . .

Now you can . . .

I had hoped to make it back in time . . .

The dream has too many doors

of different colors

and you keep ringing the bell

channeling odysseyites

populating the wakes of dead friends

who remain connected . . .

I want to transcribe your genes

but you skip beats

leaving several in an empty parking lot . . .

The last time was the last time . . .

although with the so-called rebirth

it seems as if we will be able to . . .

I hope so . . . I really do . . .

The printer's cartridge is empty

and the kiosk on the corner is a hog barn . . .

You have been put on hold . . .

Nicholas Cage in Pig (2021)

Screen Dump 569

You nudge the narrative into the uncharted waters

of a world in which even the least consequential seems precious . . .

Why the homing in on the narrow corridor of sleep? . . .

Have you documented every prompt that makes you smile? . . .

Timing is everything . . .

And what about the coffee shop on the corner

that continues to email you BOGOs

which are fiendishly autodeleted? . . .

You're not sure why . . .

and you're not sure about the address

which keeps changing . . . along with the artisanal blends

seeping into this poem . . .

It's all here . . . in the reworked script . . .

following a plan where a plan seems to fit

or making it up as you go . . . again

capturing overheard music . . . the same tonic and dominant

of loneliness and nostalgia . . .

traipsing through a wetland drenched in blue . . .

the same blue from the Book of Blue . . .

Your foodie friend blabs that reheating and plating carry-outs

feels almost as if you've made it yourself . . .

One can only suppose . . .

And fewer options reduce the tyranny of choice . . .

the shorter leash of the disembodied eye shadowing your search

for the solution to today's Puzzle-Me-This . . .

It's all good, yes? . . .

Irma Haslberger

All the Lots With Wall Power Sold

(reposted from Friday, July 8, 2011)

A rickety tom looks up at the returning geese
from his curl on the porch. Blackbirds pick
at the front lawn. A glider creaks. Etudes flow
from an open window. Two cars get hosed.
The shutter speed quickens, the shelf life
logged with cereal boxes, coffee grounds.
But the pictures fade, leaving us with ticket stubs
and appetites. Witness the laundry
with its plausible conclusion. I remember
when the machines were installed and how
we laughed at the delivery-man-cum-circus-clown
who arrived with twenty other twenty-somethings
in a dinky car straight from the Sullivan show.
And to think it was time to reshuffle the cards.
Driving away with the two of them sitting
on the back deck surrounded by honey bees
buzzing the refrain, But I'm not doing anything!
And the bridge came tumbling down.
Hula Hoops like camshafts under street lights.
We carried salt shakers for pilfered tomatoes.
A cherry bomb exploded near a stand-in's ear.
I caught hell from two old biddies who ran a still
out of their greenhouse. Was it you who organized
the weekly neighborhood quilting bees?
Of course, there were clarinet lessons
and the drop-off disrupting the watching of
Of Mice and Men with Malkovich and Sinise
riding off into the sunset on the waves at Provincetown.
Pizza vendors, waiting to board a Whale Watch,
sitting on the curb, people-watching. Is a chapter
a week do-able at sixty-seven words a minute?
There never seemed to be enough paper
and important messages were always
being whited-out. Fortunately, all the lots
with wall power sold. We found ourselves
in the boss's office with seven sets of twins
rehearsing a Doublemint commercial.
Once gainfully employed as a retractor,
he disappeared and hasn't resurfaced.
The pond got murky. It's been that way for months
despite the carnival atmosphere. Next time
I'll return the typewriter carriage myself.

Gary Sinise and John Malkovich in Of Mice and Men, 1981

Screen Dump 568

[audio]

Since when the marginalization . . . rooftop days

midtown with odysseyites collecting wrong returns

only to be redirected to restart? . . .

Someone riding shotgun on the freeway . . .

You ask How many are trying to engage? . . .

How many are trying to escape? . . .

The next gambit . . . as if paraphrasing

or pulling together backstories . . .

randomly selecting a layover . . . ongoing . . .

in an effort to teach people how to support one another

and to be supported . . .

Armed with what against mass shootings? . . .

Pulling us along from nothing to nothing . . .

Do the young heed the words of the old? . . .

>>> Insert buzzer here <<<

You have a bunch of blank pages . . .

Unafraid to be lost

as if dismantling then reassembling the craft

to voyage out . . . perhaps beyond the script . . .

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 567

It's all about the inventiveness of angularity, yes? . . .

I know you agree . . .

You recently joined the ranks of the wide-eyes

bottlenecking drive-thrus at Dunkin'

with blue-penciled drafts

soon to-be-returned to students in the final throes of MFAs . . .

To think about building almost into a poem . . .

The days commiserate . . .

The cityscape welcomes . . .

Surely this will be memorialized in someone's journal . . .

You begin taking dictation in the back seat

with a mellow intransigence

that belies a joyful entanglement . . .

You know what I mean . . .

Again, the enigma of who, indicative of autofiction, confuses . . .

How to represent without sanitizing the story? . . .

As if odysseyites would suddenly agree to therapy

to tease out whose swollen ethics will set them free? . . .

Thumbing through the catalog at the exhibit

you stumble upon text that you are sure holds the key

to kiosks belching their goods . . .

their lines ultimately stretching out (a good thing)

after the monochromatic lifestyle shutdown

imposed upon us by aliens . . .

You have always been one to seek growth

always ready for a new take on tradition . . . knowing full well

that reading a poem will seem like rewriting your life

not unlike playing with materials . . . pushing paint . . .

making habitual gestures to get to the surprise gesture . . .

And this so-called anti-self awareness trend? . . .

The obscurantism unintentional

though some - many? - would disagree . . .

 Happy Birthday Walt . . .

A lonely 36-year-old closeted homosexual from a family of misfits, a printer, an editor, a sometimes teacher who hates teaching, loves opera, oratory, the streets, the rivers, bohemianism, reads widely but indiscriminately, an inveterate scribbler, note-taker, self-promoter, huge ego, reinvents himself in a poem, becomes the poem, concussively confident, gutsy, enthusiastically high on life, a Kosmos, embracing everyone and everything, celebrating everyone and everything, inventing a distinctly new art showcasing a presumptive “I” and an  assumptive “you,” unshackling the line, the rhyme, the rhythm; its utter wildness changing the course of world literature; embodying the ideals, attributes, subjects, and speech of his native land, America; foreshadowing Allen Ginsberg’s century-later pronouncement of spontaneous and fearless first thought best thought: his 1855 first edition of Leaves of Grass is far and away the best of all nine; later versions suffer bloat, hamstrung by self-indulgence and overwork; how he did what he did as mysterious as how Shakespeare did what he did; as rivetingly inexplicable as what his contemporary and fellow literary revolutionary Emily Dickinson did; Leaves flips poetry on its head, turns it upside-down, becomes the Holy Grail before which other poets prostrate themselves. (Click here for copy of Poesy Cafe report)

Screen Dump 566

Have you bitten off more than you can chew? . . .

Not that you would return to the fine print of the Return Policy

or Photoshop the graduation photos . . .

Which reminds me . . . aren't you going to be late

for the cap and gown? . . .

The well-wishers with their well wishes and all that . . .

Talk about a full plate why don't you? . . .

Back at the showroom someone is running numbers . . .

Who authorized that? . . .

I'm not one to consult about grammar's gray areas but I have to ask

about the proposed colorways . . .

The Zero Theorem (2013)

Screen Dump 565

Your red hair speaks to the Pythagorean notions

of immortality and reincarnation . . . transporting

the fork lifter to a world waiting for

a not-so-hidden table-read

as if dog-walkers claimed hair extensions

in a sultry salon overseen by a Rod Serling lookalike . . .

Weighing the pros and cons and then some

the arrangement of bronzes so as not to provoke

remorseful buyers at checkout . . .

The neighborhood is good to go . . .

You encourage misstatements

and continue to worry bandwidth and board games . . .

Natalie Westling

Screen Dump 564

Your pretend pudding has long cooled

but hey there's an abundance of what's needed

and isn't that what it's always been about? . . .

I mean we could summon the imaginings . . .

Use a granny gear, I suppose . . .

Are they in place . . . as you had suggested? . . .

I hope so . . . This time tomorrow will not be enough

for an overhaul as predicated by the slots . . .

You have been admirable on countless occasions

opening doors to happy landscapes

applying house paint with a wide horsehair brush

feathering the breaks to blush them . . .

Yes, I think this will work . . .

Chloë Sevigny

Screen Dump 563

To Whom It May Concern sparks suicidal gestures

as if writing code for mental health players . . .

The scene begins with koi breaking the skin of a pond . . . 

You plug gaps in dreams with dissonance

compose drops with sounds . . . not symbols of sounds . . .

the common denominator I saw him/her

a dead end confusing your understanding of place . . .

the place you want to escape to

with Laurie Spiegel's nine-minute Sediments

recorded in the '70s on an analog synthesizer . . .

It speaks to dystopians and soundtracks

the Cornucopia scene in The Hunger Games . . .

otoacoustic emissions spilling over . . .

How do you propose to mark the memory gaps

that seem to have appeared overnight with pods of how-tos

jostling for attention . . . their talk the color of backstory frescoes

unloading demons of erotic curiosity

chalking a pool cue for nine-ball . . .

The clock is relentless . . . too easy to fail at composition

when OS upgrades abandon Music Mouse

and odysseyites enjoy a sabbatical in the Land of Yee . . .

Laurie Spiegel, Electronic Music Pioneer

Screen Dump 562

The paradigm shifts to a bus trip

to an deserted mall

leaving a ceiling fan on the west bank

of the Schoharie servicing

lapsed coders on alternate Thursdays

when buy-ones are put on hold

with heavy metal

for make-believers flown in

for the playalong . . .

This immersion in fantasy is less a chore . . .

a  silent comealong

drenched in line dance

sucking you into a drone's eye . . .

Maybe it's a dress rehearsal

or the beginning of a  two-step . . .

Were you told this at the outset

or after the chapter's chapter? . . .

I didn't think you'd remember . . .

Celebrate the upgrade . . .

We've yet to see beta versions

fill paradoxically . . .

Eugenio Recuenco

Screen Dump 561

I am I and my circumstance.

          - José Ortega y Gasset

Your insistence on redaction conjures the Frankensteins we create . . .

speeding the bus off the razored lot

as if OCD were a cup of tea . . .

The finer points of incidentalism last seen exiting a 7-Eleven . . .

A nine-year-old . . . LOVE imprinted on her t-shirt . . .

We are the sum, if you will . . .

If I will what? . . .

Anarchy . . . how about that? . . .

OK, go on . . .

How about anarchy as an appropriate negation of indifference? . . .

as an affront to indifference? . . .

Indifference? . . .

Catapultists cite the Order of Operations to justify smiting roadies . . .

Bystanders aim smartphones at one another

and TikTok their way into the Hall of Disdain . . .

Conversations continue . . . while awaiting parole . . .

on streets in rooms . . . if I do not save it, I do not save myself . . .

The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)

In the April 20, 2021 Pine Hills Review:

Screen Dump 504 The World Fills . . .

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 junk heap . . .

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