Screen Dump 693

He has left nothing to say about nothing or anything . . .

          - John Keats

Images of your former self fill the air with commiserations . . .

Videos spiral into collages of departure

and go viral . . . assembling words to say something

about something you know something about

but then stop . . . This happens, yes? . . .

It's as if you were told about the last time . . .

It's as if you were told this will be the last time . . .

It's as if you were told this is the last time . . .

Imagining the confusion when the code bombs

and regs are swapped out for neologisms . . .

You have tried to set the record straight . . .

There will be no setting the record straight . . .

Who told you you would be able to set the record straight? . . .

The record is gone . . . last seen entering Hannaford . . .

You have tried to pick up where you left off . . .

Just where did you leave off? . . .

Too much information . . .

You have submitted the paperwork, and rejoined your age-mates

who pump air and will continue to pump air

into the silence of anechoic chambers . . .

It's as if you were glued to YouTube . . .

It's as if you knew all along you would be muted . . .

It's as if you were recognized for who you are . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 692

Maybe they're coded into the graphic versions

of Stephen Hawking’s Time

hawked by junkyard dogs and other ne'er-do-wells . . .

Or Proust? . . . maybe Proust? . . .

Regardless, time passes . . .

Fashion plates spin . . .

Turntablists go on record to transfuse vinyl . . .

Anything to keep out of hock . . .

Anything to stave off the due date . . .

The life of a court jester juggling, what,

five, six, seven balls

in the days of bungee jumps

accelerates the metabolism

sets loose change jingling

pockets fluttering with delight . . .

This is good, yes? . . .

Dishpan dilemmas melt away . . .

You wake in a Beckettian diorama

locks unchanged, doors ajar

showcasing reticence, ambiguity, and

humorous deflationary counterpoint . . .

Who said that? . . . Did you say that? . . .

Dusty volumes doze on podiums, awaiting magic fingers . . .

Everyone is in fine fettle . . .

And after? . . . Who knows? . . .

At the very least you’ll be penciled in

somewhere ages and ages hence . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 691

You do your best to weather a strange ineptitude

the discoloration of the senses

that follows a fragmented conversation

but before you know it

a triviality arrives

with its own list of demands . . . 

Later, several strangely-costumed leads

appear seemingly on cue from installations

and reappear one by one

as if in an infinite loop

offering monologues and soliloquies

odds and check-out times

well-wrought and well-received

thorough in their encryption

yet lacking in payback . . .

while outside an out-of-sorts vehicle

makes its way along the narrow one-way street

depositing memories

on one chipped stoop after another . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 690

Long haulers reconfigure goodbyes . . .

There is no other life . . .

Promises are scanned . . . some shredded . . .

Irrevocability is tabled . . .

The difference jolts you awake

in the middle of your soliloquy

filled with hounds

nipping at the darkness . . .

Your lines recall with impunity

late night walks through scripts

costumed in OCD . . .

baiting your next subject . . .

reporting the outcome to the moms and pops

infiltrating the neighborhood

after word got out

that the sidewalks are paved

with deleted TikToks . . .

The world fills with dubious auditionees . . .

 

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 689

You're onstage translating blue book innuendos . . .

Graffiti artists recruit Zamboni drivers

for the latest in homespun contortions . . .

Every day you write down a color for emphasis . . .

It sometimes works . . .

especially with underdeveloped photographs

and smokeless candles

from Bed Bath and Beyond . . .

You admit to appropriating yourself . . .

About the dog's dutiful permanence

within the purview of the cat's tall tail

wedded to your spot-on translations

you reluctantly relinquish reserve . . .

The day is recalled for safety violations . . .

Knowing full well desire's amplitude

fuels your compassion

for one-armed bandits with performance anxiety . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 688

The day quibbles intensity

climbing in a hot air balloon . . . belching symbols . . .

the same 32 symbols with few exceptions

scribbled by ancients on cave walls . . .

Your visions incubate playoffs

as odysseyites seek shelter

from misappropriations . . .

A free ride with Thanksgiving looms . . .

There is something about something, but . . .

the dumplings, ah, yes, the dumplings

continue to steam . . .

You return remarkably from your incision

into hubris which unchecked

could forego Chromebook's immensity . . .

Blueness strolls elsewhere

while a disaffected second assistant director

toggles a capacity

for resilience against despair . . .

He too will . . . eventually . . .

Rinsing your mouth after using a puffer

impresses a starlet known for her brake pad bails . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 687

You're using a random text generator

to fill in memory gaps . . .

How back from  elsewhere in blue suede shoes

you loitered to grab caffeine

with a camera obscurist lost in plate tectonics . . .

Misplacing the memo

you practiced night sweats

with a minor leaguer

who had to follow an instruction sheet

for stonermasons . . .

Fast forwarding 40 years you find yourself

among the original cast members

bloating come-ons for moving-up day

in a city of somnambulists . . .

The sky cloudless (which here means nothing) . . .

Memorable hamlets . . . and ink . . .

quid-pro-quo under the skin of a woolly mammoth

mooring across a Russian novel

with a grandmother inviting you in

for voodka and borscht . . .

Your high heels catch-as-catch-can . . .

your hemming and hawing

make it into the finals

with a jump shot paradigm shift

while sniggling softly in tantric rapture . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 686

It was time . . . but time for what? . . .

There are too many times

and the clock is of no help . . .

You don't know what to do . . .

You fill with indecision . . .

A keyboardist taps for a return to Wordstar . . .

You find yourself waiting in a waiting line . . .

You decide to throw caution to the wind

and go food shopping . . .

The aisles speak to you in foreign tongues . . .

You feel alien . . .

Free samples are thrust upon you . . .

You begin reciting aloud a monologue

you thought you had forgotten

but then it popped into your head

just now in the condiment aisle . . .

a monologue from your faux halcyon days

when you looked forward

to nights of how-tos and what-ifs

in storefronts stuffed with tchotchkes

piled high by functioning hoarders . . .

You love the pig mug . . . and the designer toilet paper . . .

There's more but it won't let go

of the tip of your tongue . . .

Shoppers stare at you . . . aim their iPhones at you . . .

The supermarket begins to close in on you . . .

an experience reminiscent of your time served

in boostered state office cubicles . . .

You press the Escape key . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 685

You displayed inscrutable dexterities

in the moment and thereafter . . .

isolating the ambience for later study . . .

dating entries as a method

of keeping track

of where you left off . . .

There was little sense in doing the math . . .

Enough came too soon . . . the pleasure

climbing but falling off before peaking

as incomplete as the scribbled code

bobbing in the runoff . . .

Your experience with choral groups

seemed endlessly renewable

endlessly enjoyable

as rare as colorways in bipolarity . . .

Your attempt to encounter afresh 

the waveform action of syntax

led to a diatribe of dead ends

directing you to return to the streets

marked One Way with all the trappings

of cutting, splitting, and stacking wood

impressing the making and unmaking of sense,

the how not the what of knowing . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 684

Your basement tapes voice allegations

of foreplay and aftplay

in the cemetery miniseries

that didn't make the cut . . .

Yes, the hills are alive . . .

But, hey, let's not forget there's more to it . . .

A conductor with baton raised

ready to start time

opens the throttle

to begin the first movement . . .

the clocks change

and the bottleneck at the back door

is shortlisted in the Times

with someone soloing

as a prelude to the sarabande

that everyone has been waiting to hear . . .

You tell me about the pleasures

of your special house

the color-coded, numbered steps

the nested rooms

the welcoming gestures

the shoutout Beethovenish . . .

A semblance of your former self

searches scores for an earwormed progression

that holds the clock's breath

with you keyboarding in real time . . .

You open with a chase scene

awaiting the first snowfall . . .

A dream of a dream of a dream, yes? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 683

You engage a semicolon and chalk up another lap

trying to snag a moment of immortality

with ospreys on the breakers

at the tip of the Cape . . .

a perfect day . . . a perfect costume . . .

your younger self trying to elbow in

but you surprise the nosebleed section

with a crossover dribble

and set the stage

for another take on

Long Days Journey Into Night

conceived in one of the dune shacks

you visited followed by high tide

and an arpeggiated welcome

by the piano player at The Moors

who upon seeing you announced

shipwreck! . . .

You envision a write-up or a white-out

but words are slow

which is OK because odysseyites on holiday

are standing down

waiting for the call to exercise

their right to farm

with its green light ignoring nuisance lawsuits . . .

You're at loggerheads

deconstructing time and loving it . . .

so why shouldn't the exasperated

in the green room pay homage to last month's winners

in the Pick Up Stix Contest

touting fast casual Asian cuisine? . . .

The Moors, Provincetown, MA

Screen Dump 682

You sleep with jealousy and run red lights

bronzing conjugations of fornicate

trying to pump the impression

of laughing through intersections . . .

Scribbles aside you paddle to the middle

and sketch the shoreline . . .

The sun sits between timeouts . . .

It's all about staying the moment

finding a script with starting blocks tailor-made

then moving online for subtleties . . .

You got rid of most of it at the transfer station . . .

But some things are difficult to part with, yes? . . .

Sticking to your fingertips

when a storm approaches for example . . .

Seeing them in your rearview mirror . . .

And now, they're dancing on the roof

the angle making it impossible for you to let go . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 681

Undaunted, the U-Haul speaks volumes . . .

Have you been here before? . . .

Your appearance bodes well for the extended forecast . . .

Were there enough corrugations

to keep the pachyderms occupied for the duration? . . .

The shore can be therapeutic, yes? . . .

Especially the white sand . . .

It's not just that though . . .

There's something else, something I can't put my finger on . . .

This has been happening a lot lately,

and I fear it may become par for the course . . .

Bette Davis was one; there have been others

but she nailed it, and it's stood . . .

Did you think you could forestall the inevitable? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 680

Your eyeliner tells a different story . . .

Cartons upon cartons upon cartons

delivered in a misrepresentation of facts . . .

And where in this stream of consciousness

do you place yourself? . . .

There's no telling

when you too will be dropped . . .

Waiting for . . . Waiting for . . .

Insinuations jumping out of the woodwork

without regard for the other players

in this mini-drama

which streams Saturday evening somewhere . . .

Come out with it, already . . .

You know you're bursting with others . . .

The excavations bronzed . . .

Your thoughts bronzed . . .

The heat-stroked field always a good excuse . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 679

You fall asleep watching Scenes from a Marriage

(for the umpteenth time)

and awaken to a brighter palette:

the confluence of material, brushstroke, support, scale

how music can jack the spirit

the change in your pocket jingling with memories

the exchange of emails shepherding new worlds . . .

Running on the fumes of texts excites . . .

This time you have read the manual

studied the expressions on their faces

reviewed your notes, practiced survival skills

as suggested by counter staff

at Dunkin' and Starbucks . . .

They too are familiar with the sketches you shared

and seem to understand your reasons

for trying to get it all down . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 678

Words bottleneck the coastal route:

you know, the windup, the pitch, the corner

the cab to the outer reaches

the Nile rerouted

gondoliers on holiday . . .

Oblong days saturate polyrhythms . . .

Back seat drivers GPSing . . .

The muses step up to the plate . . .

Did you fail to deliver? . . .

Did you fail to hand in the report on time? . . .

You will not pass Go . . .

You will not collect $200 . . .

You will be banished to a Draft Folder

in the Outer Banks

to sit there, in a quandary, bemoaning a foothold . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 677

You passed the rigor of bicycle days,

coaster brakes waiting behind package stores,

ifs, ands, buts triangulating the derivatives

barely visible through the brushstrokes,

armatures buckling under symbols shape-shifting

with wait staff, your chalk drawn and ready . . .

The mathematicians of your half-life

are talking their way

through the axioms on Knife's Edge

the conjectures at Herring Cove

the theorems along the Mohawk

hustling you past

the rentals, the SROs, condos, two-families,

the faces in the windows of doublewides

reflecting the ambiguity of your words . . .

Your rewrite fills an amphitheater with iterations

of the same person . . . a stranger . . .

You were told this would happen, yes? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 676

Your answering machine is asking questions.

          - Anon

You're not sure it's a question

and you're trying to convince yourself

that you couldn't care less

but you know that you do . . .

You know that lately it's been a rabbit hole

and that in the dream you had drilled down

to your old neighborhood

now in disrepair

and confided to your friend who died

of a heart attack on the tennis court

30 years ago at 39 . . .

Your afterimage brought you to your knees

and has been texting you incessantly . . .

You've said you want out . . .

So you put aside the question

in question, and think again

about Alice, in disguise, in your dream,

wearing one of those huge hats

in the manner of the Red Queen

and carrying on about why words

can be made to mean

so many different things

which again opens the door

to the conundrum

waiting for you in the fun house mirror . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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