Backstory Alice Deposed

Numbers. Their coming-together.

Their commingling. I loved it.

Positive and negative numbers.

Big and small numbers. Real and

imaginary numbers. The purity

of primes. Testing their solitude,

their robustness, their

resistance to proof.

Walking them through the

nightmare of dreams. It was

seductive, addictive . . .

not only on the page

or the whiteboard

but also in the day-to-day.

My days throbbed with them.

I was lost to them. Then

I collided with Dear Luddy.

And I abandoned them.

Just like that. I stopped.

I stopped playing with them.

I stopped sleeping with them.

Nada. But they pursued me.

Their images pursued me,

haunted me. Infiltrating

my fibers. Cavorting

as they did. Yes, there

was a Wonderland of sorts,

but it was finite.

Then the lines began

rewriting themselves

and it was as if I was shoved

through a firewall

into an alternate reality.

The images squeezed

through . . . along with a solo

accordion. I filled my journal

with admonitions . . . not

bothering to correct

misspellings. I began

trafficking in consumables.

Packaged as in . . .

As You Like It. I held

the aces. Controlled the

scene. Flipped the roles.

But always far from the

madding crowd. My height

intimidated them. They loved 

it! Especially after googling

wine lists. Always the same

sluggish words . . . blah

blah blah . . . as if . . .

as if . . . I never anticipated

having to count ceiling tiles.

I always made the most

of a (sometimes) pathetic

situation. Do the math. Run

the numbers. Pair the

primaries! Olly, olly, in-free!

Ready or not, I always came.

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You practice a disciplined indifference

trying hard to seem not to be trying too hard

plagiarizing Seduction Theory

eyes on angularities

racking up odysseyites for a casual game of nine-ball

in the diamond formation on the subway

where it's all tag-team fashion show

for the clock's hand-wringing . . .

Trying to stay awake amid the blizzard of YouTubes

you reach back for the metric of then . . .

bundles of literary allusions

misquoted misspelled misplaced

in the rare book section of the museum . . .

spending nights alone in a dark room

teaching yourself to draw as if blindfolded . . .

learning to unlearn . . .

the fascination when the game is afoot . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You hop into bed with happenstance . . .

scenes of endearment in black and white

on a doilied Stromberg-Carlson

in a room reminiscent of Miss Havisham's

crammed with memories of home-schoolers . . .

The boulevards distract with light reading . . .

odysseyites await first dibs

their landing craft reassembled

with the same worn colored pencils

from a gallerist's backroom . . .

Renderings . . . mounted in amber

slip past the watchers at the gate

satisfy the elements of someone's style . . .

You google factorials

applying exclamation points

to escape to the garden . . .

head filled with Mahler's doom-laden Ninth

its twenty-seven bars for strings . . .

transcendent . . . a prototypical specter

redacts your clang associations . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Of course one could ask, What options? . . .

Imposing complexity on a single piece of prose

as if the flat darkness

demands a gathering of sorts . . .

You are now here . . . on your way there . . .

The permutations of if drone on

debulking the synthesizers and spandex

of a second Stone Age

at times engaging the rhapsodic

with a view from within . . .

risking enormity with its attendant salads and sadness

yellowed pages of indecipherable scribbles

appear late at night at the foot of your bed . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You favor transmutations . . . real and imagined . . .

passersby cosplay odysseyites

follow dotted lines . . . the consciousness of overcast days

delivering overcast shadows

acknowledging overcast notations

as if in the tunnel of unread words

appearing again and again in dreams

of morning shows throughout . . .

You try to recall days when in the middle of nothing

you were handed a different script

a different unfinished script

winging it with nothing more

than semiotic regurgitations

connecting the dots to an overgrown apple orchard

from someone's childhood secrets . . .

the one your friend let go of when his parents disappeared . . .

The knack of going back intimidates you . . .

as if riding through storm clouds of white chickens

on a red wheelbarrow . . . overly-anthologised

beyond recognition . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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A diorama shadows your blue-penciled autofiction . . .

The day wanders through snowflake-dotted buildings

leaning against one another

as if the whole world is about to entropy . . .

You enter a wormhole

parlaying archival footage

for an afterlife with benefits . . .

the deck stacked with thumbnail sketches

of odysseyites seduced by Sirens of Dissonance . . .

The eons avalanche . . .

there are so many you've lost track . . .

A downsized news anchor holed-up for days in her room

bangs out magic on an ancient ribbonless Remington

over and over and over . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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The instability that looms . . .

like arriving at insight through revision

so you keep rethinking the path

and it turns out to be illuminating

even when you feel on the brink

or fear going over the edge . . .

the stick-to-ittiveness . . .

Sorting through old photographs . . .

your past lives . . . your past choices . . .

the anything as everything . . .

regrets at the last station . . .

doubts . . . insinuations . . . 

ghosts recapping playthroughs

dance across rooftops . . .

How often have you been slammed with less

despite costume changes promising more? . . .

despite the correct passcode? . . .

I know you know this from past table reads . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You're dicking around with comma splices

trying to flesh out the ambiguity of appositives

checking prices of navel oranges and fuel oil . . .

The books on the shelf in fracture mode

stare you down, threaten to open . . .

There's a diagrammable certainty to all this

but you're having trouble putting your finger on it . . .

It's just so intricate and deliberate . . .

like winter's grip . . .

Traffic at the tray feeders jams

dislodging with a bright palette

the ennui of second-growth trees . . .

This could be about me, you, or someone else . . .

This hodgepodge of injecting meaning into the day . . .

the value of your words plummeting

given the seeming insouciance of event parking . . .

The relapse is about to relapse

with its refusal to countenance

any change in policy governing rules of grammar . . .

No doubt we'll hear more about this . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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A dropdown menu of grayed-out options

is about to announce your seeming willingness

to engage theater as theater . . .

After all, it’s all theater, yes? . . .

Even the garnish on your takeout . . .

So how about a share plate of edibles

selected with care

by your favorite chef-de-cuisine-du-jour? . . .

enough to dampen the gratuitous hostility

of your joystick with the rag-dolled strangers

backstage urging hardtail fat bikes

down gravel paths with night moves

going meta . . . stretching like taffy

along the yellow brick road of imagination . . .

Everyone memorialized in the softcovers

cluttering your backroom

is a person of disinterest

kneejerking golden rings in fables

transcribing the blank pages of the novel

you inhabit . . . while you reach

for your autofiction trying to forget

what you saw, who you were,

fashioning orphaned marionettes to retreat

into the theme parks of your fragmented mind . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Many were inexperienced . . . time and again

misinterpreting hand-holding as condescension

revisiting the cul-de-sac with the passcode

at the wheel of your nightmare . . .

So you would proceed . . . slowly . . .

encouraging them to ask questions . . . take notes . . .

The strangeness of the encounter . . . a given . . .

both of you stepping out of your comfort zones

as if shooting with a green screen . . .

And what about postproduction at the tea shop

with work-a-day costumes oozing hilarity in retrospect? . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Voices from the air elbow in with the insistence

of Crayolas pocketed from the early days

when naïveté colored your renderings

with eyes wide shut

dumbing down the circumstances

for palatability's sake . . .

A breeze through an open window

with images of past lives

swells thought bubbles into the full catastrophe . . .

You as confused as I . . .

Yes, add that to your write-up . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Seasonal hymns carry you aloft

the small print assuring you that the exaltation

in the fuzziness of the rearview mirror

is evidence of your coming-of-age . . .

Reams of prayer repurpose happiness

on the street where you live

and alter the topography of your brain . . .

You day-trip backstory practice

mimicking the chamber group in Pictures at an Exhibition . . .

the momentum enough to spearhead you into the beyond . . .

Isn't it magical? . . . intimacy's joggle? . . .

The candles flickering their excitement . . .

puzzling amusement . . . dynamic

in their medievalism . . . in their ability

to quell supermarket stalkers

comparing notes on extended techniques

with odysseyites dabbling in noise . . .

The snow is indeed over the top

but, look, the wonderment of this winter wonderland

is a dotted line to the divine

prompting players to sort through their collections

of unfinished symphonies

sorted on imaginary number . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Odysseyites curry favor with Johnny-come-latelies

homeless in email . . . palming handouts

and a free pass to the Lone Star Steakhouse

where buy-ones get-ones feature . . .

A Shakespearean interface perplexes you far and away

your memory skewed by the cacophony

of the signal-to-noise ratio

filling the first movement with incomprehensible snow . . .

You have come to appreciate nautical wherewithals

and manage to navigate the second movement

mindful of the snow whose melodic drifts

you later learn was what everyone

had slogged through the snowstorm to hear . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Sometimes in her sleep Albertine throws off her kimono and lies naked.

          - Anne Carson, The Albertine Workout

Hence, your fascination with sleep

and with Proust's Questionnaire

alluded to in the opening scene . . .

This, of course, made to seem inconsequential . . .

Alone now in the wilderness

in a blizzard . . .

OK, a good start . . .

Tweak it a bit to fit

into the Islets of Langerhans . . .

That can't be right . . .

Nonetheless, continue . . .

Act Two is much the same

prompting your comment on the formulaic . . .

The cluster fills with posers . . .

That it works is insidious, I mean, incredulous . . .

Are you sure you want to proceed? . . .

If you do, you'll have to walk us through

the proof specing falsehoods within

a narrow margin of error . . .

Think an endangered Snow Leopard

in one of the most remote areas on earth . . .

You are with yourself

you are within yourself

not unlike the unnamed monster

in Mary Shelley's novel

with Victor Frankenstein near death

on an ice floe relating his terror

to explorer Robert Walton . . .

this excursion into horror

by an 18-year-old's nightmare

two years after she became pregnant

with her first child, also unnamed . . .

The monster like all seeks love and recognition

but suffers misunderstanding, rejection, hatred . . .

Enter TikTok:

a world out of balance scored by Philip Glass

whose teacher Nadia Boulanger

arguably the greatest music teacher of all time

fueled his one-upmanship

with fellow composer Steve Reich . . .

and so the world as House of Crazy

forcing us to dip our quills

into rose-colored liquid

to palatabalize appropriating a one-way ticket

to elsewhere . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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

          - John Keats

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

Videos spiral into collages of departure

and go viral . . . assembling words to say something

about something you know something about

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

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

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

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

Imagining the confusion when the code bombs

and regs are swapped out for neologisms . . .

You have tried to set the record straight . . .

There will be no setting the record straight . . .

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

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

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

Just where did you leave off? . . .

Too much information . . .

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

who pump air and will continue to pump air

into the silence of anechoic chambers . . .

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

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

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

Antonio Palmerini

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Maybe they're coded into the graphic versions

of Stephen Hawking’s Time

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

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

Regardless, time passes . . .

Fashion plates spin . . .

Turntablists go on record to transfuse vinyl . . .

Anything to keep out of hock . . .

Anything to stave off the due date . . .

The life of a court jester juggling, what,

five, six, seven balls

in the days of bungee jumps

accelerates the metabolism

sets loose change jingling

pockets fluttering with delight . . .

This is good, yes? . . .

Dishpan dilemmas melt away . . .

You wake in a Beckettian diorama

locks unchanged, doors ajar

showcasing reticence, ambiguity, and

humorous deflationary counterpoint . . .

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

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

Everyone is in fine fettle . . .

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

At the very least you’ll be penciled in

somewhere ages and ages hence . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You do your best to weather a strange ineptitude

the discoloration of the senses

that follows a fragmented conversation

but before you know it

a triviality arrives

with its own list of demands . . . 

Later, several strangely-costumed leads

appear seemingly on cue from installations

and reappear one by one

as if in an infinite loop

offering monologues and soliloquies

odds and check-out times

well-wrought and well-received

thorough in their encryption

yet lacking in payback . . .

while outside an out-of-sorts vehicle

makes its way along the narrow one-way street

depositing memories

on one chipped stoop after another . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Long haulers reconfigure goodbyes . . .

There is no other life . . .

Promises are scanned . . . some shredded . . .

Irrevocability is tabled . . .

The difference jolts you awake

in the middle of your soliloquy

filled with hounds

nipping at the darkness . . .

Your lines recall with impunity

late night walks through scripts

costumed in OCD . . .

baiting your next subject . . .

reporting the outcome to the moms and pops

infiltrating the neighborhood

after word got out

that the sidewalks are paved

with deleted TikToks . . .

The world fills with dubious auditionees . . .

 

Antonio Palmerini

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You're onstage translating blue book innuendos . . .

Graffiti artists recruit Zamboni drivers

for the latest in homespun contortions . . .

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

It sometimes works . . .

especially with underdeveloped photographs

and smokeless candles

from Bed Bath and Beyond . . .

You admit to appropriating yourself . . .

About the dog's dutiful permanence

within the purview of the cat's tall tail

wedded to your spot-on translations

you reluctantly relinquish reserve . . .

The day is recalled for safety violations . . .

Knowing full well desire's amplitude

fuels your compassion

for one-armed bandits with performance anxiety . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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The day quibbles intensity

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

the same 32 symbols with few exceptions

scribbled by ancients on cave walls . . .

Your visions incubate playoffs

as odysseyites seek shelter

from misappropriations . . .

A free ride with Thanksgiving looms . . .

There is something about something, but . . .

the dumplings, ah, yes, the dumplings

continue to steam . . .

You return remarkably from your incision

into hubris which unchecked

could forego Chromebook's immensity . . .

Blueness strolls elsewhere

while a disaffected second assistant director

toggles a capacity

for resilience against despair . . .

He too will . . . eventually . . .

Rinsing your mouth after using a puffer

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

Antonio Palmerini

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You're using a random text generator

to fill in memory gaps . . .

How back from  elsewhere in blue suede shoes

you loitered to grab caffeine

with a camera obscurist lost in plate tectonics . . .

Misplacing the memo

you practiced night sweats

with a minor leaguer

who had to follow an instruction sheet

for stonermasons . . .

Fast forwarding 40 years you find yourself

among the original cast members

bloating come-ons for moving-up day

in a city of somnambulists . . .

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

Memorable hamlets . . . and ink . . .

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

mooring across a Russian novel

with a grandmother inviting you in

for voodka and borscht . . .

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

your hemming and hawing

make it into the finals

with a jump shot paradigm shift

while sniggling softly in tantric rapture . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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

There are too many times

and the clock is of no help . . .

You don't know what to do . . .

You fill with indecision . . .

A keyboardist taps for a return to Wordstar . . .

You find yourself waiting in a waiting line . . .

You decide to throw caution to the wind

and go food shopping . . .

The aisles speak to you in foreign tongues . . .

You feel alien . . .

Free samples are thrust upon you . . .

You begin reciting aloud a monologue

you thought you had forgotten

but then it popped into your head

just now in the condiment aisle . . .

a monologue from your faux halcyon days

when you looked forward

to nights of how-tos and what-ifs

in storefronts stuffed with tchotchkes

piled high by functioning hoarders . . .

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

There's more but it won't let go

of the tip of your tongue . . .

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

The supermarket begins to close in on you . . .

an experience reminiscent of your time served

in boostered state office cubicles . . .

You press the Escape key . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You displayed inscrutable dexterities

in the moment and thereafter . . .

isolating the ambience for later study . . .

dating entries as a method

of keeping track

of where you left off . . .

There was little sense in doing the math . . .

Enough came too soon . . . the pleasure

climbing but falling off before peaking

as incomplete as the scribbled code

bobbing in the runoff . . .

Your experience with choral groups

seemed endlessly renewable

endlessly enjoyable

as rare as colorways in bipolarity . . .

Your attempt to encounter afresh 

the waveform action of syntax

led to a diatribe of dead ends

directing you to return to the streets

marked One Way with all the trappings

of cutting, splitting, and stacking wood

impressing the making and unmaking of sense,

the how not the what of knowing . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Your basement tapes voice allegations

of foreplay and aftplay

in the cemetery miniseries

that didn't make the cut . . .

Yes, the hills are alive . . .

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

A conductor with baton raised

ready to start time

opens the throttle

to begin the first movement . . .

the clocks change

and the bottleneck at the back door

is shortlisted in the Times

with someone soloing

as a prelude to the sarabande

that everyone has been waiting to hear . . .

You tell me about the pleasures

of your special house

the color-coded, numbered steps

the nested rooms

the welcoming gestures

the shoutout Beethovenish . . .

A semblance of your former self

searches scores for an earwormed progression

that holds the clock's breath

with you keyboarding in real time . . .

You open with a chase scene

awaiting the first snowfall . . .

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

Antonio Palmerini

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You engage a semicolon and chalk up another lap

trying to snag a moment of immortality

with ospreys on the breakers

at the tip of the Cape . . .

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

your younger self trying to elbow in

but you surprise the nosebleed section

with a crossover dribble

and set the stage

for another take on

Long Days Journey Into Night

conceived in one of the dune shacks

you visited followed by high tide

and an arpeggiated welcome

by the piano player at The Moors

who upon seeing you announced

shipwreck! . . .

You envision a write-up or a white-out

but words are slow

which is OK because odysseyites on holiday

are standing down

waiting for the call to exercise

their right to farm

with its green light ignoring nuisance lawsuits . . .

You're at loggerheads

deconstructing time and loving it . . .

so why shouldn't the exasperated

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

in the Pick Up Stix Contest

touting fast casual Asian cuisine? . . .

The Moors, Provincetown, MA

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You sleep with jealousy and run red lights

bronzing conjugations of fornicate

trying to pump the impression

of laughing through intersections . . .

Scribbles aside you paddle to the middle

and sketch the shoreline . . .

The sun sits between timeouts . . .

It's all about staying the moment

finding a script with starting blocks tailor-made

then moving online for subtleties . . .

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

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

Sticking to your fingertips

when a storm approaches for example . . .

Seeing them in your rearview mirror . . .

And now, they're dancing on the roof

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

Antonio Palmerini

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Undaunted, the U-Haul speaks volumes . . .

Have you been here before? . . .

Your appearance bodes well for the extended forecast . . .

Were there enough corrugations

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

The shore can be therapeutic, yes? . . .

Especially the white sand . . .

It's not just that though . . .

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

This has been happening a lot lately,

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

Bette Davis was one; there have been others

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

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

Antonio Palmerini

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Your eyeliner tells a different story . . .

Cartons upon cartons upon cartons

delivered in a misrepresentation of facts . . .

And where in this stream of consciousness

do you place yourself? . . .

There's no telling

when you too will be dropped . . .

Waiting for . . . Waiting for . . .

Insinuations jumping out of the woodwork

without regard for the other players

in this mini-drama

which streams Saturday evening somewhere . . .

Come out with it, already . . .

You know you're bursting with others . . .

The excavations bronzed . . .

Your thoughts bronzed . . .

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

Antonio Palmerini

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You fall asleep watching Scenes from a Marriage

(for the umpteenth time)

and awaken to a brighter palette:

the confluence of material, brushstroke, support, scale

how music can jack the spirit

the change in your pocket jingling with memories

the exchange of emails shepherding new worlds . . .

Running on the fumes of texts excites . . .

This time you have read the manual

studied the expressions on their faces

reviewed your notes, practiced survival skills

as suggested by counter staff

at Dunkin' and Starbucks . . .

They too are familiar with the sketches you shared

and seem to understand your reasons

for trying to get it all down . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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Words bottleneck the coastal route:

you know, the windup, the pitch, the corner

the cab to the outer reaches

the Nile rerouted

gondoliers on holiday . . .

Oblong days saturate polyrhythms . . .

Back seat drivers GPSing . . .

The muses step up to the plate . . .

Did you fail to deliver? . . .

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

You will not pass Go . . .

You will not collect $200 . . .

You will be banished to a Draft Folder

in the Outer Banks

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

Antonio Palmerini

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You passed the rigor of bicycle days,

coaster brakes waiting behind package stores,

ifs, ands, buts triangulating the derivatives

barely visible through the brushstrokes,

armatures buckling under symbols shape-shifting

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

The mathematicians of your half-life

are talking their way

through the axioms on Knife's Edge

the conjectures at Herring Cove

the theorems along the Mohawk

hustling you past

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

the faces in the windows of doublewides

reflecting the ambiguity of your words . . .

Your rewrite fills an amphitheater with iterations

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

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

Antonio Palmerini

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Your answering machine is asking questions.

          - Anon

You're not sure it's a question

and you're trying to convince yourself

that you couldn't care less

but you know that you do . . .

You know that lately it's been a rabbit hole

and that in the dream you had drilled down

to your old neighborhood

now in disrepair

and confided to your friend who died

of a heart attack on the tennis court

30 years ago at 39 . . .

Your afterimage brought you to your knees

and has been texting you incessantly . . .

You've said you want out . . .

So you put aside the question

in question, and think again

about Alice, in disguise, in your dream,

wearing one of those huge hats

in the manner of the Red Queen

and carrying on about why words

can be made to mean

so many different things

which again opens the door

to the conundrum

waiting for you in the fun house mirror . . .

Antonio Palmerini

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You begin telling a funny story then stop

insisting your delivery is off a few cents

as if you were comparing musical pitches . . .

You assume tomorrow will arrive as scheduled

with makeovers and callbacks and returns . . .

Not unlike most of us, yes? . . .

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

Shall we continue into the second stanza

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

I can't believe it's you

but in fact it is . . .

looking small yet provocative

for the part you've chosen from scraps of paper

blowing around the gazebo . . .

There was a time . . .

Forget it . . . That was back when timetables

ran the show and the button

signifying the next move

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

Antonio Palmerini

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

and something about a Gold Coin or Golden Coin

or a man with a golden arm . . .

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

Foodies . . . always foodies - thinking a world

of impastos and gouaches, a world

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

These are a few of your favorite things:

John Coltrane at the Village Gate,

BE: Before eBay and confusion

and scads of DVDs coloring the silence

of conversations with (significant) others,

Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes, 

the air salty at the outermost house,

the Pilgrim Monument's 100th,

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

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

to consider to edit to create

grounded in small (under 100 notes) electronic compositions,

a few improvised or composed on the fly . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 673

You connect the dots, ignoring the numbers,

and find a topography of damage,

the breakdown lane scattered with shattered dreams,

recognizable fragments littering the culvert . . .

You begin counting backwards from 100

as your mother suggested years ago

intimidated by the absence of footholds

yet eager to move on . . .

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

With the self forged by past events? . . .

You're not one to look back . . .

You grab your backpack, leave your room,

and begin the trek, mindful of the signposts

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

The voices in your head continue . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 672

You present with symptoms of naiveté . . .

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

an early-morning phone call

and, voila, you're seduced

by the immediacy of the overheard conversation

the immersive apparatus engaged

knocking the corners off the foundation . . .

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

But what? . . .

But the symmetry is off . . .

Irrelevant . . . at this late date . . .

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

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

You're kidding, yes? . . .

Perhaps not . . . Perhaps the disingenuous

are hardwired for tolerance

or at least stick-to-itiveness . . .

Regardless, take a hike . . .

The evergreens, frosted, await your passing . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 671

You tried to placate some with your whimsicality

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

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

Yes, therapeutic . . .

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

How you are bound to get hurt

in the penultimate scene

surrounded by butterfly bushes . . .

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

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

with empty pizza boxes . . .
Killing the dreamscape seems

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

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

you check your messages
and the secrets strangers have failed

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

Think of the momentum of this 18-wheeler

when you hit the brakes . . .

Translate the next chapter . . .

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

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

before Blake's thoughtless hand . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 670

You drag your old apartment through the mud

imagining the surplus of regrets segmenting the days

reaching back to capture the elements of then

fragmented into painful shards . . .

Odysseyites at the foot of your bed await direction

again overwhelmed by the onlookers

brought in to witness your de-accessioning . . .

The wood stove crackles its befuddlement . . .

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

This is happening as predicted

choreographed by backers as a concession

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

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 669

Sneaker-shopping in a pop-up

with its inevitable contact and inevitable uncoupling

allows you to pass through a portal

without knowing where or why

without clicking Agree

without committing to the restraining order

of the unannounced . . .

Words squeeze into thought bubbles . . .

The spooky genius in you hazarding extinction

graffitis delusions in water closets

with images of Banksy's Dismaland

that take on a life of their own . . .

You worry the envelope being pushed . . .

the takeaway being taken away . . .

Does the alternative,

strewn with spirals of trashed autofictions

in corrosive landfills

appeal to you? . . .

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

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

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

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

Banksy's Balloon Girl

Screen Dump 668

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

Words tumble out, collide . . .

Screens refresh, avalanche . . .

The pain of updates . . .

Later you escape to Netflix,

before descending into a maelstrom . . .

Again, you review what's happened . . .

What's happening . . .

Too much at stake? . . .

You had trouble last time, yes? . . .

Let's not kid ourselves . . .

Why put yourself through this? . . .

Why go there? . . .

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

The honesty of openness? . . .

Surely, you can conjure a better reason . . .

Something more palatable with . . .

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

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 667

Intellectualizing Chekhov's Uncle Vanya doesn't help

though Cate Blanchett gives you a second wind

and a cheatsheet on the symbolism . . .

You have stopped taking notes as suggested . . .

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

Passing through, so to speak? . . .

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

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

the elements of the mundane? . . .

Retractions? . . . Forget it,

crows have eaten the bread crumbs . . .

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

Before or after the pratfall? . . .

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

The train leaving the station, passengers waving

to their delicate lives on the platform,

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

Cate Blanchett in Uncle Vanya (2012)

Screen Dump 666

The time is past for going back.

          - A. E. Stallings

You've test-driven the tops and bottoms

weighed the pros and cons

put in for a hiatus from drifting aimlessly,

a far cry from the old days

when you were a pronoun-in-training, and

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

The boatman awaits . . .

Let's talk about your future

and the hellish commute to motherhood,

fatherhood, sisterhood, brotherhood . . .

Mourning inconclusively is a no-no . . .

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

As resident cartographer of your double life,

you are within X years of enlightenment . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 665

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

mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact

and reason.

          - John Keats

You're lying in the grass

studying the azure map of the sky

comparing it to the veins

on the back of your hand

which lately have been speaking to you - in tongues -

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

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

Or, better, as someone else? . . .

The tingling ebb and flow . . .

The trials and trails? . . .

The excitement of then, yes? . . .

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

No one's excused . . .

A few bucks, just a few bucks

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

Sort of . . .

What brings you here? . . .

An erection year? . . .

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

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

And negative capability, for that matter,

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

To what? . . .

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

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

yes I said yes I will Yes . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 664

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

To gurgle along? . . .

Snatching a banana or an orange

from one of the many overhangs? . . .

Gabbing up locals? . . .

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

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

I saw you at the supermarket in the canned soup aisle

comparing sodium levels with a metronome . . .

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

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

pacing, in your new white kicks . . .

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

At least here in the center ring . . .

Your white Tesla Model XYZ sits in the parking lot

of the latest development

assuming a different persona

for every Tom, Dick, and Jane . . .

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

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

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

a Rimbaudesque excitement filling the water closet,

the sand waiting to smooth wrinkled souls . . .

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

But so what? . . .

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

In the tried and true . . .

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

White on right, right? . . .

Yes, start whistling now . . .

It will carry you through the atelier

resurrecting that night when inappropriateness held sway . . .

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

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

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

They'll soon be off the radar

traveling east along a bumpy two-lane

trying to absorb the changes that have occurred

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

And don't forget to keep your eyes peeled

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

Keep a pad and pencil handy, too,

next to your bed, even,

for those late-night archetypes

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

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 663

Emails bottleneck at the back door

dangling profiles and memory hooks and terms of endearment

setting off smoke detectors

with lines like You are always on my mind

shifting irresistibly in Aeron ergonomic chairs

permanent at MoMA

the meter clicking off degrees of freedom

between you and whomever

your knees weak from the algorithm

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

Everyone has flirt options

especially when cloud banks dictate seasonal rates

and we riffle through closets for long sleeves

only to default to comforters . . .

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

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

To weather the sparring? . . .

Bassoonists insinuate themselves into your drama

retreating into anonymity when you look behind the curtain

and find your handwritten notes . . .

The dream of reading not unlike puppetry . . .

Pulling the strings, yes? . . .

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

The loneliness of the high seas

with Ishmael quoting The Book of Job:

I only am escaped alone to tell thee . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 662

Another late night of books

and you slip on a stanza

spilling the words you've been squirreling away

for your next encounter . . .

The assignment calls for recommendations

that can be folded into your disembodied days

of garden salads, protein shakes, vitamins . . .

Do you have the wherewithal

to recommence your life

as artifact, clattering along rooftops,

peering into windows,

scrambling to hide emails under the rug? . . .

There are benefits, of course,

as spelled out in the attached addenda . . .

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 661

You're juggling impressions, trying to make it home

before someone asks you a question . . .

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

And where were you when you caved? . . .

You resolve to study epistemology,

especially now with the neighborhood Velcro'd

to detractions . . . Ladies and gentlemen,

boys and girls, children of all ages . . .

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

Something we could latch onto perhaps? . . .

To parlay into a vacaciones during the null center

of the holiday stream when most wade in

and are carried along by current events . . .

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

Antonio Palmerini

Screen Dump 660

You find sentences with missing words,

words with missing letters . . .

Someone texts you about a field

of orphaned puppets . . .

A chamber group plays the same piece

over and over

overlaying the day

with misty undertones . . .

Extras appear at opportune times

knowing this too is simply a run-through

for the real deal

which you've heard is being touted

at local landfills . . .

Instead you decide to fill in the blanks

fill in the gaps

with what you think they meant

with what you think they want to hear . . .

Antonio Palmerini