Screen Dump 812

No less marginal than a cover

of Strawberry Fields Forever

penetrates your eardrums . . .

You with a fortnight

of multiple choice questions

sticker shock

collapsing into pasteboard invitations . . .

the weather again unsure

of what to do . . .

The unsavory coupling, yes, that too,

meeting in dreamscapes . . .

inquisitive . . .

Drumming a little life into the countryside . . . 

Scads of to-dos . . . little matter . . .

There was a moment when you were sure

it would all come together

but it didn't . . . and you were OK with that . . .

comfortable with the unknown

en plain air . . . right down the middle

a come as you are kind of invite

especially now

with endgamers threatening tell-alls . . .

Bruno Dayan

Screen Dump 811

Afternoons with straw figures

cavorting in delightful emptiness

in a surreal haven

with the usual obtuse blanket . . .

Where does your property

begin again? . . .

At the spring? . . .

With the barn and its many matrices? . . .

Inasmuch as differences

clip the wings of understanding for some

you are welcome to settle in . . .

Tea? . . . a book, perhaps? . . .

Feel free to chill

before the requisite summing-up

propels messengers of redaction

back out onto the backroads of many . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 810

You're binging a miniseries about reincarnates

trapped in the blunt pretense of chance

not unlike those you've encountered

on your daily walk along the canal . . .

Connoisseurs of oblivion have at it

in brittle best sellers . . . patched together

with stepwise amplification . . .

The soundtrack to The World To Come, yes? . . .

I know it's on your list . . .

You awoke to a bath in the middle of the night

which put to rest your restless legs

and opened a door to an urge

to sit for a portait by the medievalist

who hawks indulgences in the virtual piazza

two towns over . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 809

The future catwalks an ultramarine puffer jacket . . .

Fast forward to destabilization

adjusting the required rhymes apart from the action . . .

You have immersed yourself in totemism . . .

Copies of postproduction notes

have been distributed to those on the brink . . .

So it's back to the basics, I suppose . . .

In no time, ashes . . . at the wellhead of a dream . . .

You don't want to call, trust me . . .

Confiding to a few intimates

will stem the tide of what, I'm not sure anymore . . .

Once captivating, now drudgery . . .

There are far too many shifts in this faux drama

meandering across the busy boulevard

spotted with coding samples from the latest release . . .

Take the funny and run, yes? . . .

Laura Zalenga

Screen Dump 808

So Double-Double-Toil-and-Stubble

takes the stage to assure the Academy

that he won't be egregious

acknowledging with record-setting windbaggery

that it can all go away . . .

His chewing gum thrown into a bath

of lemon and eucalyptus catalysts

begs a raging crisp outlined situation room . . .

uprooting doomed lovers

slumpingly caressing each scene

at the ruins of Ramesses II . . .

The red carpet frayed . . .

Acceptance speeches vaporized . . .

You too seem unsure of your lines

which regrettably is not all that uncommon

in these days of AI scripting

with writers and editors and influencers

tripping over one another

to comply with those signing their per diems . . .

Ramesses II

Screen Dump 807

You spent the morning scrubbing histories

of suburban notifications which seemed to have popped up

overnight in network logs . . .

AI spillage and then again what was it? . . .

You could have queried the odysseyites

who were eager to feather their maps with minutiae

spellbinding summit seekers . . .

You unfriended a chat by recounting the experience

of closing various gaps awash with celebratory shifts

to the astonishment of those in the antechamber

queuing up for the virtual red carpet . . .

Ellen von Unwerth

Screen Dump 806

Despite the after-hours rehearsals

there was never an overnight

just a quick wherewithal

and you were out . . . and about . . .

The flesh overrated, yes? . . .

And with that a different costume

supporting an expression of calm . . .

Surreal of calm, perhaps? . . .

No hint of disbelief . . . nope . . .

good, I suppose if you're determined

to argue a rewrite . . .

At least that's what was intimated . . .

Ellen von Unwerth

Screen Dump 805

And now they've returned to their respective lives . . .

The dry brush technique may save the canvas

and open a door to a more genial interpretation of events . . .

Over and over again, the enchantment

brought everyone together . . .

You worry the bluntness of your new bob

but those arguments are insinuations

foreshadowing a sequence of ups and downs . . .

And what about the yellow tux? . . .

Such a shame to have jettisoned the BLT . . .

Was it part of your weight-loss mantra? . . .

I think your proportions marvel exactitude

of whatever was implied by that intrusive handle . . .

Forewarned, you stopped just short

of the nomenclature waiting in the siding

for the perplexed locomotive

to accept the consolation prize . . .

Take it, yes, take it . . .

Now you're back in front of the class

with your trigonometric underpinnings

which have a history of wowing counterinsurgents

on leave in the high peaks

managing silence with admirable refrain . . .

Yet another cardboard castle nestled in the wood . . .

Ellen von Unwerth

Screen Dump 804

Excerpting obituaries might yield a clue

to the ornamentation favored by those

who think they're in the know . . .

The dry illumination will not help

despite what you've heard . . .

Sadly, they are no wiser for it . . .

You want to cut short the conversation? . . .

That could compromise the data

you've agreed to share . . . but I suppose

that happens more than we'd like to admit . . .

Falling as it does into the infinitesimal hole

in our consciousness, to plummet headlong

into the twenty-thousand leagues of notes . . .

A Captain Nemo type was found floating along

in an alphabetical undercurrent . . .

This has to be yet another wake-up call . . .

Hannes Caspar

Screen Dump 803

The fray resumes the fray

inundated with submissions for redactions . . .

It reminds you of everything

as if honing in on DNA

will unveil yet another double helix

in your backstory . . . 

At the feeders, black-capped chickadees,

whited-out, remain untroubled . . .

Autodidacts pay homage to autofictions

slanted autofictions

redacted autofictions

dripping in time to the musical notes

of someone else's autofiction . . .

The wizard . . . the wonderful wizard

spurns happenstance with remorse . . .

his almost comic anti-otherness

from the burnished depths

of his life as an accomplice

unfolds with complicity . . .

Missing persons clutter mental walk-ups

trying to insinuate themselves back

into your one wild and precious life

while Them-That-Got agree to convene

a solution . . . but there is no solution . . .

Noa Bachner

So I dumped my screen dumps into ChatGPT & got this reDump:

Worrying the linearity of it all . . .

Yet why embellish, twist the truth? . . .

Alright, so we’re all in on the trickery

of collapsing the distance between screen and self,

where nothing is truly as it seems -

as declared by those observing from the shadows . . .

the frozen breath of autumn clinging to the world . . .

But this puddle of prose still makes its way, yes? . . .

You see it, I see it, we all see it . . .

The fox moves easily through the frost

its coat, sleek and well-suited for winter’s bite . . .

Yet your voice, though layered, is fragile

tending to crack . . . much like Proust

dreaming of madeleine crumbs on the edge of memory . . .

Perhaps a subtlety hidden deep within

the algorithms of the next app update

or perhaps it’s the recurring rhythm of something else -

a subway car grinding through the quiet tunnels

hauling your restless thoughts from stop to stop . . .

Naturally, it’s all about perspective -

the point of view shifting like Joyce’s stream of consciousness

where words drift, ready to withdraw their invitation . . .

Will

Screen Dump 802

Troubling yourself over the chronology of events . . .

But why the embellishments? . . .

OK, so the use of fourth-wall-pulverizing techniques

currently in vogue . . . bare bones judged idiomatically,

as announced, by the watchers at the gate . . .

the mortuary silence of winter . . .

But this cesspool of a script squeezed through, yes? . . .

You know it . . . we all know it . . .

Deer don't seem to mind the snow much

since their hair is hollow and a very good insulator . . .

But your words, camouflaged, are spindly . . .

prone to slippage . . . not unlike Mallarmé

holding a cigar in his hand

for Manet's portrait of him . . . 

Doubtless, a subtlety in Microsoft's latest release

with the clickety-clack on the trestle

of the train with its nightmarish boxcars . . .

Of course, the focalization or fragmentation

in Woolf's To the Lighthouse . . . words bobbing along

eager to terminate your membership . . .

Antonio Palmerini

 Screen Dump 532

(reposted from Thursday, November 26, 2020)

In watermelon sugar the deeds were done and done again

as my life is done in watermelon sugar.

          - Richard Brautigan

The iterations in needle towers lining the streets

trouble redundancy with their button-downess

and lucrative curbs . . . You sought monasticism

and safety and time off . . . eschewing the chatter

of masked players mired in the foibles

of middle and end games . . . escorting regret

at a moment's notice . . . Shocking, yes? . . .

the mess of moves that arrived with the pizza . . .

a meals-on-wheels sort of gig . . .

about to hold forth when your bishop pinned my queen

in watermelon sugar . . . and that was that . . .

We could consult the tale of the tape, I suppose . . .

Queen's Gambit Anya Taylor-Joy

Screen Dump 801

As if traversing Wordle's words

on a walking pad

through a supermarket's aisles of innuendoes

all life long . . . all life long . . .

An ancient pipe organ with meantone tuning

insinuates

all stops pulled

encrypted with comforter

and mug of Kuchika tea . . .

a passing fancy seeps into the day

drifting into the free-floating white . . .

The fray awaits your arrival . . .

The Late Middle Ages? . . .

The revamp? . . .

Why now? . . .

The shakedown . . . a faded fiction . . . explanatory . . .

The opening scene . . . muted, yes? . . .

The Director's cut . . . a fashionista's foreplay . . .

with outtakes no less

to make do with the trancelike snow . . .

Indeed, the polyphony suits . . .

Kali Malone

Screen Dump 800

The day seethes with algorithms . . .

ifs ands buts

its own talk-talk about all this . . .

the coding reprehensible

the need to fill in the blanks

with how-tos surfacing then receding

pulsating with an indifference

as if grasping at the straws of forgiveness . . .

It's not so much the illusion of indiscretions

colored for the moment

but something else, something ill-conceived . . .

Not the first time, yes? . . .

No, not the first time . . .

Dismayed by the lines

yet afraid of getting caught . . .

Getting caught? . . .

Yes, getting caught in a lie . . .

Not sold on that idea, at least for now . . .

Blaming yourself . . . hating yourself

you begin thinking

there must be a better way

mired as you are in autofiction . . .

Think about the medieval craftsmen

whose meticulousness is evident

even in the most hidden places of church pews . . .

Scarlet Rivera

Screen Dump 799

You doubled in spiked heels with a wooden

Louisville Slugger followed by a double header

for oglers-in-training . . . the gearbox

of your Suzuki mimicking the Uggs

you carried in your backpack

for occasional rock-a-days

shredding dirt bikes under the Passaic Falls

as bewildered as pointers in a perfumery

their words baseball trading cards

holding tickets to a Saturday Creature Double Feature

rarely searching for lost time 

as memorialized by a closeted deadhead

scalping instructions for Around the World with a Yo-yo . . .

The passing of notes in your cube

trialed the lifespan of Bics, scribbling spam

for residents of Williams's Ghost Town

awestruck by the pediatrician's It's all in the ear . . .

You journeyed elsewhere with a Moleskine notebook

capturing comments from the fringe . . .

your never-ending tour rivaling Rimbaud's Illuminations . . .

There were moments when it seemed to all come together

but those were dreamscapes from a Five & Dime

that shipped closeouts to dugouts

when security was busy resetting cameras

while superimposing fairytale footage for power trippers . . .

It turned out to be the luck of the draw . . .

Eva Tokarchuk

Screen Dump 798

Your medieval wall hangings talk the talk

for fact-checkers . . . opportunists

firing up fire pits . . . preachy-like . . .

If it comes off . . . and well, I mean,

when was the last time that dropped? . . . 

not unlike the whiteout

that made driving crazy

for tagalongs from other times, other worlds . . .

You found magic in the lower forty

asking directions

which prompted questions

from passersby rubbernecking in disbelief . . .

Eva Tokarchuk

Screen Dump 797

Your irresponsibility was sharp and gorgeous

with inconspicuous chords

that stayed the complexity of the moment

which you mentioned looked you in the eye

before settling elsewhere . . .

Quite fascinating, yes? . . .

This moment caught on tape

in the land of painful blisses . . .

Bricks will merge with sand

leaving others sipping tea

while scrolling through terms of endearment

for oohs and aahs . . .

It seems all the same . . .

these striped ventures loaded with guilty pleasures

seducing implants with aromatic codes

written late at night by amanuenses on leave . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 796

You're removing persons of interest

from the two-way mirror in your room . . .

The decision is pretense . . .

Several will chime in with ghost bubbles . . .

The bath works wonders

but please be careful not to overdo it

especially when the plug is pulled . . .

Your smartphone has gone radio silent

while interrogators make their way

along the Street of Crocodiles

with other reconfigured short stories

eager to disappoint . . .

The disinterest unsettles . . .

An iceburg moment, no doubt,

trying to savor the latest vintage

with concomitant misspellings . . .

Eugenio Recuenco

Screen Dump 795

You invent words in a secret garden

where you can walk and talk to yourself

without your mobile . . .

You owe it to others to approach exultation . . .

Can you lose the punctuation?  . . .

Can you ever be alone? . . .

Open mics replace your words

to begin the game of on-and-on . . .

Your hair will commence momentarily . . .

this and that . . . this and that . . .

Laura Zalenga

Screen Dump 794

You're talking rinky-dink geometries

for future listeners of Symphony No. 7

in A major . . . Allegretto . . .

endless drive-throughs of muted thoughts

while shuffling pages for reenactors . . . 

jotting embellishments

which one can only hope will carry the theme

to the next apotheosis in the score . . .

Cutting the deck proves nothing . . .

the cards jumping through the hoops of b-ball

for insomniacs boggling smartphone screens

rhapsodically nightmarish . . .

You want to believe in running the changes

laid out in microtones

as if auditionees crowding the wings for a chance

to enter a reminiscence will be given the go-ahead . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 793 

You would think not wouldn’t you? . . .

especially in those moments

when you're imagining a quartet of abstractions

posing as the four seasons

on the Outer Banks

while in this big rig

you are being strip-searched

by a string of tangled marionettes

who couldn't care less

about your precious autofictions . . .

Time bends, yes? . . .

The smooth sailing before the plug is pulled

the plagiarized love notes

from odysseyites en route to the Gates  of Hell . . .

The voiceovers persist . . .

a discordant feed to the  rehearsal  

when you're hit with that same old same old . . . 

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 792

You're trying too hard to make do with whatever

was brought to bear on the latest makeshift . . .

Of course this will go down and then it won't . . .

comparison shopping breeds confusion . . .

you've seen evasions rippling through

as the shoals of vexation mutate into a muddled equation . . .

Impressionable temporaries, yes? . . .

with moments of grammar drilling down

and then the main attraction appears as if . . .

Antonio Palmerini

 

Screen Dump 791

Your halter top loosens for a motorcycle working

through the gears of epistemology

as if the nothing in the epic is worth mulling over . . .

Generations of mimes have done this

for outpatients who in sultry moments

defer to traffic signals coded to lie . . .

AI for all, yes? . . .

Yeats appears in a side street black Subaru

to advance yardage as specced in the last episode . . .

perhaps the last episode as we wander

across the mind's moors singlehandedly

expecting closure . . . but noone will be there . . .

Can you imagine the anticipation

at this time of year when all by default are bemoaning? . . .

Forget it, the creek has embraced a perpetual shudder . . .

The facades with their onomatopoeias

capturing moments on the fly as is so often the wish . . .

Understanding will arrive in a Cybertruck

as you remove your Uggs

to enter a marsh in search of the assignment . . .

Yes, you're hoping an enhancement . . .

And if it doesn't, you will still be able to scroll . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 790

Your dream in a dream, shifting down, recalibrating . . .

the shoulders seductive

their angularities mesmeric . . .

Vendors arrive, and fishmongers . . .

Wine glasses mingle . . .

Bangles promise other worlds . . .

And now you're crossing the street,

and she's asking . . . something? . . .

Sit down on this bench, please, take a break, rewind the tape . . .

Meanwhile, in the park, The Life of Pi . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 789

Artifactuals like cluster fly innuendos . . .

suitcases left open . . .

Never again, yes? . . .

You are adamant about hyperbolic clickbait

stretching late night moments

into roundabouts

with red double-decker buses

checking overdue promises that once held . . .

And only now you worry the elements? . . .

First paint a cage with an open door . . .

Your books fester

raking words for combinations of letters . . .

The UPS truck will see you now . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 788

You ignore repetitions . . . fractals . . .

an infinity of repeats

and squeeze into a backbend . . .

departures circling in a rattletrap

as if and only if the unloved

forgotten . . . momentarily . . .

surge to forgiveness . . .

How many times will the times beckon

intimating disposable

without really thinking it through . . .

not unlike Wittgenstein's

If a lion could speak . . .

The probabilities at the table

in the windowless room

plastered with Vermeers

sometimes go viral

when bad stuff happens

and people want to confirm their confusion

or mystify their position . . .

Too precious . . .

Choose small in big

and with that the elements of chance . . .

Of course, you may lust . . . out of desperation . . .

watching sculls turn the stake

in an oil by Eakins . . . and You Are There

with Walter . . . Sunday evenings

at seven . . . always . . .

Wanda Choate

Screen Dump 787

The backstory jumped bail, leaving you

with fragments and a breakout hit in a car chase . . .

Cosplaying . . . again? . . .

What do you mean you're not sure? . . .

You know, I'm not sure, so I'm waffling . . .

This is important . . . the lines

as elements of style that blunder along . . .

There were quite a few . . . and, yes,

it was edgy which made it exciting

but the blowback had to be reconciled

with whomever was involved . . .

or maybe not, I don't know . . .

You mean the party of the first part? . . .

Then, everyone was left with jottings

for memoirs, I suppose, following

what Paley calls the open destiny of life . . .

The endgame . . . the warning track . . .

and you're about to hit the wall . . .

Having a plot fenced you in, OK? . . .

keyboardiing your experiences . . . or

assumptions . . . or allegations on your laptop? . . .

Indeed, you're not sure . . .

Maybe retracing your steps with a refurbished script . . .

new words . . . different words . . . that sort of thing . . .

Camille Claudel by August Rodin

Screen Dump 786

Take for instance the still lifes

that stammer choices in cafés . . .

the still lifes that could be amped-up

with nothing more than a toggle . . .

The dealer has just cleared her hands

for the eye in the sky

while the pit boss pilots his skiff

toward the Burning Man . . .

You're thumbing options . . .

transcribing the title

of your final Golden Book . . .

a Seussian mix of alleged allegory:

Oh, the Places You've Been . . .

Encryption is key

with Beckett's maybe

as failsafe, yes? . . .

Without the venue it could flop

not that that would rewrite

the chorale but if you're placing

your bet on cacophony you'll appreciate

the metronomic meaning qua meaning . . .

Hendrik Kerstens

Screen Dump 785

Dylan's Queen Jane Approximately:

That you're tired of yourself

and all of your creations . . .

and in the Summer of Love

Princess Summerfall Winterspring

confronts Phineas T. Bluster

about his untoward gestures

that back in the day of black and white

was tossed in a circular file . . .

Someone's voice catches on the sound stage

and The Man With A Thousand Faces

appears at the organ in the bowels

of Paris's Palais Garnier Opera House

with Christine awakening to a music box's combs:

I remember there was mist

Swirling mist upon a vast glassy lake

There were candles all around,

and on the lake there was a boat

And in the boat there was a man.

But now you're bottlenecked in a queue

for the computer at the library

with this CEO person gesturing to this IT person

and you know you've been drafted

into a focus group with

all the clowns you have commissioned

having died in battle or in vain

to rewrite the opening scene

to The Turin Horse

because Sea Shepherd lost the battle

against the whale hunters . . .

with Facebook friends defusing the shiftiness

seeping into your daily bowl of organic oatmeal

affixing itself to that rare elegant lapse

in a small gallery on the third floor

where long-limbed bronzes

crowding the poorly-lit hallways

have pulled it off . . . echoing Dylan's

and you're sick of all this repetition . . .

Won't you come see me, Queen Jane? . . .

as the train pulls out of the station

for the Guggenheim's posthumous exhibit

of On Kawara's Silence . . .

Across the Hudson . . . Albany . . .

Scarlet Rivera

Screen Dump 784

The self forms at the edge of desire.

          - Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet

Days and nights . . . days and nights

encounters in off hours

with translators of Ancient Greek

you and sleep parting ways

your self-portrait mirrored in a convex mirror . . .

blindfolded, yet? . . .

I mean, of course, until . . . on the horizon . . .

palms up . . . weighing the air . . .

anticipating departure . . .

You sometimes worry in the middle of it

how they're faring . . .

referencing Tolstoy on kindness

a segue to a conversation about why . . .

Forget that . . .

You want to haze transformations (OK, I get it!)

too excited too much too late . . .

it seems to click in so nicely

you want to take this poem on vacation, yes? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 783

Disparate marks quotes letters numbers . . .

indifference spilling over onto the floor

and you're telling me about

the day's little tragedies . . .

the interiority enlarged

squashing decouplings of moments

that were chosen to color the room

where someone is doing laps

in a claw-footed tub . . .

On the far hill two castles . . .

You're answering texts with your voice

carrying the irrelevancy in your canvas backpack . . .

You worried pleather then opted for cerulian

which has nothing to do with the overdue landscape . . .

It's OK, yes? . . . hoping not to disrupt

the train of thought

chuffing toward derailment . . .

Circus wagons will be cleared in no time . . .

Think puppets . . . that always seems to work . . .

Am I wrong? . . .

Regardless, the late summer morning is happily

urging voices to sample the mélange . . .

Soon, streets will be overrun with tourists . . .

Again, a near miss . . .

Fabio Chizzola

Screen Dump 782

Mind-boggling show and tells

puppy-like on makeshift silent-screen backlots

sometimes among headstones

to make the most of rubbings . . .

The sacred geometry of chance . . .

Then elapsation . . . and you're elsewhere

jabbering for roles

that highlight your good-to-the-last-drop selfies . . .

If only the timer . . .

Photoshopped, perhaps? . . .

But that's not the shape of your heart, yes? . . .

On this stage what matters is no longer a matter . . .

up and out with tail no longer bushy . . .

Here a necromancer to choreograph

a dance with realignment

and proprioception for flagging élans vital . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 781

You're three-quarters in, more like four-fifths . . .

the fit and finish

of many years of off-and-on attempts

at involvement, at engagement . . .

The files in your folder labeled fodder . . .

encryption, hybridity, binaries . . .

Think devolution . . . if you want to spiral . . .

and please don't bring up the failed-essay deal

as if you default aspire to fragmentation . . .

If only counters zeroed-out

maybe you wouldn't . . .

Wouldn't what? . . .

There will be no retrospection today . . .

or tomorrow . . .

That was then, yes? . . .

Try the trip-wire

re-creating or recreating the page

with clips from a different genre . . .

Which is? . . .

You know, prose poems mimicking oral storytelling . . .

Yes, and so begins the mismatch:

a minute ago you were 25 . . .

and now? . . .

I suppose preponderance . . .

That makes no sense . . .

And here comes Stanislavski's An Actor Prepares . . .

That neither . . .

OK, how about to the manner born

with yourself inside yourself . . .

filling notebooks

using the Leonardo Encryption App

day in day out . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 780

A discomfort has crept into the scene . . .

OK, but what's going to happen will happen, yes? . . .

Tell me, have you packed a picnic lunch? . . .

We hold our breaths as companions of the dying

and zoom in to color-code innuendoes

tabled from past table-reads . . .

There was a beginning

something bespoked as is so often the case

in this word-flurried world

with dwellings conjured from sand . . .

You're about to reserve your spot in the moment

which will proceed as these moments typically do

approaching a fork . . . and then? . . .

Leila Forés

Screen Dump 183

(reposted from Saturday, February 14, 2015)

. . . the absolute inanity of calling anything a fictional essay.

          - Anne Carson

You talk at length with Keats . . .

You ask about his words which you want to believe

were written in rooms with high ceilings . . .

You ask him to look at what you're working on . . .

He says he will . . . but then runs out of time . . .

There is no way back . . .

You worry the final exam . . .

Later you are able to define infidelity to your satisfaction . . .

though it isn't . . .

Strange how quickly the principled departs

and leaves you in the middle of a busy intersection . . .

sans lines . . .

Have you forgotten to call the plumber about the leaky faucet? . . .

I thought so . . .

The voice of God sounds human, yes? . . .

It's nothing . . . just the reluctance to admit the fool . . .

And your obsessions? . . . Are they reality? . . .

Shouldn't they be? . . .

If the problem is systemic . . .

Yes! Yes! I know . . .

But then when was the line actually crossed? . . .

You mean crossed so that we both knew? . . .

Your words float downstream . . . farther and farther . . .

Sarah Moon

A wonderful poem by my daughter, Tara:

Poem on the Bus

In my reverie

could there ever be strife?

Maybe that's like assuming

one would never have a bad day

How accustomed we are

masking our feelings

The answer to questions

fueled by judgment

When in reality

contradictions

make things palpable

Sergei

You're trying to nail down the left hand

of Rachmaninoff’s no. 3 in D minor

Nearly impossible to play!

eyes wide open in a room with the lights out

eigengrau . . . a grayness

not the same as practicing études in conservatory

blindfolded with the lights on . . .

Sergei himself here in the darkness

the King of Span

his gigantic paw stretching

the interval of a 13th on the keyboard

chuckling as you struggle to hold your posture

knowing a cramp is on its way . . .

you looking away . . .

glissando-ing like a caged animal

until the wooden hammers

blanketed in compressed felt -

the tuner's pin controlling their hardness

softening the tone -

acquiesce . . . releasing you into the world of light . . .

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Isn’t it time to resume the obligatory? . . .

Can you imagine? . . .

Not unlike the postmodern foisted upon minions

when no one was looking

and the brownout was force-fed . . .

And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, yes? . . .

Is it safe? quoth Sir Laurence . . . to the Marathon Man . . .

Low-lying clouds should be forgiven . . .

They know not . . . As for you? . . .

The same is not true . . . You knew . . . around the block

and then some . . .

Wendy Bevan

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A one-size-fits-all transcription of experience

and your mind's ear takes a break today at Mickey D's -

generic, anti-confessional, without

the clawing happenstance of a Johnny Depp lookalike

backstroking in a sea of Elmer's Glue . . .

You continue to get antsy over dead zones . . .

Who doesn't? . . . but do we need two of anything? . . .

Attention-deficit mavens and their obsession

with the gap between fit and finish

transforming stage directions into librettos

puts one in the mood for a slice of pizza

with the works . . . from Baldy's on Cork Hill –

a stopgap for fortune tellers and fortune hunters . . .

If at any point you feel small, you should . . .

Wendy Bevan

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This poem is a game of scrabble . . . a game of babble

a game of mirrored sunglasses reflecting

a box of colored pencils . . . as you

thumb through Augusten Burroughs's Dry

inviting a tangle of lines leading to a fun house

in the middle of a re-enactment . . . as if

parallel parking a shopping cart were sufficient . . .

Again you argue the clock

with thoughts of a drybrush masterpiece

by Andrew Wyeth . . . at the Fenimore Museum . . .

Everyone deserves a break today . . .

Why today? . . . Why today the blue vacuum with dry load

applied to a dry support

from your days revitalizing sober living apartments? . . .

Wendy Bevan

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You seem to enjoy the almostness of your borderline personality

carrying on about the leaks in emptiness

that accompany Bruegger's Everything Bagels

and the duffel bags . . . of risky narcissists

adorned with fidgety flight tags

from the Bucket's 100 Places to Visit Before Passing . . .

Stay the merriment became your duly-noted mantra

even after your breaths exceeded the numbers

and you hop-scotched with bouquets of trillium

that happened by on their way

to yet another ho-hum commercial break

that . . . despite the menagerie . . . always made you chuckle . . .

especially when Facebook friends pointed to lapses in serving styles . . .

And you do believe yourself, yes?

Wendy Bevan

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Postcards from the corner office offer tips

on managing the parts of life that make no sense:

seductive five-star creamsicles

soundtracked by melodic lines nursing

pentatonic and catatonic scales . . .

You pride yourself on inscrutable self-scrutiny

the examined life . . . and all that

as if parroting fan-fiction of the Canon

through closed lips

makes dumbing down the default . . .

So why the obsession with spoon-fed fork-tonguers? . . .

The files . . . sight-read

have been sealed . . . and now

your raised hand is being co-dependently ignored . . .

Wendy Bevan

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You're charged with toggling the laugh track

while waiting in the checkout line

at the supermarket . . .

The manager is a clown suit . . .

A clown suit is a root canal sans Novocain . . .

A clown suit is a box lunch . . .

An after-the-fact afterthought . . .

Your flight is taxiing

and now the ticket person in a clown suit

is telling you you're in the wrong line

but there's a million dollar smile

on a million dollar baby

in a million dollar condo

with a million dollar (fill in the blank) _____

Wendy Bevan

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The subject has become the object . . .

It happens whenever you click Search . . . igniting associations . . .

The tendency to remain open

while people hover . . . submitting requests . . .

Are you ready to give it up? . . . to give in? . . .

Let's hope not . . . at least not until

your fingers are ready and the score is on the stands . . .

Opening statements, please . . .

What if we were to record every other word? . . .

Would nonsense reign? . . .

Would it become the New Now? . . .

You were late . . . with revisions . . . only

to be called out . . . to be called out . . . for redundancy . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You count out change from a shiny metal change counter

attached to your belt with Velcro . . .

You score a merit badge for the likes of this . . .

Isn’t this romantic? . . .

An aging-out squeezebox expands and contracts

to the gesticulations of bystanders . . .

It’s a day away from eBay . . .

Forging ahead nonetheless

with less than Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels

you wait tables in reruns

buttdialing Ubers for Q&As

while running changes with after-hour noodlers . . .

A good misstep

as innocuous as an up-close-and-personal . . .

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Escaping through the cracks in your argument

following bread crumbs to the Temple of Incidentals

restless long legs

parody of a back-flap biography

you fret over brands of black pepper

focus on the container . . .

Stepping out onto the deck with eggs over easy, yes? . . .

And coffee? . . .

The seemingly insignificant? . . .

There's nothing wrong with invisibility

and lemon juice . . . held up to a light bulb

selecting from menu options

making do . . . treading water . . .

Come prepared to defend your thesis . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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The theatrics begin . . . with words up . . . words down

rehearsals . . . do not pass Go . . .

You know how it is

with everyone talking . . . at the same time . . .

It's tough to follow the storyline

if there is a storyline

but then some stories are better without a storyline . . .

Just let the events unfold

in your pocket . . . I don't care

little matter where . . .

Whatever's convenient for you

I'm trying to wrap my head around something

that will get me through the next few hours

or the next few minutes . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Nights of reruns with brief, lost faces

feed the illusion of prediction

as if a magician's assistant living out of a suitcase

were cut in half . . .

location . . . location . . . location . . .

You as stopgap at the supermarket

comparing tongues with other sous chefs

squeezing into line for a virtual rollerama

of one-upmanship . . .

sampling tidbits for a breakout special

enjambed with abandon

awaiting a redo of the Breakfast of Champions . . .

The resident Kerouacian behind the deli counter

types a cemetery

on a roll of butcher paper . . .

a makeover for aspirants outside the walls

carries you through a thicket of unknowns

with one-way tickets to elsewhere . . .

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You have a reputation for down time

for rearranging players and their parts . . .

It's all there . . . in your notebooks . . . on your (un)zip drive . . .

It has become your mantra . . .

Incomplete sentences . . . written with crayons

follow in your wake . . .

The manner in which they carry themselves

and the questions . . . left unanswered . . .

Trying to construct reality with Legos, yes? . . .

You and your erotic other captured on tape

with sticky wickets . . .

I never believed in falling prey to pews

but then again . . . and again . . .

Something is sure to befall one-nighters . . .

Kate Barry