Screen Dump 422

Feelings of linearity . . . traced back to elementary school
and your fear of fat . . . and looking at strangers . . . but not really . . .
bowing to your mother's warning
that it's dangerous to meet their eyes . . .
The woman on the subway smelled of food
and wore a brooch that you are sure had a story to tell
but no one was listening . . .
perhaps a long ago interlude of intimacy . . .
Your palms sweated onto the cover of the book
you riffled through in the bookstore but decided not to buy
and now soaking away the day in your tub
with the Kindle'd edition
you're filled with remorse for not supporting
neighborhood moms & pops' . . .
The minuscule battles which daily weigh heavily . . .
despite the profusion of irony on the logos of t-shirts
on passersby in flood pants . . .
Soon there will be something somewhere
behooving you to engage . . . until eventually those too
will quietly fall off . . . and you will be left second-guessing
your moves as you play chess against a glass of Cabernet . . .

Christina Hoch

Screen Dump 421

Sentences parsed on off days when somnambulists gather dust in makeshift libraries where amanuenses per diem'd mine the gasps of ghosts . . . The Hall of Incidentals opens for business as usual . . . shards of glass dropped in a labyrinth wait to enter your words . . . an amalgam of riffs on emptiness . . . held back in the early grades . . . There was a window . . . is a window . . . will be a window . . . I am working in the garden with voices lining up for handouts of iridescent themes . . . I know you know the opening lines to the nights that curl around you to caress you as scripted . . . This much of course . . . But so? . . . 

David Benoliel

Screen Dump 420

Your stint as resident insomniac
coughing up night terrors
silent screen stars speeding into the valley
thick with cloudcover . . .
Interior monologues terrifying the what-ifs
cowering in the corner of your bedroom
where nightly tête-à-têtes
announce imaginary numbers
to the worrisome packaged in plastic . . .
Better late than never, yes? . . .
Buckling up . . .
the backward logic of go-betweens
infinitesimal touch-ups
the ifs ands buts of moments
otherwise known as forever . . .
Do nothing . . . the tune earworms . . .
sidewalk cracks point the way . . .
You will be badged - and badgered -
in due course . . .
nothing else if not . . .
I can't help but think about the resurgence . . .
Yes, there will be more . . .

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Screen Dump 419

Maybe I'm amazed at the way you pulled me out of time.
          - Sir Paul McCartney

Writing ad copy for bedside pilgrims catapults you
into an altered state filled with past players . . . while token rituals
garner support from special interest groups
currying embellishments . . . There will be no extra credit
for your appreciation of footnotes or anything encapsulating
your past escapades . . . You like most have apparently forgotten
the mandatory reshooot of your life in which icemen
are jettisoned the one too many mornings after
before footage is returned to the underperforming film crew
with postage hampered by magical thinking . . .
Taking center stage with five minutes left in the quarter . . .
this ankle boot with socks thing bodes well for idiosyncranicity . . .
When was the last time you asked yourself? . . .

Screen Dump 418

You cardio in a sea of idiolects . . . diagramming interior monologues . . .
The right stuff is within reach of  the polyvocality of recyclers

taking recyclables to a redemption center . . . Suffice it to say what? . . .
A dead zone exchanges inanimates feeding quarters to blown-glass avatars

while questioning the preparation instructions jotted down in haste . . .
Your pockets bulge confusion . . . and continue as secular entities . . .

A go-between oozing cheap cologne you rarely go into the yard
where the sundial does time . . . every once in a while . . . Of course,

this is all from Stage 1 players who smoke the endgame with lush abandon
tsking you for dealing a bag of KFC extra hot wings at the head shop . . .

The aluminum block from the melted-down cans of your childhood
triggers something . . . perhaps the shortest straw exiled just out of sight . . .

Eugenio Recuenco

Screen Dump 417

And now you're gung-ho about the suffix esque . . .
immersing yourself . . . in the other . . .
the pieces coming together effortlessly . . . bumping you up
to the next level of engagement . . .
soundtracked by the brain's 40 Hz hum . . .
That the criteria remain unmet is irrelevant . . .
That the costumes are ill-fitting . . . incidental . . .
The slippery slope slipperier as you misplace your self . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 416

To lose yourself in the pages of a softcover . . .
the pages of a graphic novel . . .

to lose yourself in the action of a graphic novel . . .
in the one two three of a graphic novel . . .

between the stacks . . . in the sanctuary of a bookstore . . .
the sanctuary of books . . . of words . . .

someone somewhere is talking to you . . .
trying to insinuate himself/herself into your life . . .

into the graphic novel of your life . . .
into the who what when where why of your life . . .

Again . . . the same voice . . .
but different from the black and white . . .

You try to follow its dotted line . . .
along the canal . . .

leading out of here . . . wherever here is . . .
leading to unmapped areas . . . imaginary areas . . .

A patron . . . patron saint? . . . talks revitalization . . .
somewhere . . . here? . . . where points

are made by those easily led
into the dawn of a new day . . . another day . . .

beginning mid-chapter
with sun . . . then sleet . . . then snow . . .

The playbook turns on its heel spurring motion-
sickness for those taxiing . . . you among them . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 415

The day unfolds flat with allegations prompting you to engage Death
in a game of mumbly-peg, channeling Scrooge with the tiresome
But does it have to be? . . .
The barleycorned life and times of, yes? . . .
Will the plug be pulled? . . .
Will it morph into an Oscar Week? . . . an Oscar Wilde? . . .
Will your knight advance to the podium
your head choked with streaming videos of the good old days . . .
some of which were indeed good enough
to fetch an Oscar . . . had they been nominated? . . .
You ride the crest of here/not-here
filling the concave mirror in the Fun House with mothballed
dress-down-Friday costumes and brittle unkept promises . . .
your entourage feeding your rock-and-roll role . . .
But the center - as expected? - doesn't hold and
I don't give a damn is a wet towel tossed into the ring at the end of the ninth
when amid the full catastrophe you are ticketed for rambling . . .
for drifting off-pointe at the barre . . .
with a bullseye henna'd onto your unlined forehead . . .

Caught

I caught a tremendous fish.
          - Elizabeth Bishop, The Fish

But then the little engine that could couldn't
and you were set adrift . . . on opening day . . .
crib notes . . . encrypted . . .
a tale of blue cities in your creel
on life-support no less . . .
but this time time stops
as you reel in Liz's tremendous fish . . .
battered and vulnerable and lonely . . .
and examining and inspecting his sullen face
and five-haired beard of wisdom
you are awestruck by the rainbow, rainbow, rainbow
and by the happiness of happenstance
as it parallel parks
your day . . . and you too let it go . . .

Screen Dump 414

The queue gluts with auctioneers of language . . .
of stage directions with backstories of childlike mischief
high-topped and burqa'd against the wind
not unlike the polyglot introducing your next odyssey in
the language of your dreams . . . the language of your past self . . .
You have tried to flee recognition . . .
but there's always someone . . . somewhere . . .
with a memory of your bedroom's glass menagerie . . .
untouched . . . memorializing the tongues of insinuators
who GPS your movements for YouTubers poet lookalikes and reenactors
about to embark on a journey into the heart of some darkness . . .
It's all SRO . . . for a while at least, yes? . . .
at least until strangers begin sexting strange images . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 413

You as mirror-image examine the usefulness/uselessness
of strung words . . . of words qua words . . .
words riding shotgun with ambivalence . . . the hours
spent with muted palette keynoting a declaration of independence . . .
a declaration of co-independence . . . co-dependence . . .
Your articles of confederation . . . of clothing as Exhibit A . . .
await sleep's hum . . . which may never come . . .
Your costumes of engagement rarely
uninteresting . . . especially now . . .
cutting along the dotted lines for the new you . . .
looking at the looks . . .
dull pencils dry brushes . . . sketching
nothing to memorialize the past . . .
your past as retreat into decaffeination shelved . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Screen Dump 412

Again you pantomime escape . . . sparklers crackling . . .
wading through shallows as if clarity
was chomping at the bit . . . to enter the frame . . .
the blameless obfuscation
of your notebook jottings pinning the tail . . .
How to explain the fascination . . .
the tacit approval of your blue books
brimmed with proofs of migratory
thoughts crowding out others
in the takeaway box of your imagination . . .
clocks desperate as once . . . oh so long ago . . .
You are plain-spoken whenever you enter
the ring . . . eyes focused on the prize-
of-the-moment . . . filling some gap
you don't remember from where despite
which you continue to go through the motions
matching the self . . . in the mirror
when with the sun you sign into your life-is-OK life . . .

Peter Lindbergh

Screen Dump 411

You're choreographing steps in the snow
despite a front heading your way . . . to be followed by another
on your heel toe toe heel . . . looking for the definition
of recalcitrant . . .
Pinterest pics color moments
of the biomechanical
outlined by Henry Gray in his 1858 Anatomy . . .
We each . . . reach . . . at some point
sketching caricatures with the straws we've drawn
pastels at sunset soundtracked by a tap routine
peddling elixirs while cheering barnraisings for startups . . .
The steps will eventually come . . . indeed . . .
scaffolded by drop-dead paradiddles . . .
Messages from elsewhere seem to have guided you thus far . . .

Chloe Arnold's Syncopated Ladies

Screen Dump 410

The semi-autobiographical appeals to you
despite its labyrinthine loopholes . . . acne scars . . .
and OCD underpins . . .
not unlike midnight snacking on reviews
on Rotten Tomatoes:
funny? . . . moving? . . . profound? . . .
plagiarized . . . and labeled a reformed other . . .
what with the painting hanging in
who knows whose apartment? . . .
Fanfare for the tone deaf, yes? . . .
A tour bus walks into a bar . . .
the order of finish . . .
irrelevant, your honor, Perry Mason said . . .
a faint skirmish . . . as when spent
he spent the rest of the evening
chatting up his etchings . . .
The straight dope . . . and all
whose predilection for protein
makes voyeurs gag . . . in reel-time
with anonymous ratings - still coming in I should add -
topping the list of vinyl . . .
turntablists scratching out
their untoward albeit melodious propositions . . .
You improved in black and white . . .

Lady Bird's Saoirse Ronan

Screen Dump 409

Once upon a time on a sidewalk, yes? . . .
he/she pointing out something to understudies
who practice to perfection between takes
with the chainlink buffering . . .
Another time between the lines . . .
with the same MO . . .
The waiter returns with a to-go box . . .
The scene shifts to reel-to-real . . .
The moment skips past thinking snow . . .
You are called out for howling at the entrées . . .
sheltered behind the runner-up's ear . . .
This too will be memorialized . . . Imagine that! . . .
The bed is a no-no . . . as if in the first stanza . . .
He/she could hear the silence before
you broke it off for independent study . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 408

You practice a type of echolocation . . . labeling
the wherewithal of former selves linked
to former players . . . their bodies semantic templates . . .
Demarcation aside
the tags echo stories in foreign tongues
with words to pique the interest of eavesdroppers . . .
Meaning becomes metaphor
as the queue populates . . .
tracing and retracing lines of engagement
which from a distance resemble
the structures in which you have spent your captioned life . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 407

You engage a theory of aesthetics . . .  become a blank space
in costume . . . under various guises . . .
narrate fragments of invisible houses for shadowers
in moments of silence . . . immerse yourself
in the ice-cold stream of a character . . .
the ice-cold theatricality of days . . . breathing life
and nuance into words
with enough awareness to evolve the character
through subtle ongoing performances
that could be hawked as how-tos for a life worth living . . .
YouTube is always handy, yes? . . .
Either way, you could use something in the distance . . .
something to dream perfect numbers as such . . .
Catastrophe Theory as public code . . . as public code breaker . . .
splattering negative numbers all over trending paradoxes . . .

Gabriele Rigon

Screen Dump 406

As if partnering in the process of distributing paint
on an uncomprehending surface . . .
the insinuation was an of course phenomenon
the enormity of which was enough to zero-out the counters
maintained by slow readers courting time slow reading
worrying the artless passages . . .
You maintained a page count
and tweaked the lines that peeked through
the deconstruction
misdirecting the watchers at the gate . . .
Later you greeted the inexperienced
with a template for testing the waters without smartphones . . .
You wished otherwise . . . perhaps . . .
and this of course was not the first-time . . . triggering points
locked in formaldehyde for artful dodgers
vying for a piece of your pie . . .

Gabriele Rigon

Screen Dump 405

The evidentiary moment fuels your ah-ha . . .
the excitement filling in the blanks with the names of identity theives
while sweet-talking desserters . . .
Your words . . . bittersweet . . . seduce the far-fetched . . .
A pared-down Proustian approach
scans images . . . free-writes shortcuts
to the enigmas of entrapment . . . of standing-room intimacies . . .
No need to spend time call-waiting . . .
The costumes will color in their own lexicon . . .

Liliana Karadjova

Screen Dump 404

Mentioning the unmentionable was a mistake, yes? . . .
A Type II error . . . when players
with see-through credit lines are admitted - or, committed - with F-scale
aficionados . . . and guaranteed a place in the penultimate playoffs . . .
Again, you regress to costuming the unintended . . .
highlighting misdirection
with the fourth-quarter ticking down
as if YouTubers in roundabouts spun your nom de plume
with an elementary logic . . .
Calling the shots in the kaleidoscopic manner of the mentally ill . . .
Star-struck triglyceriders on the storm . . .
Go-betweens doing bright-white lines with sans serif junkies in triplicate . . .
It's not anonymous, anymore, I mean . . . all pitter-patters, if you will? . . .

Lolitaesque

Screen Dump 403

So the analysis continues
picking through the odyssey's detritus
undaunted by the future's trailer
pastiched scenes stampeding lesser inklings . . .
you . . . convinced of their value . . .
of the value of the gems hidden
in the wordplay . . .
the run-on sentences
the incomplete sentences
the closed mouths of intermediaries
enough to bankroll another journey
into the past life of . . .
the past lives of . . .
awaiting the end run . . . that awaits . . .
the scrimmage
the scrum . . .
as if raising a pole barn against time
during off-seasons
with beards-a-plenty is enough . . .
is more than enough . . .
to satisfy the insatiables at the back door . . .
I am who I am . . .
You are who you are . . .
We are who we are . . .
introducing the next player
the next contestant
the next confidant
dollied . . . with head akimbo . . .
the uppercut beginning its ascent . . .
the paradigm shifting . . .
Zoom lens atop drone . . .
Standing down
scripted for the takedown
yellowing . . .
The elders . . . next . . . searching out
tender limbs on which to place
their hard-earned words . . . so yesterday . . .

Rooney Mara in A Ghost Story (2017)

Screen Dump 402

That the current overuse of bespoke is an example
of semantic drift triggers memories of warm summer nights
when you would rehearse unlisted numbers
with a niggling exactitude . . .
hurling backseat drivers back to their Once upon a time . . .
The elements of style reeked of insouciance . . .
Little matter though . . . your redacted paper trail
exposed the bellies of the beasts you'd encountered
as you odyssey'd past the stop signs of endearment . . .
Center stage was occasionally occasioned . . .
You backpedaled as best you could, yes? . . .
with little effort to upstage the obvious . . .
We're plugging leaks choruses through most of the recital space . . .
This back-and-forth-back-and-forth upends many
as Valentine's Day swoops down upon a newhire standin
with Out to Lunch cred . . .

Linda Evangelista

Overnight at the Ventriloquist's

(reposted from Wednesday, June 1, 2011)

His voice is everywhere.
His knowledge of cork vast.
He talks about his plans
to retire to a walled city
with underground labyrinths
inhabited by used car salesmen
posing as television personalities.
He will not take No for an answer.
Jobs are scarce, he says,
from under the rug.
Too many words, too many words.
He whistles in three-part harmony
and keeps five balls in the air.
Halfway through the evening,
he saws a woman in half
while drinking a glass of water.
The other guests continue
to arrive in suitcases.
We fall under his spell.
Dinner is served by candlelight.
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.
We are shown to our rooms with flashlights.
Later that night, it begins to snow -
thick, indifferent flakes swirl down
like confetti in a snowglobe.

Screen Dump 401

Famously lingering . . . after hours
with pages of questions pulsing with anticipation . . .
But what of the rendezvous? . . .
Surely it will play itself out
despite the sluggishness of infinitives . . .
Suppose we consider the portal as a revamp . . .
as an exegesis of odysseys past? . . .
Some will soon age out
but others will doubtless raise a ruckus
if for no other reason than the discrepancies between the script
and your play acting . . .
costume changes notwithstanding . . .
Yet another example of explanatory fiction, yes? . . .

Craig McDean

Screen Dump 400

Now the parsimonious agitation of the rain, yes? . . .
Downtempo'd . . . the street cradling the day
when a smile - doing its best - passes
and you're earwormed . . . Sia's Destiny with Zero 7. . .
I lie awake / I've gone to ground . . .
Thoughts of Color Me This
crowd out the other . . .
I'm bending time getting back to you . . .
Wait . . . wait . . . hit pause . . . I need to rethink this . . .
You know exactly what I'm talking about . . .

Sia Furler and Sophie Baker

Screen Dump 399

You imagine someone listening
to your delivery . . .
A smile goes to your head . . .
and now you're being
carried along by the irregularities in this latest drama
which will air
without much of anything . . .
as soon as . . .
Something is forcing itself upon you . . .
Some just cry while they drive . . .
Surely you can adjust the rate of tumble, yes? . . .
Imagine, if you will . . .
But then, try to keep it in the moment . . .
especially when you plagiarize additional memories . . .

Serge Barbeau

DSM-XYZ

The days mislaid . . . buried under Netflix's Alias Grace with Thigpen and Cleckley interviewing Jane/Eve and Joanne Woodward snagging an Oscar for The Three Faces of . . . A few years later, Sally Field's Sybil fuels diagnoses of multiple personality disorder - now dissociative identity disorder - and Sally walks away with a PrimeTime Emmy . . . while still later, Shirley Mason, the Seventh Day Adventist on whom Sybil is based, admits to faking the whole thing to get the attention of her therapist, channels Mary Shelley, and flees into the shadows of a condo on Lake Geneva . . .

Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve (1957)

Screen Dump 398

You ask the remote to select . . . the plotless moment
when all are suspended
and someone wheels in the midday
as if a restart is expected . . .
far from the principles . . . or principals . . .
of the madding crowd
sharpening stubs of pencils
to prove . . . to no one in particular . . .
that the river will indeed flow
in no direction home . . .
Why bother rescinding the to-do list
when the day will close black and white? . . .
The point being well-taken
by those who are otherwise clueless when offered a buyout . . .
You know this, though, yes? . . .

Gabriele Rigon

Screen Dump 397

It's not as if you chose letter box format . . .
One day it was there . . . piggy-backed on a cold front
that moved up your arm to your shoulder . . .
No toggling out of it either . . .
these manifestos of the body - lyrical experimental satirical -
bring flu-like symptoms
unhappiness as prose fragments
of wellness and illness . . .
Your sense of odyssey . . . quietly taking shape
on the corner of an ice storm . . .
You thought you would spend the day with a Sharpie . . .
The sad farmhouses in your dreams
are the stacked-up nightmares of previous lives . . .
Your distrust of the obvious, yes? . . .

Jarek Kubicki

Screen Dump 396

. . . warm and present yet far away.
          - Donald Hall, The Selected Poets

Also-rans crowd the podium
circumnavigating locutions decked out in the school colors
texting what can be had of the moment . . .
The venue virtual . . .
The commonplace suspect . . .
You arrive . . . trailing apps . . . as if reinventing the obvious . . .
I am lax . . . and begin paging through . . .
You footnote the theoretical medieval clothing of the new-you . . .
Awaiting your lines to be inscribed in stone . . . you insist . . .
We are all forgotten . . .

Bruno Walpoth

I Am On Top Of Things

I dream myself a spotter of weight-bearing fantasies . . .
my dialogue a monologue of graphic comics
and half-whispered promises laced with nonsense syllables . . .
I am on top of things . . . deluded . . .
imagining the world as mirror-image . . .
as far-fetched deadline . . . indifferent, colorless . . .
improprieties squeezing through the holes in my story . . .
paper cuts and hypotheticals . . .
a collage of weak passwords
legacied for shadowers of REM sleep . . .
Counting to the tenth power . . . within which . . .
if that's what you want . . .
The whole truth . . . and nothing but . . .
tap dancing . . . whistling while I work . . .
taking the long way home . . .
My notebook fills with snow . . .
Four score and something . . . a death . . . in the family . . .
Off-days the string quartet in my back pocket
is all but played out . . . in three-quarter time . . .
Exes . . . marking the spot . . . steal second . . .
and more . . . transposing the theme of Lassie,
chock-full of unclaimed funds . . .
sitting there . . . festering(?) . . . in the lap of jargon . . .
with no one worth emailing
about the sinister drop . . . in temperature . . .
A pound of something . . .
Tragedians backed-up at the roundabout
conjure audience implants
with places to go . . . people to be . . .
reworking the boundaries of ancient-Greek mythos
with aspiring telecommuters . . .
I brood Bacon's comment about the violence of paint . . .
What better way? . . .
Did you think you had thought of everything? . . .

Bruno Walpoth

Screen Dump 395

The pedagogy of your body sits in the front row . . .
open-legged . . . anticipating the rapture
trickling through the web of microphones
implanted in your flesh . . .
A garage band of soft stones retraces the images
of your odyssey drawn by headliners once removed . . .
You are quick to note the score . . .

Kate Moss

Screen Dump 394

You dream yourself a spotter of weight-bearing fantasies . . .
your dialogue a monologue of graphic comics
and half-whispered promises laced with nonsense syllables . . .
You are on top of things . . . imagining the world as mirror-image . . .
improprieties squeezing through the holes in your story . . .
paper cuts and hypotheticals . . . a collage of weak passwords
legacied for shadowers of REM sleep . . .

Rana Hamadeh in The Sleepwalkers (2016)

Screen Dump 393

Your garden is a myth of drones rocking in the back seat . . .
following the dotted line . . . lining up
for handouts . . . hand-me-downs . . . handsome Johnnies . . .
Counting to the tenth power . . . within which . . .
if that's what you want . . .
The whole truth . . . and nothing but . . .
tap dancing . . . whistling while you work . . .
taking the long way home . . .
Your notebook fills with snow . . .
The world a far-fetched deadline . . . indifferent, colorless . . .
Four score and something . . . a death . . . in the family . . .

Alique

On Frankenstein's Birthday

          for Mary Shelley

The powerful engine reanimates the commonplace
and transports you to Doug Adams's Galaxy
where you shop for groceries and tend the fire.
A little red helps wipe out the nightmare of cubes.
You'd think solutions would drop from the sky
but instead squirrels on drifts ignite messages
from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
You recall taking off in secret,
traveling incognito around the countryside,
not unlike Torquato Tasso,
whose alleged schizophrenia rescued him
from a life without love.
Did Percy too stir with an uneasy, half vital motion
when you were out at all hours
with soft brush, dark crayon, and rice paper?
Were the rubbings a hit in the cabin on Lake Geneva?

Bernie Wrightson

Screen Dump 392

Off-days the string quartet in your back pocket
is all but played out . . . in three-quarter time . . .
Exes . . . marking the spot . . . steal second . . .  and more . . .
transposing the theme of Lassie, chock-full of unclaimed funds . . .
sitting there . . . festering? . . .
in the lap of jargon . . .
with no one worth emailing
about the sinister drop . . . in temperature . . .
A pound of something . . .
Tragedians backed-up at the roundabout
conjure audience implants
with places to go . . . people to be . . .
reworking the boundaries of ancient-Greek mythos
with aspiring telecommuters . . .
I brood Bacon's comment about the violence of paint . . .
What better way? . . .
Did you think you had thought of everything? . . .

Cesar Ordoñez

Screen Dump 391

You've hit an orchestrated snag . . .
The ancient phobia reappearing with Leopardi's Hodge-Podge . . .
Evidently the time was set . . . and now, the retracing . . .
as in La Familia de Celilia . . .
accompanied by what if a much of a which of a wind . . .
Here's the windup . . . and the pitch (as black as) . . .
sending it out of the park and into the maelstrom of great silence . . .
with hey, diddle, diddle, / the cat and the fiddle . . .
with the cats . . . and the fiddles . . . at 10 AM on August 12, 1958 . . .
Art Kane for Esquire . . .
Not inclined to venture out into the drifting
Silent Snow, Secret Snow . . . above all . . . a secret . . .
Thinking - metaphorically - how disturbed one must be to do that, yes? . . .
But let's not go there . . . Who (in fact) killed Cock Robin? . . .
Circa 1950s . . . the black and white Stromberg Carlson
and the opening scene of Robin's arrow speeding into a tree . . .

Art Kane's, A Great Day in Harlem, 1958

Screen Dump 390

A yellow submarine's sonar . . . pings . . .
somewhere . . . with directions to what? . . . last minute specials? . . .
The oddments are such that we could enjoy the respite
but this too is back-burnered
along with notes from Illuminations . . .
Sine waves sign in . . . trigger dance fever . . .
filling the silence with names . . . faces . . .
photomontages of parties . . . of the first . . . and second part
emailing jpgs to lovers . . . and other strangers . . .
Keep the words coming, he/she said . . .
strolling among the pines . . . on a winter afternoon . . .
worrying fonts . . . as if the image . . . you and I know this . . .

Dorith Mous

Screen Dump 389

Choosing tautology to express emptiness
your erotic other's tacit acceptance
waits in the wings . . . primping . . . with extras
Uber'd in for the shoot
for MoMA's History of Hooking . . .
a trailer on the set of Boardwalk Empire . . .
dioramas, day trips, drive-bys, past priors . . .
You examine the separation
that informed your odyssey . . .
an escapist's myopia . . . scheduled to air
on subsequent Tuesdays in February . . . or March . . .
with one-night stands costumed as dreams
of uncooperative dentists retrofitted
for the unbeaten hometown debating team
from your up close and personal
when you were stuck in traffic for over a year . . .

Charlotte Strode

Screen Dump 388

What is it that I love in loving you?
          - St. Augustine, Confessions

An 18-wheeler's list of gritty demands rear-ends your odyssey
as underperformers face the dilemma of Cup or Core . . .
Eyeshadowed eyes follow in the afterglow of first-come first-serveds . . .
Omissions make worthwhile the feel-good . . .
as it gushes . . . strangely satisfying . . .
with only-child enthusiasm . . .
Buried beneath the paper trail are instructions for the real . . .
which you repress for later parsing
by the I'll-see-your-twenty-and-raise-you-twenty
grammarians emeriti
who talk more . . . but settle for less . . . 50 minutes later . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 387

But what about de-composing . . . a poem, for example,
as if from across the room the mirror images of yes and no? . . .
You think infinite . . . bundled with song as a way out . . . as an escape route . . .
the narrative color-coded for easy access . . . the point of view . . .
again, an empty room . . . filling with strangers . . .
The neighborhood unwilling to disgorge a parking space
though in such moments one sometimes stumbles upon an area of respite . . .
a wilted exemplar of geologic time . . .
Elsewhere . . . the obvious . . . or not so . . .
to make it sound as if it had just been thought up . . .

Ellen von Unwerth

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By that I mean treading water . . .
You know, to tread water . . . as praxis . . .
But then, he/she was disheveled . . .
jaywalking . . . and . . .
moments later . . . entered a CVS . . .
as if subscribing to the notion
that everything can be tabled . . .
should be tabled . . .
Equations . . . and what have you . . .
The passivity will eventually get to you
but I feel a kind of obligation . . .
a sense of commitment . . . notwithstanding . . .
Why did you stick that in? . . .
No idea . . . perhaps equivalence . . .
the awareness of defiance . . .
A tad heavy handed, yes? . . .
I've lost the sense of comma-placement . . .

Irma Haselberger

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You appeared unruffled at the dress rehearsal
running the gauntlet of valets wielding remotes . . .
I found it hard to believe that replacements were forbidden . . .
The whole thing was chancy, but exciting, yes? . . .
You made a go for it but ended up staring
at snowflakes through the window of his/her bedroom
filled with rococo . . . which I must say says it all . . .
The elegant attentions were, at least for the moment,
a recognition of deferral despite the extended warranty . . .
You did opt for that, didn't you? . . .

Your naiveté cranked to eleven you declaimed

that you had inherited the silliness

from the French avant-garde . . . which you had been
introduced to by a substitute teacher in second grade
whose name was among those listed somewhere . . .

Irma Haselberger

Screen Dump 384

The internal disarray has become less troubling, yes? . . .
The storm impends . . .
its wheels out of sync with the Zeitgeist . . .
And you, forking pasta on a flurried afternoon
in late November, chat up kinetic theater
with changelings hiding in Jane Austen's lines . . .
But what of the small dairy-farming communities
whose zigs and zags call less
for explanation than for diagnosis? . . .
Are they fodder for your tweets
or for your unreasonable notebook? . . .
Take for instance the gestural brush strokes
or the old typewriter font with its enigmatic nothingness
catching purchase with casting calls
while a restorer guesses Leonardo . . .
repaints the entire background ivory-black
and raises the bar to $450 million . . .
We await befuddlement . . .
It will come . . . as offshore Evinrudes take turns . . .
I am aghast . . . at something . . .

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi

The New Religion

That culture is becoming "the" culture.
          - Tad Friend, Getting On

You wake to a loopier world and friend request from Big Pharma.
Not unlike the Neanderthal's trephining blades, yes?

The Mom and Pop on the corner is no more a gray flannel suit
with homburg and pipe.

Whatever happened to The Young Philadelphians
shinnying up the senior partner pole slathered with grease?

Survey Says T-E-C-H-N-O-L-O-G-Y.
Fifty-something "Grampa" Buzz's flip-flopped new boss is young enough

to be his son's son. . . . Grampa Buzz can't afford to get laid
off . . . but he will . . . and his salary will buy five smarter

twenty-something brogrammers unencumbered by stodgy college degrees.
Their expertise's half-life is down to three years.

Who writes code anymore anyway . . .
now that off-the-shelf APIs are ready to do the heavy lifting?

It's all there in the cards.
And just what cards might those be?

Golden Cosmos

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The mark of my poetry is the constant regret that human experience
eludes description.
          - Czesław Miłosz

The insincerity of huge red clown shoes trips up
your lip-sync of David Bowie's Oh You Pretty Things . . .
as foreign tongues dip into bowls of chowder
laid out with candy-ass smiles
and free tickets to movie theaters featuring blank screens
awaiting flash-in-the-pan fictional lives . . .
Bicycling figure-eights between goalposts
with sustain pedal engaged . . .
the buffering . . . the artisanal teas . . .
the Nabokovian butterflies pinned with day
passes to wooded paths strewn with incomplete sentences . . .
It's all shtick, yes? . . .
Wandering lonely as a cloud pits you against bulls
in china shops with intricate archways
spelling out the history of underground go-betweens . . .
You have a knack for note-taking
which bodes well for fine-tooth combing the intricacies
of personal spaces known only to others once removed . . .
You will be called upon . . . I just know it . . .

Screen Dump 382

I'm stuck in a paraphrase . . . your paragraph
a faux antidote . . . capturing moments coalescing
at the bottom of a black hole . . .
Dealmaker or dealbreaker? . . .
The endpoint the same, yes? . . .
I mean when was the last time you considered
the combination of letters headbutting you
as we speak . . . or . . . as we try to communicate
with signage? . . . To dawdle in such dress
as they are used to wear, indeed! . . .
Forget that it's all there . . . all the remnants of your odyssey
when you were given a second chance
to guide the motorcycle through the cones
set out by the Emperor of Ice Cream . . .

Screen Dump 381

Parenthetical interruptions . . . exhausting . . . you try to avoid them
and marvel at the perfection of the opening line:
It's late already, five or five-thirty . . .
You concede that the search for meaning is senseless . . .
a convex mirror type of phenomenon
as jarring as verbal abstraction when playing hangman . . .
What about transitions? . . .
Rarely abrupt . . . and this I guess is good . . .
You have been known to confuse yourself . . . and others . . .
There is some solace, however, in putting on an overcoat
reeking of a story critiqued by oddsmakers . . .
And what does it remind you of? . . .
It may take a while, with all the red tape, but rest assured
it will happen . . . say the informants . . .
most of whom would flounder in a stream of consciousness . . .

Paolo Roversi

Screen Dump 380

Post-coital hot tubbing with mannequins
unleashes half-baked half-overheard conversations plagiarized
from footnotes of wannabes miming cocksure readers
whose bar-hopping is choked
with arms, legs, glass eyes, and false positives . . .
Your intrepid unscripted words continue to trickle into daylight
while your profile gets a fresh coat of paint
and your shopping cart checks itself out . . .
And these are only a few of your favorite things? . . .

Paolo Rovesi

Screen Dump 379

The whole thing innocuous . . . losing the unfollowing . . .
the body picking through the remains of the day
confused by puzzle-me-this . . . a vanishing point
to ask again if this is enough . . . if this is enough . . .
Waking with the rain . . . texting for balance . . . in Halloween
costume with motorcycle boots . . . and treasure trove
of gandy dancers laying track to the outermost house . . .
its windowless room a catalyst for your re-readings
of open-ended questions submitted by student interns . . .
I will return to this . . .

Craig McDean