Becoming Invisible

I am becoming invisible.
Cars speed past remorseless.
Passersby pass by
eyes wide open.
The cashier's pierced smile
dissolves into a Big Mac
instead of the chicken nuggets
I thought I'd ordered.
The express line bogs down
my Häagen-Dazs softens.
There is no next for me
no blue light special
no buy-one-get-one.
The man at the bus stop
knows this out of habit
hiding an avalanche of emptiness
in his wooden leg.
From the window seat
I listen to facades
recite the alphabet
mesmerized by their fullness.
A tom waits for a cab,
his heroic ways a subterfuge.
The revolving door has seen to that
and to this moment
as it bumbles along
inconspicuously
laden with partygoers
and quizzical hounds.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Evening Out

1
A quick flick and the naked bulb goes out.
The clock's red LED takes over
but the book resists and stays open
like an all-night diner.
You run your fingertips over the page.
You can take this story anywhere.

2
You are bicycling along a towpath.
A hurdy-gurdy struggles to be heard.
The river overflows
and remains in a holding pattern
capturing a sunset
on its tense surface.

3
Your mother sits on a small canvas folding chair.
She wears pedal pushers, and reads Ladies Home Journal.
Her bicycle leans on its kickstand.
Your father fishes.
He never wears shorts when he fishes.
Teens jump off a steel-decked bridge into the canal.

4
A restaurant quivers with early birds.
Bingo players begin arriving.
Mobiles hang from the washroom's tin ceiling
like bats waiting for handouts.
A well-intentioned sous chef
parses sentences in the corner.

5
You spin past, stopping now and then to read the shrubs.
Your fingers come in handy.
A boy scout troop has canoed a segment of the canal
and is setting up camp for the night.
The troop's leader carries a bag of merit badges
and is eager to share his expertise.

6
A huge oil barge engines through
leaving only fifteen feet on either side.
Several stand in awe.
Fishermen reel in their lives.
The bargemen pose for Brownies.
Beyond the canvas chairs an amusement park readies itself.

7
The evening fills with families, couples, solitaire players.
Their painted dispositions color the back seat
of a large, black, calm sedan.
Its driver makes the most of the eel flies
that crunch when the sedan rolls over them
on its way out.

2:40 AM

O. Winston Link and his assistant
chronicle the last days of steam

locomotives rumbling through town
four warning blasts at the crossing.

A Chinese takeaway enjoys a stem of Malbec.
You examine religious artifacts and collages

and a life drawing class
in the bedroom

captivated
by the mouth

and angle of shoulders
as she turns to read the script’s next line.

O. Winston Link

A Good Time for a Blueberry Muffin

Or so I thought, but then a baglady stalled the checkout line insisting she had the answer to this morning's Minute Mystery. The manager appeared with bowtie and dog-eared copy of Crisis Management and promptly swept her through the automatic doors and into the parking lot where she now stands, spouting, in the falsetto of a soccer mom, that she's married to the local storm window king, a mail-order-minister-cum-entrepreneur whose ads, identified by the outline of a fish, clutter the local cable. He will not be happy when he hears about her mistreatment. Meanwhile, the manager has leaned in for a word with the Sheriff of Nottingham, who seems to have eaten himself out of his tights which reminds me, I'd better pick up a bag or two of fish and chips. The bagboy at the end of the checkout line has the knowing smile of a Zen master. He has seen this all before two or three times.

On the Disappointment of Things Gone Wrong

          for Sandy Sheedy

We walk the breakers at the tip of Provincetown,
tide out, crossing to the lighthouse on the far shore,

you briefly topless. Offshore,
whale watchers scan the horizon for blowholes,

a sailboat sways. Later,
we return in water up to our shoulders,

boat shoes held high above my head -
you, in white shorts and t-shirt over black bikini,

hysterical with laughter.
We enter the Moors without a reservation,

bask in the jokes of the piano player,
wade through three or four beers

before being shown to a table
next to a group of young men

who include us in their celebration
of Marilyn Monroe,

as our Portuguese bread and Portuguese soup arrive
under a cloud of steam.

The Moors, Provincetown, MA

The Cobblestones, Especially

They've a mind of their own
scribbled on the wall of a faux ruin
fragments of Doric columns
lying about, a brown bagger's leftovers
smoldering in the heat.
There are plenty of stories like this
on public television
especially during pledge week.
The worldwide abhorrence of domestic chores
is one that comes to mind.
Or the railroad spreading west,
uprooting settlements,
plundering hair salons and delis
in full view of the early afternoon sun,
the lunchtime crowd barely out the door.
Or the service of tea in the basement
of an opera house, where the mold
speaks in tongues to those
born amid the dawning of the Age of Steel.
Can you imagine being responsible
for coordinating the playtimes of hundreds
while maintaining a strict radio silence?
Or comparing dishwashing detergents
using a standard metric?
Or what about editing a treatise
on doggy styles for seniors
with hearing impairments?
Are we really as fathomless
as we would like to believe?
A giant in the field of architecture
made that mistake while falling
head over heels for a fuzzy anchor
from one of the commercial networks.
She was the same giant -
bag and shoes perfectly matched -
who had insisted
that small colorful toy trains
with cute names like Toby and Tammy
be inserted randomly into boxes
of Cracker Jack.
Some have become collectibles
and occasionally show up on eBay.

Morphology

Inconsequentials and their associates
rear up, and you begin
writing down presenting symptoms
for your analyst, an Adlerian,
on sabbatical in Bimini.
You’ve dreamed of (dreaded?) this moment
for what, 10, 15, 20 years?
And of course the riff raff, accolades,
and, let’s not forget, the rush.
The angles of involvement begin -
a white-water-white-knuckle affair.
You panic and pack, withholding nothing,
consulting your jottings
with jittery fingers
the elements of reference out the window
and through the woods,
to grandmother’s house.
If only you had taken the time
to steel yourself against the moment -
the moment as anticipated, as rehearsed,
the moment now presiding
from the corner of your small, stuffy room,
teasing you, locking the door,
shouting, scribbling on the walls,
taking you back
to that theme park whose rides,
though fun for most,
were, for you, night terrors.

How It Works

Three of them cavort in the back seat
of a periwinkle stretch limo.
I am captivated by their sirens.

We stop for dinner and drinks
with cute little paper umbrellas
at a fancy restaurant with a French-sounding name.

The cute little paper umbrellas
keep opening and closing.
I am dizzy with delight.

We are shown to an intimate table
with intimate chairs by an intimate window
overlooking a choppy sea.

Our waiter brings us the house specialty.
We slather it with A1,
to the dismay of the animal rightists seated to our left.

A violist moves us with a little known etude
by the reclusive Sainte Colombe.
We tip her to the tune of twenty percent.

She sees our twenty and raises it twenty,
setting off a hostile musical takeover.
Our talk turns to lust and skin cream.

A cargo ship in distress
in the choppy sea below our intimate window
diverts our attention.

Lifeboats are commandeered.
For a while, it is touch and go.
The dinner parties play touch football

to amuse themselves.
The Donner Party eventually wins,
devouring the opposing team.

The ship's survivors are ushered into the restaurant
by waiters in waders
and taken to a large banquet hall.

The tables are turned,
unfolded,
and covered with leftover birthday wrap.

Rhubarb

In our sundown perambulations of late through the outer parts of
Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing base,
a certain game of ball. Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in
our lungs. Let us leave our close rooms. The game of ball is glorious.
          - Walt Whitman, Brooklyn Eagle, July 23, 1846

A mustachioed cabbie warms up in the bullpen
his yellow hybrid curbside idling with bookmakers
who only last week insinuated themselves
into a croupier's REM sleep.

The gaming table is a party of thirteen,
the room overrun by green walking sticks -
the kind seen in movies
when movies cost a quarter
and were shown back-to-back on Saturday afternoons.

One of them taps out Russian roulette.
Another holds up an old-fashioned large-faced clock.

Good afternoon, sports fans!

Win. Place. Show.
The ponies are ready to go.
Security is befuddled,
their orange nylon jackets billowing in the wind.

The first pitch is swung on.

The web-footed are on the mound.
Maybe now we can expect a shift in the market
and a change in the batting order.
The gulls, of course, couldn't care less
indifferent to the ancient yellow bulldozer
chuffing across the landfill.

The runner is stealing second base.

A dusty main street in a spaghetti western -
the ideal afternoon!
Is time running out?
The down-on-their-luck engage a Glass Bead Game
then take the Green Line to the stadium.
An APB is put out.
Someone's skiff arrives in a pepper mill's runoff.
Several escape through a hidden panel in the library -
a secret place filled with grandmothers from the Old Country
rocking away the hot summer afternoon
their Polish prayer books opened to the third inning.

There must be a God.
How else to account for this?

For many, a morning's reading of cereal boxes
segues into an afternoon of QVC.
Spiffiness aside, each one of us jockeys for a spin.

The windup, and the pitch.

A foothold will get most of us through
but only if we complete our tasks in a timely manner.
Perhaps a move to a warmer cubicle
will ensure that our fingers do the walking.
Could you please remind me again
of the plan's comprehensive benefits
before I move on to the parched middle
with my hot dog and beer?

Bases loaded, and the pitch.

Four short warning blasts:
a freight train lumbers through the crossing.
Three-fifty-five AM.
Newsies will soon begin sorting papers for the morning routes.
Later, migrant workers who cut asparagus
will break around a picnic table
eat lunch, smoke cigarettes, play cards,
listen to the game on the radio.

The plants are vigorous and disease-resistant,
a good bet for the majors.

The Glass Cat Sat

the glass cat sat
for five years
in the glass case
in the penny arcade

looking out
at the kids
who came
with quarters

to play
the games
for tokens
to cash in

for prizes
in the glass case
where the glass cat
once sat

Strange Evening #2

Did you wait for that strange evening
to pulverize the past
to underline the pop-psych texts
that spoke to you after-hours
that dared you to come closer
relegating your wishes
to the toy box you kept
for so many years
under your bed
beneath the stairs?
Listen.
The cat at the door brings tidings
from the charming little village
nestled deep in the wood
in the painting that hangs
over your fireplace.
Take note of the swallows
circling above the red barn
the one you snuck into
that summer afternoon
when you thought no one was looking.

Tall Barn  by Tracy Helgeson

Backwoods Woman

You've trained
the dogs well.
They meet my Jeep
as it turns
onto your long
rough drive,
yapping
at its wheels.
Wood cut and split,
neatly stacked.
Smoke rising
from the warmth
of your stove.

And Then What Happened?

I made my way along a narrow passage lined with faded photographs of strangers who had won Golden Book Awards. I found a scrapbook among the matchbooks on the back porch. It had been placed there under lock and key. I opened it and read the directions which were printed in Japanese with a fuzzy font. Nip it in the bud was the only thing I could make out. I rechecked the parts order just to be sure. The twins burst through the door of the trailer and began scrambling eggs with a marionette, mumbling tales about their grandfather, a WWII vet. It was obvious they were being stoic about something enormous left on the stoop with a note pinned to its trousers. A bright yellow Tonka dump truck took a dive. The twins panicked. A chef's torso stared out of the sleeper no doubt awaiting a curtain call. Bodies in motion in the weatherbeaten clapboards slipping past glued themselves to screens with Elmer's for the latest culinary treat. The lights dimmed. A disembodied voice informed us of the location of the emergency exits.

The Sommelier Stands Behind His Recommendation

Cowering, actually, in the fifty-five degree shadow
cast by the solitary sixty-watt hanging

from a cobwebbed cord seemingly as old
as the burgundies in their corked glass,

he samples the crimson surreptitiously,
as if lunatics were watching from the windowless walls,

his face reflected in the dimples of the tiny silver goblet
dangling from his creased neck.

Her First Bicycle

          for Hana

She calls it her bicyble,
and though I could've had the shop assemble it,
I wanted to do it myself.
I wanted to grease the axles
align the wheels
tighten the spokes, myself.
Not for the ten bucks
but for the peace of mind
knowing that I made it ready for her. 
In the store, she hopped on the floor model
and took off down the aisle,
the clerk marveling at this three-year-old's ability.
Like father like daughter, I thought.
And now we're out here
on the bike path,
waddling along,
loving it more than the Tour de France,
more than all other tours combined.
Some day soon, at her tugging,
I'll remove the training wheels.
We'll go to a park.
I'll help her keep balanced at first,
my hand placed, inconspicuously,
not to break her concentration.
Then, picking up speed
on some small grassy downhill -
'cause that's where the books say
kids should be taught to ride a two-wheeler -
I'll remove my hand,
while running alongside, and slowly
let her go.

Singing with Parched Tongue

With the incidentals tucked away
it was time to review the elements of the latest visit:
the left turns, blank pages, painted toenails.

Laying out on the deck in the sun
with a book
is always an interesting prelude

to a hike perhaps among the high peaks
or a visit to a gallery -
the specifics matter little

despite requiring a rewrite
as well as a trip
to Walmart or Boscov’s or Kohl’s or wherever

to pick up a cover-up
which with the right choreography
can excite with the intensity of a bright palette.

Instead, we target the eclipse
and drag out the telescope
peering through the lens as if we knew

which direction next:
the ranks pulled, lines drawn, shopping list edited
for the umpteenth time.

Horticulturist

1
His hands have turned into leaves
despite his advanced degrees
and his years on the lecture circuit
where college auditoriums welcome him
with handshakes phrased in the form of questions.

2
His iPad makes it happen,
informing the horticulturist's pub-crawling after-hours
where barkeeps
tight-lipped and loose-skinned
water his plants
and test his sobriety
as if their lives depended on it.

3
The horticulturist provides expert testimony
for the court stenographer's long fingers
while local cable stations
zoom in on the alleged parties
frolicking on the courthouse steps.

4
This is how it plays out
on those days when you least expect it.
Your number comes up.
But you've misplaced your ticket.
You begin searching through your papers,
emptying your pockets,
sprouting every excuse imaginable,

5
when suddenly the horticulturist appears,
his hands caked with mud,
his face soiled.
This is the least of your worries.

6
He offers the cutting edge in gardening tips
and in a weak moment you jot them down
and fax them to family and friends,
having received word from above
that you'll have some free time on the weekend
to spend in the garden
with a blue ribbon panel.

Inlaid with Cherry

My five-year-old
keeps red and yellow rubber jacks
in the jewelry box
he made
for her fourth birthday.

Strange Evening #1

Did you wait for that strange evening
to swallow hard
to snap at you like the rabid dog
from your childhood
that lived across the tracks
and ran wild
through the streets
of your small town?
A station wagon pulls in
and sits there, idling.
The clock ticks past reason.
The luggage and kitchen island
stare back at you
like the sound stage of your dreams
then tip the attendant
and leave without saying goodbye.

The Generous Logic of Friendship

Little pieces of us fall away
as we move along
through the same doors
down the same hallways
into the same rooms
sitting in the same chairs
at the same tables
using the same utensils
enjoying the same meals
the same bottles of wine.
Some across bodies of water
to float to distant shores
others through tunnels
still others into wood.
Coming and going
appearing
disappearing.
Nothing demanded.
The held hand slowly slipping away
until years later
sitting on the back porch
on a warm early summer evening
we reach for our glass
and find a piece
innocently clinging to our open palm.

Egon Schiele

Audio Clips from the Cutting Room Floor

The refrigerator empty.

He was broke.

A pizza arrived.

Chorus:
Who said that?

Papers to be delivered.
Papers to be read.
Papers to be signed.
Papers to be corrected.
Papers to be edited.
Papers to be published.
Papers to be thrown out.
Papers to be recycled.

Papers. Papers. Papers.

On TV, the crying of terrible weapons.

He did what he had to do.

This just in: Door-to-door suits at the door.

In the street, black and whites.

Some have been placed under a gag order.

On TV, a daguerreotype.

A recognizable image.

Chorus:
Which kicked off a boom in kitchenware.

Too much left unsaid.
Too much left uneaten.
Too late now for a doggie bag.

Your airtime is available immediately.

We await joy.

Tumbling into entropy.

On the front lawn robins argue in pantomime.

The silliness of what?

Chorus:
So it goes.


Julian Curry in Krapp's Last Tape (1966)

 

A Cup of Joe

Before moving to this city I'd never heard it put that way. So, for a while, I had this vision of chowing down on chunks of the poor sap who drew the shortest straw and was bopped on the head, put out of his misery, sliced, diced, cupped, and shared among the rest of us in the lifeboat. Y'know what I mean, like we were in that film directed by that British chap - the profile poser - the guy whose mugshot floated by in a newspaper; picked up by the Rachel, the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children.... - at least that's what it says on page 536 of my copy of that lit hit subtitled The Whale - found this dude clinging to some savage's coffin, and a couple hundred knots beyond, found us, and impressed us into service - wouldn't y'know - on that creaky, water-logged, whaler-wannabe, that skimmed the Horn, and eventually dropped anchor off the coast of Tahiti, where the not-so-friendly natives wined and dined on us, after introducing us to this banker-turned-painter, who brewed a titillating pot of coffee and proceeded to drone on about various exploits he'd shared with some red-haired-maniac-artist-Kirk-Douglas-look-alike, whose spectacles kept sliding over the hole where his ear shoulda been, shortly before we were cauldroned while enjoying this incredible extemporaneous exhibition of drumming and chanting.



It Will Be As If We Never Were

The plate umpire removes his mask with a flourish
in the third inning of a double header,
a grocery list including overripe plums
mingles with the lint in his right front pocket.

He will not forget the plums this time
and he will be home in time to watch Bowling for Dollars
with his ex-wife's purring cats.
He will soon be among the missing.

The players, seeing this, scratch their shaved heads,
and leave the field in a cloud of dust
and a hearty Hi Ho Silver Away on their way to a taproom.
The field will be overrun by dandelions.
The taproom razed.

A misplaced modifier plucking a banjo on a two-wheeler
heading out of town is profiled by a black-and-white.

The accoutrements from It's a Wonderful Life
enter stage left and float balloon-like
above a metropolis's exposed underbelly.
They follow the well-worn path of least resistance
on their way to the Best One Trick Pony Awards
for whatever year it happens to be.

Overripe plums huddle in a crisper
while outside a croquet match heats up.

Someone or something cameos a house
in multiple listings. The bulging dumpster holds
the breaking news.

A garage sale for kitchen appliances
that were taken on a wild payment plan ride to hell
spills out into the street.

Library books spring up, annoyed and overdue.

All of it sounds too good to be anything but.

Of course the sun will rise on cue
the paper will lay spread-eagled at the end of the drive
and the rain will roll off our tongues
on those nights when we take the time to listen.

All the Lots with Wall Power Sold

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

The Nuanced Perception of a Survivor (in 9 1/2 Acts)

Act 1

You seem to enjoy chasing after what's his/her name.
And you're pretty good at replacing wiper blades.

Wiper blades? Yes. Simple. Just follow the steps: 1, 2, 3.
But now the slopes have lost their powder.

Act 2

Have you lost interest in trimming sails?

Not sure.
I'm all green thumbs. What to do?

Take them to the flower bed, and while you're at it,
count the number of red vehicles between two logarithmic points.
You were always a wiz at math.

Act 3

Have you tallied your nibs?

Yes, and I've sharpened the point I want to make
which seems to be hovering over there.

Over where?

Over there, by the takeout sushi counter.
There are so many things I've had to put on hold.

No problem. Next time, choose public transportation,
and you'll be ferried into another dimension.

And then?

The person you should be will appear.

And then?

I don't know. Talk to him/her. Compare notes.

Act 4

I've heard she's doing very well, thank you.

Act 5

There's no time like the present.

Really?

Tell me everything you know about me.

I'm not sure I can.

What do you mean?

Preoccupation.

What?

Preoccupation. It's key to this and to many other things.

What other things?

Oh, I don't know, just other things.

OK, that was good. Let's do that again.

Act 6

But this time, please don't squeeze the Charmin.

Act 7

(Dear Reader: Improvise this act/stanza. Thank you.)

Act 8

You've come a long way.

Yes, but I've miles to go before I try to get to sleep.

Problem?

Restless legs. They keep me up.

Have you tried magnesium?

Magnesium? I'll have to check with the folks
sitting around the periodic table.
But there are other things going on as well.

Such as?

Well, it seems that I keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Yes, and . . . ?

It's just that so much depends upon . . .

Upon what? A blade of grass?

No, that doesn't sound right. I see chickens.

Act 9

Google him/her before it's too late.

Forget it. He/she is a no-show, and a bore.

Boring can be good.

I've made that mistake before, and you know where it got me.

I'm not going to promise anything.
It's just that I hate to see it end this way.
There was so much . . .

So much what?

So much, . . . well, so much everything.

Act 9 1/2

All perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said. . . .

Knut Skjærven

There’s a World Where I Can Go

Some people [traveling through the Swiss Alps] apparently even had landscapes with tidy Greek temples and other classical scenes painted on the inside of the carriage blinds to protect them against the vast disorder outside.
          - Sara Maitland A Book of Silence

I sometimes lose myself in the murals
on the walls of my room.
I have no idea who painted them.
They remind me of an episode of
Tales from the Dark Side
but I try not to go there often
because as I recall,
the guy who got into the painting
in the episode I’m talking about
couldn’t get out
kind of like Vincent Price’s head
getting stuck on the body of a fly
in the final scene of the original movie
pleading Help me!
to a woman on a park bench
as a spider closes in.
But forget that scenario.
Re-entry is always a problem
given the current kneejerkiness
over national security.
It makes me think about profiles
but don’t worry
I’m not going to segue
into a diatribe on profiling.
I’ll save that for another poem.
But then, if getting out is tough
maybe I’d be better off
hanging out there for a while.
We all need to get away occasionally, yes?

Who Me?

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
          - Walt Whitman

I am a splitter of hairs
A splitter of infinitives
A condescender
A manipulator of runes
A ne'er-do-well
A conjurer of the illicit
Reaping the benefits of a reluctant education
A spectator of board games and sights unseen
A stirrer-upper
An interloper astride a billboard with pockets bulging

I ask you this day
To look deep into your sentences
As you would have me look deep into mine
And you will find me
Lurking behind the comma, the semicolon, the ellipsis

A fumbler of lines and balls
A collector of shadows
A concocter of schemes
A Monday morning quarter note
A modifier of words worldwide
A thrower of Frisbees
A partaker of freebies
Bounded on one shore by the blank page
On the other by the unconscious

I implore you to seek out your voice
It is unlike anything you can imagine
Anything you can lose

I loafe and disengage myself
And invite you to loafe and disengage yourself

I am reproachful, remorseless, redundant
I overstate myself
And repeat myself
And repeat myself
A babbler of inanities
A bamboozler in flannel shirt open at the neck
An enigmatic docudramatist
A miniserialist
A sharpener of pencils
A purveyor of images common and uncommon
Everything notwithstanding
Everyone
Everywhere

Walt Whitman

A Revelatory Aside

And yet the birds continue their morning songs
their morning revelries
following nights of thrashing
nights of intruders, hooded,
with shopping bags hung from frail wrists.
Everywhere, up and down the roadway,
the cotton unfurls
eyes fix on the mouths of babes
hands clutch fallen leaves
and fallen memories.
Everywhere shopkeepers display measures of will. 
Only yesterday we worried the resurfacing
of the tennis court,
the repainting of the screens
for the Mikado's summer run.
Only yesterday we counted our change
and our friends.
Will we ever again have enough time
with the sun at its highest
to say what should be said
to caress unlined, tranquil faces mid-afternoon
in white rooms with breeze-filled curtains?
Look over there. The steps of those
once holed-up in oubliettes
join with us as we begin our journey back
across wooden bridges and barren fields
across parking lots and cemeteries
clappers announcing our way
against the soggy newspaper
that couldn’t wait that morning
to broadcast its headline
on an otherwise sky-blue day,
buses and trains drop-jawed,
catching us off-guard as well with little else
but perversities stuffed into our timeworn pockets.

At the Composer's Forum, John Takes Issue

Batons at the ready
composers pore over scores
as members of the audience
enigmatic and enormous
fill their notebooks
with anecdotes
which months hence blocked
they will drag out at three AM
hoping for the notes
to fly to the staff
jump-starting their pencil.
It's too early to predict a libretto
that will satisfy everyone
but for the moment at least
the strings can be heard
fine-tuning, above the shuffling.
Even the kitchen staff stop
what they're doing
and stand stone still
souffles puckering on burners.
John, fresh from an appetizer,
studies the trifold
then sits with his hands
over his ears, trying to get
the closing bars right.
He will spend the next two years
beginning the ending
collaborating with his current live-in
a budding ethnomusicologist who,
back from a trip to Asia Minor
where she studied the lost art
of noise, is here this evening
gaunt and Gucci'd
documenting the forum
for the next issue of Composer.

And When on Muggy Days

And when on muggy days, hybridizers bask in their fifteen minutes, signing CDs, utterly disbelieving the inked-in portions, it's time to pull out the stops from five-star organs and return to that scene from Chinatown where acronyms failed and PIs welcomed small change from strangers in sinister overcoats. Plagues continue to sprint across the screen, unflappable in their synchronicity, tallying the victims on their off days, normal folk rising to the aroma of coffee beans, schoolbuses depositing their packets under the tattered cloth. Winsome, though we are, it is difficult to imagine a happy ending stocked with finger foods from the four corners, spotlighting white sand and shortbread featured on late night infomercials between station-breaks that leave viewers with a strange taste in their mouth. And when we try to sort it out, to file it under Nice Try, to back-burner it, it nonetheless returns, unopened with insufficient postage, as if it knew all along that it would never leave, that it had in fact become indispensable to the awkward construction of our beautiful life.

The Book of Common Prayer

          after Eamon Grennan

Cast-off clothes clutter the upstairs hall.
The bathroom begs for mercy.
Cereal boxes gape.
Backpacks are packed and ready.

She flies around the room
trailing hats, gloves, a purple parka,
homework assignments,
lunch money, the cat's meow.

Standing in her shadow, I observe
the geometries of my life
the angles of its seduction.
The school bus lumbers onto the street.

Its octagonal sign swings out.
Flashers flash. Beepers beep.
It's never too late.
The bus door sighs open.

She scales the steps
and disappears into the yellow,
leaving me, alone, in my common world,
derelict, with my misspellings.

Carousel

We could try to rewrite the music for the carousel.
Maybe then the little ones would re-discover smiles.

Old Spice

It was there in the morning
mixing with the other aromas
of the breakfast table -
the coffee
the freshly-squeezed oranges.
And later in the Chevy
for the short ride
through the neighborhood streets
until I'd get out
with my bookbag
a block from school
so the other kids
wouldn't see.
And later still
when he'd get home from work
and look in on me
asleep in my room
before settling into his armchair
with the paper.

Random Inattentiveness

Your pic morphs into Byzantium, sails clogging the harbor, wide-eyed travelers milling about, awaiting the clarity of William Butler, the clock etching the hours onto your foundationed face. Penmanship is a deal-breaker. It has always mattered as a barometer of integrity, one’s cursive gymnastics, like the handshake, an index of the soul’s weight unencumbered by the seconds shaved off by nothing less than a balletic leap out of the starting blocks and into the post position. If push comes to shove, deploy the gawker blog, risk a double-parking ticket, as if scribbling some message beneath a wall hanging targets you as the one that didn’t get away. I don’t mind. I have errands to run, aisles to traverse before payday which always seems to interrupt closed captioning with the caveat: We’ll have to get back to you on that.

From: A History of the World in Four-Line Feeds: Part 18.2

Aha!
Take out your drawing pad.
Time to capture what the eye - your eye - sees.
Begin.

The speeding bullet?
Nonsense.
Pictures of nothing?
Pictures of nothing.

Abstraction is, after all, denial.
What?
Deciding what not to include.
Pay attention.

The joy and sorrow are undeniable.
The imprecision seems to toggle some switch
and before you know it, you’re floored.
By what?

Words.
Armatures for what comes next.
There have been others, you know.
Little matter, though, now with the impasse.

So what remains?
What always remains.
Messages wilting on machines.
Resetting the system will wipe out everything.

Including my drafts?
Everything!
Not to worry, though.
Huh?

You’ll have plenty of time later.
Have you read his latest?
Replete with line drawings
as if Klee himself had been out for yet another stroll?

He should have known better
than to try to capture the detritus
rattling around his brain.
He’s not like everyone else, you know.

No one is.
The buy one get ones?
The heads under water?
Scribbling love songs on half shells

between rounds of cribbage?
Where do they all come from?
What are you talking about?
Your next soulmate awaits you on Match.com.

My next soulmate?
There are far too many loopholes.
Besides, the ending is formulaic.
How so?

A disappointment.
The experience of experience.
The what?
Rewind the tape.

To the beginning?
Yes, to the beginning.
A shower in April or May or June.
I remember the wet, preposterous sun

the declensions with their inane iterations
someone’s PO Box.
A bishop moved to Queen Four.
He delivered his opening lines from a futon.

The Queen was intrigued.
She was familiar with double headers
and the ways of the poloi.
The who?

Something frightened them.
Something hidden under permutations
of hay and text and half-eatens.
Ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.

Stop that!
But I find it comforting.
The starchy surplice.
The wooden kneeler.

It was all there.
Everything I would ever need was there.
Where?
Back then.

You were spinning your wheels.
Some redhead started gyrating to Van Halen’s Unchained
mumbling
The proper amount is yet to be withheld.

Later you parlayed some cock-and-bull fetish into a gawker blog.
But my topspin was perfect.
Yes, but the ball, nonetheless, flopped over the net.
Limp.

It always seems to hit me at checkout.
What?
Acquaintances exchanging incidental information.
About what?

I don’t know.
Condiments.
Erectile dysfunction.
Which way to insert a roll of toilet paper into a holder.

The stories collide
like shadowy torsos with arms and legs akimbo.
I want to tell them about WikiLeaks
and how it could help them.

With what?
How should I know?
The Periodic Table.
Henry IV: Act 2 Scene 4:

Do thou stand for my father
and examine me upon the particulars
of my life!
The particulars?

Precipitants of countless dreams and delusions
to say nothing of trips to Google.
Enough to fill all the spiral notebooks
of some bearded bespectacled analyst

who lusts after the memory of Bertha Pappenheim.
Bertha who?
Bertha Pappenheim. Anna O.
Oh.

Freud and Breuer’s mealticket.
Would you mind if I regressed?
In full view of the audience?
Why not?

You mean like Harry Houdini?
Did he ever return?
He promised Bess he would.
Nope. Apparently he’d forgotten his PIN.

The Ice Cream Truck’s Final Sweep

The vegetable garden has been keeping me up at night
with its meowing. They’re probably hungry

but is it my place to feed them?
I will not be held accountable

despite the protestations of the yellow jackets
who buzzed in a few days ago

and now refuse to leave the seat down.
I know as well as the next health care professional

that dislodging their blue memories
could be hazardous to the photomontage

hanging unassumingly over the mantel.
I’ll try that number again later but right now

I think I’ll whack a few weeds before
the ice-cream truck’s final sweep through the cul-de-sac.

Relying on Memory

A skintight redhead thrums her fingers on the headboard
insinuating a melody laced with mellifluous fragrances
not unlike those encountered in perfumeries.

Nearby the Pleiades paint themselves into bird-like costumes
and begin Tantric-like flapping
to the beat of the skintight girl's thrumming fingers.

Quiet laughter seeps through the sidewalk.
A neon sign looks on.
Several eyes meet in elasticized anticipation.

A contortionist pleads ignorance before asking a prophet
for a lift. The prophet, in the blue haze of her ilk,
recites lines from Il Purgatorio, as snow fills the frame,

leaving little to the screenwriter's scrutiny.
The screenwriter, once identified, closes her clipboard
and leaves in a late-model huff, crossing the street

to the corner pub where torch singers, contraband,
and overdue library books grace the menu.
It is a literary pub of sorts, Joycean in its accoutrements.

The owner's pet tern tends bar.
The skintight girl gives head and directions to a shadowy extra
assumed by the patrons to be a ne'er-do-well.

He is in fact the Magistrate's confessor.
He wears a long string of sorrows and strikes
a penitential pose, pint held high.

The words Last fall.... slip from his pursed lips
moments before a tom scurries off with the skintight girl
without anyone realizing what is happening.

Lily Cole

On the Uses of PVC

I'm not talking about those gray, plastic namesakes
as ubiquitous as cynics

that clutter every drive-thru between here and there.
I'm talking about the industrial-strength volumes.

The kind we all had when we were kids,
filling them with long afternoons of scribbles,

stuffing them into #10s for pen pals far and wide.
Weren't they everything you always wanted?

Ah, you say, but times change, and so do the rules.
Which reminds me, take an alternative route home.

The bridge is out, washed downstream.
Traffic's been rerouted, which, incidentally,

is how I landed here about ten years ago,
intending to stay two, maybe three, years.

Double everything, or, in this case, treble everything,
at least for the exit interview.

But, really, who would have thought?
Then again yesterday's headlines did say something

about plumbers making headway
in medical pyrotechnics with PVC pipe.

This could be the breakthrough we've been waiting for.

Blue Man Group

No Way!

I step out of the queue for a Coolatta
lose my place
end up on the set of Cheyenne
with Clint Walker
strings rehearsing theme
lip-syncing Milli Vanilli
distributing trifolds
for a fan-belt competition
high on Nielsen
massaged into Reality
with Meat Loaf opposite Betty White
this morning's outtakes
as appetizing as entrails from Chef-for-Today
tweeted as CFT
not to be confused with CSI:

last week’s episode
a brainworm
making its way
through the parietal lobe
renewing friendships
from its last trip
50+ years ago
during a thunderstorm
that KO’d the power
and led to an impromptu
acoustic version
of I Want to Hold Your Hand
prompted
not by love
but by fear:

rooted in a month in the country
when I was five
and left alone briefly
in the kitchen
of an old farmhouse
outside Reims
while my father
ran out
into the rain
to retrieve a colt
broken out
of the corral
when lightning
demolished a section of fence
on the far eastern corner.

Across Summer on a Single Speed

Yo soy yo y mi circumstancia.
          - José Ortega y Gasset

I’m working on my cadence.
The smooth, even rotation.
The amount of travel per revolution.
Pacing myself.
Learning to take it all in:
the flat trails
cobblestoned streets
hills.
Walking the bigger hills.
I can do that.
I can walk the bigger hills.
Could be fun, yes?
It's all about cadence.
Pacing.
The smooth, even rotation.
The amount of travel.
Taking in whatever.
No need for gears
or derailleurs.
No need to worry the yellow jersey.

Well, Maybe Not Exactly

Cate Blanchett appears in coveralls
at the throttle of a steam locomotive
wailing through a crossing.
Cate seems perplexed.
She's perplexed about the young,
toothy, wide-eyed smiles
streaming through floodgates
onto the tracks.
Cate's freight is running late.
A pharmacy is going out of business.
Cate qua Bob Dylan is the pharmacist
toddling toward a late model sedan
in an empty parking lot.
The borders of the parking lot are hidden.
Spider-veined cheeks bend over
a weathered pew
in a withering rural chapel.
The pastoral setting is unsettling.
Cate performs a brief aria.
The congregation is in awe.
There are cows and chickens.
Crows in the distance.
Cate joins a group
of bespectacled global warmers
chasing sidecars like sacraments
at a local watering hole.
Spitoonias festoon the rest rooms.
The last call comes too late
for the hangers-on
up to no good in the village square.
Cate is among them.
They will be included in a groundswell
along with the children of the night
who most evenings
instead of being nestled all snug
can be found crisscrossing the moor
in search of the latest Potterism.
Cate as Harry, perplexed.
DVDs of Cate's performances
are being ripped by the thousands.

Papergirl Scores Her Next Film

The other day for example she backpedaled
through one end of the playground's rainbow and out the other.

The kids went wild.
The afterglow made the six o'clock news.

She loves Bach - his tonal colors,
the grandeur, that sort of thing,

and she's been known to get carried away
with piercings.

Her old piano teacher
interviewed by the local cable station

couldn't say enough about her
to fill a ninety-second slot

though he did admit to missing her slender fingers
repeatedly.

She caught the bug to mix about a year ago.
Drank plenty of fluids, got plenty of rest.

Weighed in with a new life.
Used her paper money and some silver

to buy a mixmaster.
Now she's out there with her next film in the can and all that.

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.

An Open Mic at the Saturday Service

(Please Kneel)

I try to follow but keep getting lost.
Begin here. Cut there.
Too much!
Not enough.
Little wonder these pews bristle with excitement.
Getting down to the final quarter.
Imagine those who think it's a passing fancy?

(Please Be Seated)

Is this as it should be
or as it should have been?
Not a clue!
Pass the daguerreotypes, please.
We need all the support we can muster
in times like these.
Did something happen at the fork in the road?
Was a CIA graduate involved?
Will we ever know?

(Please Stand)

This hymnal is mispaginated
and the Hammond is missing the color-coded strip.
At least, that's what I choose to blame it on.
Did I say something to upend you?
Just keep reading the book
from cover to cover
from sea to shining sea.
It's all there
all the questions, all the answers.
(A knock at the door.)
FedEx.
Suddenly, the atrium is awash with sunlight.
I should have stayed the night.
Yeah, right!

(Please Kneel)

Dietrich is at the mic.
I've heard he's persona-non-grata
at the Dumb Ox
having caused a ruckus
over the five proofs.
Trotting out barrels of references
like some twitchy mid-winter graduate student.
Let's google a getaway.

(Please Stand)

The reader seems punctilious.
I'll take it down a notch or two.
Consider the state of tap water for instance
then lecture me on the benefits
of homeopathy.
Erstwhile, as suggested, I stood in someone else's shoes
and liked how they felt.
I even walked a mile
with a camel.

(Please Be Seated)

A ghost at my bedside
reminds me to pick up a quart of milk on the way home.
Voices in the walls.
Are you listening?
A team of horses
canters through the afternoon soap opera.
Ladies and gentlemen
Ladies and gentlemen
hedge your investments.

(Please Kneel)

Scapegoating!
Yes, scapegoating.
Think of it as a profession -
one of the oldest
akin to masonry
or taxidermy.
Think of Abelard, tonsured and castrated.
Heloise's emails -
love notes thinly disguised as philosophical conundrums.
Ask yourself if it's worth it.
If you fit in
and I'll come back at you
with an Early Bird Special.
An Early-Bird-Gets-The-Worm-Special.
A Blue Light Special.
A Saturday Night Special.
Consider the feeders
and those on the brink.

(Let Us Pray)

I’ll Pencil You In

I looked for recipes in her translation of Proust.
I could be wrong.
Maybe they're not in there.
Maybe they're in Pee-Wee's improvised monologues
or in the words of friends and acquaintances
drifting in and out of consciousness,
having bid farewell
to Uncle Miltie’s cork-lined water closet,
for years the standard bearer for liquid plumbers
profiled in Better Homes and Gardens
that ubiquitous enabler
of tepid blurbs for Geritol.
Or maybe they're coded into the graphic versions
of Stephen Hawking’s Time Lost
hawked by junkyard dogs and other ne'er-do-wells.
Regardless, time passes.
Fashion plates spin with glee.
The Discovery Channel goes on record
in a vain attempt to transfuse vinyl.
Anything to keep out of hock.
Anything to stave off the due date,
admittedly missing a grace period.
The life of a court jester juggling, what,
five, six, seven balls
in the halcyon days of bungee jumps
accelerates the metabolism
sets loose change chomping at the bit
pockets fluttering with delight.
This is good, yes?
Dishpan dilemmas melt away.
You awake in the diorama featured on QVC:
locks unchanged; doors ajar.
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.

Gérard Bertrand
www.gerardbertrand.net

Appropriating Myself

Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.
          - Buck Mulligan quoting Whitman in Ulysses by James Joyce

The dogs are in the trees again. And they're barking. I am escaped from the pages of Dickens, my words nestled all snug in their beds. A black and white segues from my past. A symbolist jumps in insisting on the last word. He is dressed down. Woe to those befuddled crossword puzzlers or those courting constellations on rooftops with the satisfaction of a meandering brook. This dealership is known for its BLTs. My place in the sun layered in dust is appropriated by a Jay Gatsby lookalike living on the edge with a certain je ne sais quoi despite the bulging lines at soup kitchens. Footsteps echo off buildings scheduled to be razed before change punctuates the thought-balloon - ghosts on the spur of the moment waiting for the lost to stumble, entering their shadows, cartographers linked in time. The baguette did come in handy as you said it would. But how did you know? Without blackbirds in the trees I wouldn't have the mind of summer. Why don't we rent a little bungalow on the water this summer where each midday we can crayon in our missing persons? The artichoke under glass dances to Mahler's slow movements rising from a wax cartridge in front of a great fire brimming with wooden arms and legs. The menus here are blank, the newspapers' words missing but with a trace of a message that tricks us into thinking it can be pieced together and understood. Your free run wooden horse has run away. It was her heels - neon yellow spikes clickety-clacking though the intersection, charging gawkers a fee for a free ride - a free ride that would take them to the palisades of their dreams, leaving them winded with enough pocket change for the meter maid. Many are puzzled and await word from above. It will come. I want to be transported to an earlier time filled with jawbreakers stamped with phrases of affection. I suppose I too want it all. You called in for takeout. We selected items from two columns. That’s when I decided it was time to refill the rapidograph with red ink and begin a series of one-liners in red - the red saturating the eye with disbelief. You audition for the part of Iago, thinking this would be a great way to spend the summer - a summer of unrequited doubles. It was a throwaway, I had to admit, that unsettling feeling you get as the bath water departs, counterclockwise, leaving you, toweled, thinking about the final scene in that film whose title is slipping away. The name Wichita could happen to any of us. Now what? Now what do we do? . . .

Onto Something

There was much ado on TV about a hoosegow.
Someone had left a window open.
A strange voice kept shouting Trim the sails
perplexing several.
A cashier cashed out and clocks
wound up synchronized.
Don't drive drunk became the rallying cry
as we hailed a cab.
A symbolist jumped in
insisting on the last word.
He was dressed down.
Far too few have visited this hamlet
which is sad given its vistas
and cascading waterways.
A theme song might help.
Perhaps a structural for the pole barn.
Cateyes shimmer at the thought.
You too would have agreed with her panoply of curls.
Indeed, she was drop-dead gorgeous.

In the Dream, My Mother Buys a Truck

Of course, she never drove, but she’s here
at a Ford dealership with her pocketbook and apron
kicking tires, looking under hoods.
One of the salesmen is repairing a soaker hose
for the tomato plants.
This dealership is known for its BLTs.
Another is tap dancing through the showroom
trailing Be right with you to my question
about next year’s models
prancing down the runway.
My mother appears at the far end
of the parts department
eager to test-drive a blue diesel-powered F-350
with extended cab and bed large enough
for groceries and Hummels.
She pictures a B&B with lots of shelves
and will not be dissuaded.
It will not fit in the garage
which sits half-painted next to the grape arbor
where the dog likes to paw through dreams
on hot afternoons.
My father stands by with pencil and tape measure.
He likes to fish, and mentions this
to a passing game show host.
It’s getting late, the dealership is closing.
They’ve already turned off the lights.