Screen Dump 675

You begin telling a funny story then stop

insisting your delivery is off a few cents

as if you were comparing musical pitches . . .

You assume tomorrow will arrive as scheduled

with makeovers and callbacks and returns . . .

Not unlike most of us, yes? . . .

Bring the car around, it's time . . .

Shall we continue into the second stanza

which was left flopping around on the wet sand? . . .

I can't believe it's you

but in fact it is . . .

looking small yet provocative

for the part you've chosen from scraps of paper

blowing around the gazebo . . .

There was a time . . .

Forget it . . . That was back when timetables

ran the show and the button

signifying the next move

was visible to all, even those in the nosebleed section . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 674

You remember a room (of one's own?) with a view

and something about a Gold Coin or Golden Coin

or a man with a golden arm . . .

The scene with the last supper was not the first . . .

Foodies . . . always foodies - thinking a world

of impastos and gouaches, a world

where mistakes can be sent back to the kitchen . . .

These are a few of your favorite things:

John Coltrane at the Village Gate,

BE: Before eBay and confusion

and scads of DVDs coloring the silence

of conversations with (significant) others,

Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes, 

the air salty at the outermost house,

the Pilgrim Monument's 100th,

replaying the obvious for the off-center crowd . . .

And, of course, the scripts, always the scripts -

to consider to edit to create

grounded in small (under 100 notes) electronic compositions,

a few improvised or composed on the fly . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 673

You connect the dots, ignoring the numbers,

and find a topography of damage,

the breakdown lane scattered with shattered dreams,

recognizable fragments littering the culvert . . .

You begin counting backwards from 100

as your mother suggested years ago

intimidated by the absence of footholds

yet eager to move on . . .

Are you happy with whom you've become? . . .

With the self forged by past events? . . .

You're not one to look back . . .

You grab your backpack, leave your room,

and begin the trek, mindful of the signposts

for love, for betrayal, for the bagpipes' eerie call . . .

The voices in your head continue . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 672

You present with symptoms of naiveté . . .

A late-night phone call . . . texts . . .

an early-morning phone call

and, voila, you're seduced

by the immediacy of the overheard conversation

the immersive apparatus engaged

knocking the corners off the foundation . . .

But . . . But . . . But . . .

But what? . . .

But the symmetry is off . . .

Irrelevant . . . at this late date . . .

But why should the party of the first part party? . . .

A minimum of two, or three, or five? . . .

You're kidding, yes? . . .

Perhaps not . . . Perhaps the disingenuous

are hardwired for tolerance

or at least stick-to-itiveness . . .

Regardless, take a hike . . .

The evergreens, frosted, await your passing . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 671

You tried to placate some with your whimsicality

but words bottlenecked
and you were left holding empty seats . . .
The sun did come out tomorrow but went back in
the Do Not Disturb saying more

than you needed to know . . .
And now you're weeding? . . .

Yes, therapeutic . . .

How you can't believe how you feel . . .

How you are bound to get hurt

in the penultimate scene

surrounded by butterfly bushes . . .

You run down the hill and let go of the note . . .

They will never see it . . .
Docents clutter the walkway

with empty pizza boxes . . .
Killing the dreamscape seems

the only level-headed thing to do
and you pride yourself

on your level-headedness and pragmatism . . .
At night, cynical about your feelings

you check your messages
and the secrets strangers have failed

to pry open . . .
Room to room to room . . .
Why go there? . . .

Think of the momentum of this 18-wheeler

when you hit the brakes . . .

Translate the next chapter . . .

Don't be put off by Sanskrit . . .
It's only language,

one, in fact, that encompasses immense musicality . . .
Your earbuds will be prancing along
as happy as the summer fly

before Blake's thoughtless hand . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 670

You drag your old apartment through the mud

imagining the surplus of regrets segmenting the days

reaching back to capture the elements of then

fragmented into painful shards . . .

Odysseyites at the foot of your bed await direction

again overwhelmed by the onlookers

brought in to witness your de-accessioning . . .

The wood stove crackles its befuddlement . . .

It has been cued, as have others, from childhood memories . . .

This is happening as predicted

choreographed by backers as a concession

to the chamber group whose notes have taken to the air . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 669

Sneaker-shopping in a pop-up

with its inevitable contact and inevitable uncoupling

allows you to pass through a portal

without knowing where or why

without clicking Agree

without committing to the restraining order

of the unannounced . . .

Words squeeze into thought bubbles . . .

The spooky genius in you hazarding extinction

graffitis delusions in water closets

with images of Banksy's Dismaland

that take on a life of their own . . .

You worry the envelope being pushed . . .

the takeaway being taken away . . .

Does the alternative,

strewn with spirals of trashed autofictions

in corrosive landfills

appeal to you? . . .

Why bother you ask? . . . No idea? . . .

The rehearsal to get it right, alone, without collaboration,

is about to begin and may be enough, you think,

to confess to, again and again and again . . .

Banksy's Balloon Girl

Screen Dump 668

You run into your mirror image in a parking lot . . .

Words tumble out, collide . . .

Screens refresh, avalanche . . .

The pain of updates . . .

Later you escape to Netflix,

before descending into a maelstrom . . .

Again, you review what's happened . . .

What's happening . . .

Too much at stake? . . .

You had trouble last time, yes? . . .

Let's not kid ourselves . . .

Why put yourself through this? . . .

Why go there? . . .

The honesty? . . . The openness? . . .

The honesty of openness? . . .

Surely, you can conjure a better reason . . .

Something more palatable with . . .

With what? . . . The heart as lonely hunter? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 667

Intellectualizing Chekhov's Uncle Vanya doesn't help

though Cate Blanchett gives you a second wind

and a cheatsheet on the symbolism . . .

You have stopped taking notes as suggested . . .

We're all visitors here, anyway, yes? . . .

Passing through, so to speak? . . .

Isn't that part of the agreement? . . .

part of the understanding of the elements of style? . . .

the elements of the mundane? . . .

Retractions? . . . Forget it,

crows have eaten the bread crumbs . . .

When was the last time you saw them? . . .

Before or after the pratfall? . . .

And now so much to discover . . . so much to rethink . . .

The train leaving the station, passengers waving

to their delicate lives on the platform,

their delicate lives . . . brief and undeniable . . .

Cate Blanchett in Uncle Vanya (2012)

Screen Dump 666

The time is past for going back.

          - A. E. Stallings

You've test-driven the tops and bottoms

weighed the pros and cons

put in for a hiatus from drifting aimlessly,

a far cry from the old days

when you were a pronoun-in-training, and

domesticity was a bargain-basement forget-me-not . . .

The boatman awaits . . .

Let's talk about your future

and the hellish commute to motherhood,

fatherhood, sisterhood, brotherhood . . .

Mourning inconclusively is a no-no . . .

Learn the lines of your face . . . Learn them well . . .

As resident cartographer of your double life,

you are within X years of enlightenment . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 665

. . . when a person is capable of being in uncertainties,

mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact

and reason.

          - John Keats

You're lying in the grass

studying the azure map of the sky

comparing it to the veins

on the back of your hand

which lately have been speaking to you - in tongues -

to-and-fro, to-and-fro . . .

Perhaps you've arrived with someone else? . . .

Or, better, as someone else? . . .

The tingling ebb and flow . . .

The trials and trails? . . .

The excitement of then, yes? . . .

Aha! . . . You mean I'm excused? . . .

No one's excused . . .

A few bucks, just a few bucks

and you'll be off and running, again . . .

Sort of . . .

What brings you here? . . .

An erection year? . . .

Filled with unspoken conversations? . . . And negative space? . . .

Let us not forget the place of negative space . . .

And negative capability, for that matter,

which, for your erotification, offers an alternative . . .

To what? . . .

Your dreams of the Old Country, and its accoutered models . . .

Be nimble . . . Be quick . . . Jump over the dowsing stick . . .

yes I said yes I will Yes . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 664

But what if you're not sprung from sleep by the light? . . .

To gurgle along? . . .

Snatching a banana or an orange

from one of the many overhangs? . . .

Gabbing up locals? . . .

Have you finished the book you've been reading? . . .

The one you couldn't put down? . . .

I saw you at the supermarket in the canned soup aisle

comparing sodium levels with a metronome . . .

You were so algorithmic I didn't stop . . .

The word on the street is that you're up most nights,

pacing, in your new white kicks . . .

Disgruntlement is a no-no, you know . . .

At least here in the center ring . . .

Your white Tesla Model XYZ sits in the parking lot

of the latest development

assuming a different persona

for every Tom, Dick, and Jane . . .

And if he (or she) can do it, so can you . . .

It's time to bee-line for the rest room

where an open mic of horn rims is about to begin:

a Rimbaudesque excitement filling the water closet,

the sand waiting to smooth wrinkled souls . . .

You've seen those enjambments before, you know . . .

But so what? . . .

At least there's comfort in the familiar . . .

In the tried and true . . .

And with the clock ticking down it's bishop to queen four . . .

White on right, right? . . .

Yes, start whistling now . . .

It will carry you through the atelier

resurrecting that night when inappropriateness held sway . . .

It was indeed fun, wasn't it? . . .

So what if the constable paid us a visit? . . .

Let the swags move to the center, I say . . .

They'll soon be off the radar

traveling east along a bumpy two-lane

trying to absorb the changes that have occurred

in the four months they've been unlooped . . .

And don't forget to keep your eyes peeled

as you weather the ramifications of your latest tailspin . . .

Keep a pad and pencil handy, too,

next to your bed, even,

for those late-night archetypes

that are sure to emanate from your collective unconscious . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 663

Emails bottleneck at the back door

dangling profiles and memory hooks and terms of endearment

setting off smoke detectors

with lines like You are always on my mind

shifting irresistibly in Aeron ergonomic chairs

permanent at MoMA

the meter clicking off degrees of freedom

between you and whomever

your knees weak from the algorithm

you've been tweaking from the get-go . . .

Everyone has flirt options

especially when cloud banks dictate seasonal rates

and we riffle through closets for long sleeves

only to default to comforters . . .

The plot kindles into you and your root cellar . . .

Do we have enough food and drink to weather the weekend? . . .

To weather the sparring? . . .

Bassoonists insinuate themselves into your drama

retreating into anonymity when you look behind the curtain

and find your handwritten notes . . .

The dream of reading not unlike puppetry . . .

Pulling the strings, yes? . . .

Where will you be on the night of . . . something? . . .

The loneliness of the high seas

with Ishmael quoting The Book of Job:

I only am escaped alone to tell thee . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 662

Another late night of books

and you slip on a stanza

spilling the words you've been squirreling away

for your next encounter . . .

The assignment calls for recommendations

that can be folded into your disembodied days

of garden salads, protein shakes, vitamins . . .

Do you have the wherewithal

to recommence your life

as artifact, clattering along rooftops,

peering into windows,

scrambling to hide emails under the rug? . . .

There are benefits, of course,

as spelled out in the attached addenda . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 661

You're juggling impressions, trying to make it home

before someone asks you a question . . .

Even the guy in the 7-Eleven looked ready . . .

And where were you when you caved? . . .

You resolve to study epistemology,

especially now with the neighborhood Velcro'd

to detractions . . . Ladies and gentlemen,

boys and girls, children of all ages . . .

Yes? . . . Was there a message in that? . . .

Something we could latch onto perhaps? . . .

To parlay into a vacaciones during the null center

of the holiday stream when most wade in

and are carried along by current events . . .

I suppose you could take the alternative out for a spin . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 660

You find sentences with missing words,

words with missing letters . . .

Someone texts you about a field

of orphaned puppets . . .

A chamber group plays the same piece

over and over

overlaying the day

with misty undertones . . .

Extras appear at opportune times

knowing this too is simply a run-through

for the real deal

which you've heard is being touted

at local landfills . . .

Instead you decide to fill in the blanks

fill in the gaps

with what you think they meant

with what you think they want to hear . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 659

Backing into a parking space, half-smiling, earwormed,

the dime-store alchemy with its godless sneer

playing hide-and-seek in the darkening, overgrown garden,

you decide to break the mold, breathe,

the small script saying something about sincerity . . .

Intimidations aside, it couldn't have been avoided . . .

Of course, once you stepped into the ring

the bell sounded the beginning of the round

and before you knew it, you were rocked by a left

glancing above the timekeeper's toupee

for a clue to the full catastrophe: the ride over,

backpacks unpacked and returned to the back room . . .

This time there wasn't time to rehearse . . .

This time the experience was framed, matted,

and on the street in a wrinkle to be picked over

by disinterested parties who scattered

the unwanted, while, all the while,

the mimeograph machine, posing new questions,

awaiting the verdict, commiserated with sleight-of-handers,

who, ill-advised, convinced you

that this was not what you had paid for . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 658

And you're swept into the arbitrary . . .

Those moments when the rational kicks in

creating the illusion of symbiosis

and you feel the connection, and think, This is good . . .

Walking fast . . . texting . . . you know the deal . . .

Your world filling with texture maps

and normals and shadowy displacements

fully rendered and baked . . .

I'm not convinced about that last part

especially now with things heating up:

He said . . . She said . . . I said . . . You said . . .

It calls for robustness with a narrow margin of error . . .

Tarjay had a special on those not too long ago . . .

We could all use a break

from the ins and outs, the ups and downs . . .

You mean trancelike? . . .

Yeah, that'll work, as well as anything . . .

Antonio Palmrini

Screen Dump 657

Something about a porcelain figurine

followed by an intimate encounter

time shape-shifting, catching you mid-stride,

losses lost in the day-to-day . . .

Don't waste your time trying to make sense of it,

the step-by-steps were tossed out with the trash

along with the Revell Zeppelin

from the cracks of your childhood . . .

Your membership has been cancelled . . .

(The updates were worthless anyway . . . )

Go ahead, enjoy Miles's linking of the then

to the sanctity of the conundrum

far from the madding boring shit

as he called it . . .

The year will soon flip . . .

Leftovers announced . . .

Time to break out the resolve

to sort things out and again take on Sheila Heti's

How Should A Person Be? . . .

despite the comfort of entanglements new and old . . .

Engage the throttle . . .

Not sure to where, but that's part of it - the good part . . .

By morning, old everything . . .

Your head channel-surfing for ornaments . . .

'Tis the season, yes? . . .

Cassandra Wilson whispering Time After Time . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 656

Your hesitation speaks volumes which few if any will read . . .

It smacks of plagiarism, but don't we all? . . .

I could thumb through a few pages, if you like . . .

A votive candle, perhaps . . .

Sparks have been known to fly . . .

A past life here, a passed life there . . .

You yourself told many it was a superlative time:

a time of innocence, a time of confidences . . .

Turn that thing down, will you please? . . .

It's interfering with my tram of thought . . .

And you thought what? . . .

That we would forego the preface? . . .

Jump up behind me . . .

I've decided to pay up front, and make-do with whatever . . .

Tell the others to meet us at the restaurant-in-the-round:

they're all that's left you . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 655

Especially now, with the cat out of the bag

the holiday season ready to pounce

and your latest tête-à-tête simmering in the atelier . . .

Listening to covers while journaling

will buy you the anonymity

you've convinced yourself you need

and enable you to resume your place in line . . .

The Persian rug in the room is gone

as are the white beaches

with the beached iMacs . . .

You've been fortunate enough

to live the life of make-believe,

and get away with it, for the most part . . .

I'm surprised you were never called

to the front office, that strange transfer station

populated with mannequins

of questionable character . . .

If only you had described the beauty

of the algorithm you wrote that tied it all together,

you could have redeemed the coupons

downloaded in anticipation . . .

That would have been quite a coup . . .

Too late now . . . Too late for most things . . .

Enter your username and password

then click the box for Remember Me . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 654

You fail to anticipate the superfluousness

of the run-through

and run home to check your notes,

channel-surfing for answers to the 20 questions

choking the queue . . .

Your kitty kindles loneliness

then texts the stationmaster

who reassures all that there are still only three colors

and a partridge in a pear tree . . .

Someone arrives on the 11:05

and begins dismantling the prose

cluttering the entryway . . .

Who was that masked man/woman? . . .

Have you checked in with your sponsors? . . .

Perhaps they can spare the change

although it's unlikely that the 12-tone mini-u-et

will carry the burden of absence . . .

The viewers are sure to expect more . . .

You know this despite the fatigue

pestering your keyboard . . .

It's time to come clean . . .

Not a big deal . . . Never was . . . Never will be . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 653

And quieting dreams in the sleepers in darkness.

          - Wallace Stevens

Without the enjambment at the weary end

you'd be lost forever to the moon and its quieting dreams . . .

The cat critiquing, Move on! . . . Move on! . . .

Your pacing solves nothing . . .

Funny, you know this as well as I . . .

Yes, the scholarship is evident, but misplaced . . .

Your announcement with the shades drawn

against the traffic light

opens a door and your eyes to the darkness

and back to an earlier season of silence -

the linguistic equivalent of hammering nails into flesh . . .

When was this, anyway? . . .

Yesterday? . . . Last year? . . . Five years ago? . . .

I don't remember . . . Do you? . . .

The tureen quivers with nonsense syllables . . .

The evidentiary moment remains . . .

Your car idling . . .

The snow, too, advancing . . .

Of course, the video shows that there's more

in the final paragraph

than referenced in your text . . .

The Art of Omission, yes? . . .

So little time left out of tempo with footnotes no less . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 652

You skim the dog-eared blue-lined notebooks

lying next to your bed

for new words, different words

to ease the ache of repetition,

the ache of the old . . .

The hour arrives at the wrong address,

laughs, lingers, and you forget the difference

between high and low drama

the loss surfacing after closing

as if it mattered to the rent-a-magician

left waiting in the Green Room,

wand in hand, as generators,

prepped to weather the nor'easter,

exit through the gift shop . . .

Again, the rehearsals prove futile,

frustrating, the French horn player

running the changes

through their backward-facing bell

making it new, until, in an eyeblink,

it was old, boredom seeping in, abracadabra! -

the furniture, the cat, and you, gone . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 651

You see her in a mirror, in a wedding gown . . .

That scene from Seven Minutes in Heaven

with the trains running late

but they're going ahead with the auditions anyway

and ordering takeout . . .

When you least expect it, she calls

for a costume change

and it turns out to be good . . .

Tweaking the scene, too . . . Yes, this could be it . . .

And then you hear her begin: Evidently, . . .

Regarding the ending? . . .

Let me get through my fish and chips first . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 650

You seek solace in idioms and run smack into a blank stare . . . 

The exigencies of Helvetica provide little comfort

as you stalk the caveats of typographers

and the roadworthiness of long distance scribblers

who are here for the free ride . . .

A typeface with élan will spring you from ubiquity

and into the world of graphic comics

where a curve is a curve at your beck and call

and the moon ready willing and able to deliver the latest

in fashionable footwear . . .

And you thought perhaps this was make-believe? . . .

A pretend-pudding if you will? . . .

Buying into that sort of gaga could spell onomatopoeia 

and a trip to the mall rivaling Rimbaud's A Season in Hell . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 649

Demonstrating the proper form for free weights

on the flimsy scaffold in the winkling of a storm

then the absence

the break in the purpling days and nights

the nights rife with howling

time witnessing the palpability

sauntering through the early morning railroad flat . . .

Perhaps you are still overwhelmed

despite the smothering insistence of imposters

who keep arguing

You think it, you did it . . .

One thing leading to another . . . then another . . . then another

the Rothkovian blur between love and hate rubbed raw . . .

the principal inducted into the minority of givers . . .

How sweet it is? . . .

Your first thoughts? . . . The accoutrements of passion? . . .

All part of the con hung out to dry

within view of the nosebleed section in this miniseries . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 648

And now you're inventorying survival gear

as if your past lives left instructions on the answering machine

rekindling memories that years ago

provided you solace for something or other,

for what, exactly, I don't remember . . .

The clock's face again pokes in,

disregarding your previous comment

awash with remorse . . .

You're trying to reconstitute yourself as another -

another with tickets to a double-header . . .

Nothing better to short-circuit unhappiness . . .

Not unlike us, yes? . . .

Off-hours, you choreograph untried virtues,

tweaking missteps to captivate . . .

You backpedal . . . Indifferent . . .

How will you write this up in the final hour? -

the final hour, when distracted by claims of melodies,

you will be assisted by members of the alphabet

selected at random from drive-bys . . .

You'd think by now they'd be as encumbered as you and I . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 647

The rewrite, darker than riddles, upends you . . .

Is this how it is? . . .

You return to your room

and the tented books

and your search for a common theme

in the words of the dead . . .

The voices continue . . .

The feeling of motionlessness . . . again . . .

Did you think the misunderstanding had settled

after that morning in the coffee shop

when you asked about the book? . . .

Turn the page . . .

Read . . . Please! . . .

Go through the motions . . .

The chat was inevitable . . . Insignificant . . .

The font a diversion

from long ago summer evenings . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 646

The whole thing enigmatic . . .

You can hardly keep up

with inquiries

with instructions for dancing

so you shift down, and begin recalibrating . . .

Their shoulders seduce

their angularities the kind that sell . . .

so close yet so far . . .

Vendors arrive, and fishmongers . . .

Wine glasses mingle . . .

Their bangles speak of other worlds

spiritual melodrama

sustained incongruence . . .

And now they're crossing the street

and someone's asking . . . something? . . .

Sit down on this bench, please, take a break,

rewind the tape . . .

Meanwhile, This Is Us streams in the park . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 645

A voice in heels welcomes you with the answer . . .

The je ne sais quoi of close encounters, yes? . . .

Driving through a drive-thru, you tick off ways to improve

now that you've pruned tricks from your bag

under the watchful eye of neighborhood watchers . . .

You can't wait to unpack the layers,

especially the earworms of vacant storefronts

featured in mock-u-mentaries . . .

You cameo as a walk-on in a live model drawing class

thinking This is where I will find myself . . .

The odds appear in an email after months on YouTube . . .

Why are the plates at the Culinary Institute so large? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 644

I'd be at a loss to put my finger on the precise moment . . .

In those days trust was an add-on

not unlike cargo pockets on your camo shorts . . .

I'm not saying you don't aim to please

but doesn't it seem as if

Meta has become a retreat into itself? . . .

In Walter's day, for example, we switched on You Are There

and popped Orville's corn . . .

Options trumped options

which stymied some

mostly those who were on the cusp

of an aha moment . . .

3-In-Oil was touted as a multipurpose lubricant

ideally suited to multitaskers and pornographers

who featured PB&Js, restraints, and body cams . . .

Nothing was said about seductiveness . . .

I guess it was assumed . . .

What better way to spark the mood? . . .

To fix the mix? . . .

I'm sorry . . . What was your question again? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 643

So easy to misplace the definite article

in the folds of flesh that titillate you

juggling five balls

while trying to answer 20 questions

from this morning's inbox . . .

Enchanted by the movement

of the moment

the slightest twitch pinning you

to a recurring dream

dressed in the cloth of summer,

it begins . . .

Your online backordered item has finally shipped . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 642

The bathroom scale smirks your optical delusion

with a fright wig

waiting for long-overdue texts

from the not-so-dearly departed in-country

where someone will be charged

for impersonating you on YouTube . . .

You segue to those times

when car exteriors matched interiors

and you practiced eroticies

in a green van with green seats and green mats

dialing in Rockaday Johnnies

with a cigarette lighter that burned a hole

in your costume du jour minus one . . .

Your epicenter was dragged off-pointe

by a ballet dancer in First Position

sitting in an end-groove

through a Victoria's Secret Crayola Release

with too much to expect too soon

from streetballers wowing courtside

while Dylan roamed backstories:

I lived by the window / As he talked to himself . . .

This amazing young woman who brings much joy to my world turns 33 today. I wrote this poem for her 24 years ago:

My Daughter Dances to Strauss's Annen Polka

          for Tara

The gauziness and smiles are as soft-edged

and wonderful as a Degas. Around me,

shadows on lawn chairs consult programs;

an early summer breeze flutters leaves

beneath a star-laced, darkened sky.

My daughter dances to Strauss's Annen Polka,

floating with the wide-eyed innocence

of a nine-year-old who has yet to glimpse

the world of the backstage. Look at her

taut sureness, the steadiness and poise,

the promise of her young movements

as they transcend choreography with a joy that,

one can only hope, will buoy her through a life

filled with huge pockets of uncertainty.

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You jog to the kiosk and reopen the book

to the chapter that keeps rewriting itself . . .

You share your identity with thieves

especially when separating out

the transformationals bundled with the software

partying in a two-family on borrowed time

after which you realize

one has to have been there . . .

The time of the year, that is

stretching out as it does,

improvisationally,

letting the images populate, walk and talk,

guided by a simple motif . . .

nothing too strenuous

nothing too contrapuntal . . .

something to carry you into a wooded glen

where you can chill,

surrounded by fascinating incidentals . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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A vast someone reappears

with a memorandum of understanding . . .
You dawdle, hem, haw,
find too much air in the sonatina
soundtracking the flights of dirigibles . . .

The rudimentariness of the arrangement
a coherent jumble
the laws of attraction misconstrued
which you insist was OK . . .

What were you thinking? . . .

You make a mad dash for your new hairstyle,
your new look, your new persona,
jotting notes in the margins
translating some obscure writer as if
the time is opportune to think about what
you thought you had wasted, I mean, wanted . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You audition for the part
parading your naiveté

as freshly-laundered linen sheets
the bed made with dreams of first times
around the block alien -
all perspective
all logic
out the window . . .
Your 180? . . . Inconsistent
and undeniably out of character
but then, perhaps not . . .
The recipient? . . . Conveniently guilt-ridden
(Would do me in!) - 
a placeholder
a stand-in
a once and future insignificant other
the security camera's fuzzy evidence . . .

a TKO in the first round . . .
And the disruption? . . .
Appalling . . . Nothing to be done . . .
You nailed it . . . The part . . .

The opening curtain, though, snagging . . .
The audience, hushed, now whispering,
clearing their throats, shuffling their feet . . .
The unwritten novel of a passion
crumbling, falling away,
replaced, most assuredly, by dry-eyed re-entry
into the world of the living . . .

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That you disfavored substitution was well known

to those who practiced brevity

especially now in light of the upheavals in drag and drop . . .

The joking seemed endless . . .

The trip to the dump . . . a capstone . . .

Word got out and began changing the meaning

of utterances dragged in off the street

as stand-ins for what, no one knew

which was OK since it was something close to music . . .

You complained about a terrible sandwich

carrying on about the avalanche of sandwich boards . . .

a throwback to tamer times . . . with no takeaways . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You grow invisible hands

worrying the semantics of the morning coffee . . .

wondering whether the alphabet

can handle it . . . invisible hands

shadow-boxing invisible puppets

brought in to engage misfits . . .

then the interruption . . .

the deliberate nonlinearity

of the outer Cape

with its math and models . . .

Do the data fit the model? . . .

Welcoming interruptions . . .

Welcoming the next session's green . . .

Odysseyites mount this hand-me-down thing

on the logic of long haulers

as if Ubers have always been part

of the inner circle . . .

But what about those in the wings? . . .

What are they waiting for? . . .

At the museum you wait for an OK

but the security guards

are more interested in time-off

in the Cy Twombly room . . .

time-off before punching out

of the Cy Twombly room . . .

Did Cy ever take time off

staring at the empty canvas

for three or more hours

before knocking off another masterpiece

in 15 minutes? . . .

The audio-guide says his brain

was crammed with images awaiting release . . .

Emily Hall by Mungo Campbell (click for interview)

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Keep going . . . with the words, I mean . . .

the paper spree boggling the metric

with autofictions-a-plenty

into the facades of north Jersey . . .

Climbing into back seats

searching for the person you were

or the person you wanted to be

as cameras spoke in foreign tongues

with subtitles thrown in

randomly for effect . . .

Knowing what and how much

challenged the cutting room floor

not unlike two roads

diverging in the yellow wood

with blue lip gloss

for the final scene

cookie cutters and all

while a voice from the back room

chimed in with something

about an Aqua Velva Man . . .

You prided yourself a documentarian

but lost altitude between the lines

tailspinning into the chaos

of single room occupancies . . .

Some of it admittedly easy . . .

And here's Ashbery, for example,

late at night in his small,

unprepossessing study

on the ninth floor

of a rental apartment

on the corner of Ninth Avenue

and 22nd Street in Chelsea

grading his poems A B C . . .

Imagine the synaptic activity . . .

Code breakers as oddsmakers

striking poses in stretch limos

called in when the air

was sucked out

and stand-ins began carrying on

about staying after school

for makeup tests making out in cubbies

to that summer's theme escaping

in colorful hot air balloons . . .

Felicity Jones in The Aeronauts (2019)

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Then you would become a sous-chef

slathered with olive oil for the full catastrophe,

keenly aware of the archival method

of posthumous publication

especially when the sommelier

training for the Leadville 100

would take you to the wine cellar

for a peek at his training log . . .

Chaos under the guise of calm reigned . . .

You would reciprocate whenever possible

with quick-study dioramas

and modifications to the soaking tub . . .

The tenor of those days was typically dictated

by the nature of the homework assignment

which as contracted had to be completed

after assuming three of the five yoga poses

emailed in the wee hours . . .

That confusion was always bright

in the hillocks surrounding the lap pool

mattered little . . .

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The daily patdown . . . a costume change

with earbuds, boomboxes tagged and repurposed . . .

Nymphets frolic in the park's pool . . .

Investigative journalists look on for miscues . . .

At Stewart's a septuagenarian, commenting

on your aesthetics, asks about online courses . . .

a cosmic unraveling, harkening back

to that winter afternoon at the manhole

when filled with footnotes

you opted out with a trustee . . .

After shedding his false-face he began pacing

the air . . . you went off-script stammering

eulogies to snowstorms, making an hallucinatory exit

while morphing into a looking glass with fruits

far off and geometric . . .

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I can't go on, I'll go on . . .

          - Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable

You begin the day with edits . . .

The incredulous insist on separate checks

tweaking their counterproposal . . .

You know you can do this, yes? . . .

The tomato plants look surprisingly well . . .

The philosophical watering no doubt . . .

The dryer is beginning to react

to the way you crank out words

and feel sure about the bespoked . . .

Walking through the undergrowth

on the way to the firewood lean-to

in dress shoes is reminiscent

of your college biology field trip

when the professor commented

on your fortitude . . . and more . . .

Then the dream of a woman with two kids

running in the passing lane on a highway

and arriving with time to spare . . .

For what, you ask? . . . This happened

and it happened while you were away

only to resurface with black-capped

chickadees and goldfinches

at the tube feeder with two cats

repositioning themselves

and deer looking on from the woods . . .

How many acts in your next one? . . .

Will there be a costume change?

a script change? Of course there's never

enough time to go on with the makeover . . .

A pint sounds like a plan . . .

Craig McDean

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And here despite the opening credits

is the turnkey scene

with all gathered 'round for takeaways

from the beloved soon-to-expire . . .

takeaways to clutter the walkups

of your immunocompromised self . . .

Cue up The Last Station

for Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy's spin

on what matters

when it all begins grinding to a halt

with a drizzle of rice vinegar . . .

Turn the page, please . . .

A bear walks into a bar on a dog day afternoon . . .

Again, please . . .

Life out of balance . . .

OK, field notes wither you . . .

You'd think they were the only ones . . .

How about a pop-up pastoral with odysseyites

waist-deep in knee-jerk conceits

dropping PEZ with the intensity of slam dunks

while sampling craft beer à la carte? . . .

You're right to worry the absence of joviality . . .

The countdown, then . . .

How about that? . . .

Is that enough? . . .

Is it enough to parse

the short attention span of Youtubers

while your double traces your moment(um)

sitting at home on a yoga mat

fingering designer beads

the requisite number of times? . . .

The book escapes your late night hands

and rewrites itself to mirror the dystopia du jour . . .

Time is running out . . .

And not because of nothing either . . .

Mirjana Grasser

  

Psychology 101 : Adrift in Theory

(reposted from Friday, May 27, 2011)

Wolfgang Kohler's ape, Sultan, snaps together two sticks

and snags a banana from the ceiling of his cage.

The hole in Wolfgang's theory

is greater than the sum of its parts.

Pavlov's dogs drool to the tintinnabulation of bells,

happy they won't be rocketed into space for at least 40 years.

Fred Skinner's pigeons play ping pong for food pellets during the day,

launder money at night in the school's photography lab.

John B. Watson, Behaviorism's father, beds down his lab assistant

and is given his walking papers. He stumbles into advertising

and rises to VP writing copy for cigarette ads.

One of his grad students, Mary Cover Jones, counterconditions

four-year-old Peter's fear of animals using scoops of ice cream.

She sells her idea to Ben and Jerry.

Sigmund Freud smokes cigars, collects Egyptian artifacts,

wears out 306 couches, bifurcates humans

into those who wish for a penis and those who fear for their penis.

He sees no happy medium.

Clifford Beers jumps out of a fourth floor window into a mud puddle,

foiling his suicide attempt and priming his pen for a "Mind That Found Itself,"

while Gustav Theodor Fechner's opus "The Mental Life Of Flowers"

is too much too soon.

Harry Harlow tricks rhesus monkeys into falling in love with stuffed animals.

They hide his booze, sending him over the edge of a visual cliff.

Alfred Binet puts together a test to measure intelligence.

He should have stuck to law.

Hermann Rorschach spills a bottle of ink and markets his accident

for countless James Joyce wannabes.

A stick of dynamite drives a crowbar through Phineas Gage's frontal lobe.

He becomes a sideshow sensation

and prefrontal lobotomies become the therapy of choice

for society's square pegs.

Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini compare notes with Mary Shelley,

use an electric current to induce epileptic seizures in patients with mental illness.

Erik Erikson studies art, comes to America as an art therapist,

and promptly loses his identity.

Philippe Pinel unchains the insane at La Salpetriere;

they join SAG, and get bit parts in J. L. Moreno's psychodrama, "King of Hearts."

R. D. Laing maintains that the world, not people, is mad,

drops acid with patients, dies of a heart attack while playing tennis in Saint Tropez.

Tommy Szasz argues that mental illness is a destructive social construct, a myth

and nothing more (or less) than “problems in living.”

Carl Jung has a midlife crisis and explores the occult; 

Alfred Adler strives for superiority; Abraham Maslow actualizes

himself in full view; Tom Harris assures us we're OK.

The sixty-minute hour turns out to be fifty-minutes long.

Philippe Pinel unchains the insane at La Salpetriere

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Met a little boy named Billy Joe

And then I almost lost my mind . . .

          - The Shirelles, Mama Said

Again, you are credited with holding things together . . .

Nightmarish, yes? . . .

The heat loosening the jaw . . .

Underwriters squawking about clowns

in huge blue suede shoes

doing drive-bys on knee scooters

soundtracked by The Shirelles' Mama Said

then slow-dancing to Dedicated To The One I Love . . .

The chemo gushes through your skinbag . . .

And now you're demanding what? . . . a recount? . . .

Taking stock of your hits and misses? . . .

A tad late, yes? . . .

Where have you been? . . .

Why the weathered hollow? . . .

The underestimation? . . .

The overestimation? . . .

The planting of trees? . . .

Theoretical, yes, but still the missing pieces . . .

I mean you've got this jabbering extra

who in the late innings is demanding a recount? . . .

But didn't you expect this would happen? . . .

I guess not . . . and that could be a good thing . . .

Clutching a ripped-out portrait of you

from five decades ago

leaning into a cue stick

for the eight ball in the corner pocket . . .

But the game was played out

and pocket protectors lined up to rue the day

you left with a Hi Ho Silver Away . . .

More about that later . . .

But now allow me to channel surf

with the rest of the plaintiffs slathered in grease . . .

Olympic Goldmedalist Gertrude Ederle (1926)