The Undoing of the Do-It-Yourselfer

Bespectacled crusaders against the weatherbeaten
against the inevitability of decline
the insistence of wear and tear, of demise, of oxidation
eschewing orange-aproned yeasayers
trafficking the intricacies of replacing a washer
in a drippy kitchen faucet, running numbers
on fixer-uppers with free tickets to after-hour haunts
where sequined curtains part for whisperers
filling in the blanks. You will be applauded
by the graffiti-stained, heralded by street corner profiteers
and by all members of the extended familia
your boats moored in the marina at La Mancha.
There is nothing left of the landscape
nothing left of the ideas that ballooned
above the congregation - the congregation that now
at a drop in the Dow scalps tickets
to sit at the feat of the next double header.
If you can drive a nail, fine; if not, no problema.
Browse YouTube, punch in your query
and be buried in multi-lingual, detailed instructions
for rehabbing your backyard gazebo for those -
and isn't that just about every one of us? -
who in a weakened weekend moment would pounce
on the trifolded specs of the Gates of Hell
where, when summer begins to unravel -
as it most surely will - we will assemble, reassured
that in these dark days of terror-ists and global warnings
every do-it-yourselfer will score a bogey
in view of no less than 10 neighbors
who moonlight as anonymous purveyors of blogspeak.

Has spring sprung?

Earlier today in the food court
a know-it-all handed out sentences
waxing philosophic
for innuendos in tight jeans
twitterers and power walkers
rubbernecking.
I tried to follow the topographic map
from You are here!
but the Buds
reaching down into Stella Adlers
in the groves of academe
hacked my attention.
The air was fresh and free of regrets.
Egrets dotted grassy knolls.
Strollers jostled for changing stations.
It took me a while
to find an unoccupied portal
but eventually one popped up
to a show of hands
and escorted me to the parking lot
where an epauletted attendant
practiced umlauts.
The sun was fanciful
filled with expectation and delight.
As it should be, yes?


March 21, 2011 Berne, NY



But Did You Think It Was Not Over?

Toggle between the ellipses and you'll see
that everything worth writing
has not been written
despite the folds of enlightenment
curling the ends of the paper in your hand
fingertips etched with the smudge of ink.
Blame it if you must
on the carbon fiber centerpiece
you convinced yourself
you couldn’t live without
but don't be surprised
when the flooring gives way.
Yes, far too much preening is televised
but can you blame them
for going where the money is?
Just where is one supposed to stand?
Lose the trepidation.
Get off your high horse.
Slip out of work early tomorrow.
Take the R Train to the end of the line.
You’ll find volumes there
among the sandcastles and storefronts
describing in minute detail what happens
when the words being keyed
lose their ability to transport the reader
into a living breathing pack mule
and your world slips out the door.

Too Late to Go Over Your Words

The wind chimes tried to warn you
but you were too busy being seduced
by the pitter-patter of rain
reminding you of the tin roof
on the tool shed
behind your grandmother’s house
where one summer
you tried to read all the books
in your grandfather’s library.
Your achievement fell short
but was impressive enough
for those gathered ‘round the shortwave.
Later you dialed her number
and wowed her with some makeshift whatnot.
That moment will resurface.
Perhaps the misspellings
or the absence of transitionals
will suffice to identify you
as the author who tried to follow
the path to heaven. Doubtless
your meaning will again be misconstrued
taken out back by two burly bouncers.
It’s nothing personal.

With Fingers Curled ‘Round

Sometimes we find it in a half-empty cup of coffee
or in the faint strains of an aria
drifting through a curtained window
or in the backward glance of an untied shoe.
We all crave it
yet for some small strangeness
we shy away from it
seldom discuss it
especially during dinner
when the UPS truck makes its tiresome rounds
amidst the clockwise passing of rolls
and the smattering of knives and forks
engaged in the usual.
Is it ever too late to play the lottery of a lifetime?
To ponder the waffling of resolutions
scribbled with crayon in the final hour?
A voice on the answering machine
is trying to tell us something
but we ignore it
skip over it
busying ourselves instead with vacancies
shuffling the cards for one last go-around.
Why do we insist on waiting
until the books are long overdue
or worse lost?
Why are we afraid to retrace our steps
arms filled with might-have-beens?
Can you imagine life
without the convenience of a cough?
The comfort of a shadow?
Without fingers curled 'round the familiar?

Topspin

It’s the topspin that’s troublesome
the way the ball hits the net then spikes upward
suspended momentarily
as if awaiting divine intervention
some celestial force
the force Byzantine monks prayed for
to guide their trembling hands
in setting down the words of the Father
before it drops to one side
an intertidal moment
that moment between the high and low tides
when the water recedes
and the flotsam and jetsam
are rudely revealed to weekend
hand-holding beachcombers
who have pined for this getaway
since their last three-day weekend
that they may be rejuvenated sufficiently
to re-center their life
which has been sorely wobbled of late
by the hits of devaluation and decline
and again accept and ride the flux
that has become the everyday
of their existence
the resignation spinned into enlightenment;
this dropping of the ball
to one side of the net
this seemingly innocuous randomness
as powerful really as the call of a line judge
in awarding the point, prompting one
to collect one’s baggage at the turnstile
assume the role of weary traveler
the journey’s detritus highlighting crow’s feet
and face the blur of cabs curbside
each driver festooned with the barnacles
of a life spent underwater
pearls dribbling from their mouths
a half-eaten ham and swiss
moldering on the passenger’s seat
accusatory in its resemblance
of a vinyl mockup by Oldenburg
for those who have left their hearts in San Francisco
and sought renewal
among the high peaks of the Adirondacks
the ADK or ADKs sticker
broadcasting their achievement
from the driver’s side back window
to other motorists fighting
the Friday night retreat northward
to Clifton Park, Saratoga Springs,
Glens Falls, and beyond
their state service security badges
dripping from their rear-view mirrors.

Giant BLT  by Claes Oldenburg

Furniture Music

Why choose to be separate from the essential?
          - Anne Carson

I thought I saw Catherine Deneuve
a few minutes ago
in a sweater buttoned almost to the neck
but then I remembered
I was in Schenectady New York
rounding a corner
daylight savings 2011
just out of the starting blocks.
I guess I was wrong
but doesn't she hold a chair in philosophy
at some local university
where every Tuesday and Thursday
she sits at the head
of a seminar table and expounds
on the postmodern aspects
of  Winnebagos and wing chairs?
Or am I confusing reality
with the French film The Thieves
in which she plays
a philosophy teacher in Paris
(I don't love women, I love Juliette!)
a classicist, bent on conserving the past?
Regardless, I have a bone to pick with her
and with all semioticians for that matter.
Where are they when we need them
the professional kind
the ones ensconced
in white trapezoidal uniforms
(maybe that's not the right symbol
but they know what I mean)
making us think the inner dome of heaven
had just crashed onto Mars?
Besides, there's too much talk these days
too much talk-talk if you will
about contrapuntal blips
and the upcoming installation
being blogged to death
as the inter-ocular event of the hour
featuring a redhead
in a light green Ford Pacer
license plate S-A-M-E-2-U.
I was in the condiment aisle
checking out a few pinch shoppers
when the news broke.
The midday mist was soupy
so soupy in fact
I could hardly make out the labels.
Should I have rewound the tape?
I think not.
The store manager -
I knew he was the store manager
because he had a photo ID
pinned to his shirt
with the name
Bill Jobs followed by
Store Manager - was blurbing
about his Apple iPad
with Dvorak layout
the key pattern
based upon letter frequencies
introduced in the 1930s
by some efficiency expert
in Seattle Washington
to go head-to-head
with the more popular
and ubiquitous
QWERTY system.
(I hunt and peck
with four fingers and thumb
so the question
of  Dvorak or QWERTY
is pretty much moot
though I am a fan
of  Symphony No. 9
From the New World
aka New World Symphony
although we're probably
talking about a different
Dvorak here.)
Anyway, he - the store manager -
was googling
Arvo Part
the Estonian composer
whose tintinabuli style
based upon mystical experiences
with chant
has given us mesmerizing
arpeggiated pieces
which as I mentioned to a friend
in Bruegger's the other day
would dovetail nicely
with Philip Groning's 2005 film
Into Great Silence
a look at the Carthusian monks
in the French Alps.
I loved every one of its
169 minutes
filled with hooded monks
and snow-capped peaks
after which
a few friends and I
went to a Japanese restaurant
where I ordered sushi
wondering
whether sushi
ever appears
on the Carthusian's  menu.
I decided it's flown in
for special occasions
which injected images
of flying fish
into my cortex
so that I began browsing
flying fish artist
and came up with
J. Vincent Scarpace
whose name triggered
memories
of Chicago, Al Capone,
Tommy Guns, speakeasies,
The Untouchables
(the 1959 TV series with Robert Stack
as Elliot Ness NOT the 1987 film
with Kevin look at me Costner)
St. Valentine's Day,
and a young Al Pacino
but settled ultimately
on artwork
by a schizophrenic patient
displayed in my intro psych text.
I switched majors from English
to Psych in my junior year
and helped one of my psych professors
who was finishing his Ph.D.
open his pool that spring.
His wife served us lunch poolside
in a black one piece
launching me into a fantasy
about psych majors
and faculty wives
no doubt fueled by the release
that year of The Graduate
starring a very young Dustin Hoffman
as Benjamin opposite Katharine Ross
who went on to become a Stepford wife.
In the film, Benjamin's father's friend,
Mr. McGuire, gives Benjamin
one word of advice
plastics
a myopic suggestion
vis-a-vis the hindsight
of today's landfill sprawl.
Last week
I saw Last Chance Harvey
with Emma Thompson
that charming atheist
who likes to remind us
that she feels Scottish
and a 70-something Dustin Hoffman
still cool
still plying the Method
prompting me to browse YouTube
to replay James Lipton's
2006 interview with Hoffman
the 200th guest to appear
on Inside the Actors Studio
in what was
serendipitously
the 12th episode of the 12th season.
I guess Anne Carson's right
when she says
You only learn things when you jump in.

Last Chance Harvey (2008)

Wine Gnats

A bottle of kee-yan-tee
(I love Hannibal Lecter’s inflection
to knees-glued-together
Agent Starling
in my desert island favorite
Silence of the Lambs)
from the neighborhood
wine store to go
with the angel hair
and jar sauce
and I’m thinking about
the wine gnats
hovering over the bag of Ripple
being sampled by Bukowski's
alter ego Henry Chinaski
played by Matt Dillon
in Factotum
a three-star on IFC
that made me rethink
my criteria for evaluating films.
But it was two AM I tell myself -
the spin doctor has entered
the building, oh joy -
which didn’t stop me
from drawing a bath
with Ashbery
and stemmed glass
to comb the beach
for a peach of a word
to jumpstart my pencil
amidst the steam.
It usually works
well enough to transport
the wrinkled yellow pad
to the keyboard
for transcription
with editing
and commentary
(Did I write that?).
For 25 years I’ve slept
on a futon
and feel compelled to read
a paragraph
a line
a word
before clicking off the bulb.
There are mornings
when the light smiles
into the apartment
and my toys beckon
and prying to disembark
is next to impossible.
I putter
turning green
at the thought of friends
who have crossed over
into the twilight zone
of retirement
that for one or more
of the assembled reasons
as well as those
which for whatever reason
remain undisclosed
I convince myself I cannot do
just yet.
On those days
all roads lead to work.
There are no detours.
No walking away.
No hugging the far wall
bordering the lawn
before making a mad dash
for the gate.
No vehicle
idling in the alley
waiting
to take me
(and companion)
to the airport
for that long-awaited trip
abroad.

Price Check on Register #5

Bare midriffs parade the latest reincarnation of Neverland
matching wits with flecks of cream
vying for the morning coffee’s surface tension.
Little Bo Peep is jailed for public lewdness.
Even my somersaults go unheralded.
Across the street, flags of speculation are hoisted
against the moon at its jovialest.
It’s likely the birds too have caught the mail-order bug
their flapping loud enough to derail a commuter train
onto the front lawn flattening a pink flamingo.
An old man stops to clean his bygone eyes on a park bench
where permutations of parking meters
blind indifferent well-wishers.
Aisle 5 of course is still the hands-down favorite
with its multicolored fruit loops
bracketed by canned juices and breakfast drinks.
The driver of the hit-and-run shopping cart remains at-large
but the checkout girl has wrapped my attention
around her softly woven thigh and quietly led me to safety.

A Breakdown of Significant Magnitude

Every now and again the room had to be rehung.
We slipped back into dreams possibly in deference.
The phone rang.
No one was there.
A news anchor interviewed interlopers on TV.
A pizza arrived.
Someone went grocery shopping.
Someone overstayed his welcome
and had to be pried away under watchful eyes
leading to a breakdown of significant magnitude.

Putting Your Affairs in Order

You still see the overturned car in the breakdown lane,
hear the sweet sound of the clothesline spanning the backyard
from the upper and lower flats of the two-family

where the peeling paint effected a sort of medieval mural
whose intricate cryptograms
you documented with a toothbrush.

The pages of your biography
appear in a snow globe on a piano in a doilied parlor
where a tabby paws her way through a dream.

The two small boys huddled in a stairwell
paging through pictures of monsters in Life
offered to edit your musings

but you were too busy with stoop-ball
and with tomatoes pilfered from your neighbor's garden.
Later you were awakened

by crows cawing in a cornfield
and by a greengrocer pleading for an extension
which would never happen

because of a news anchor's special report
on deadbeat dads
who call in for take-out and disappear.

The music teacher down the block
is offering cello lessons at half price.
How many times did you talk about cello lessons?

How many times did you finetune the lawn mower
threatening  a journey
to the seven wonders of the neighborhood?

The fortunes in fortune-cookies
leave you breathless and eager to catalog their hidden meanings.
You spend hours googling Oreos.

Your friends were as surprised as you were
when you closed the blinds to your apartment
and took up residence in a cemetery, where daily,

between rounds of stripping wax at the local elementary school
you watch others place flowers
on what you believe to be the graves of little-known castrati.

On the Proper Use of Tick Sheets

Walking the fast lane with portfolio
I toy with the idea of gambling my voice
hoarse at the moment.

The turkey club hit the spot.
I'm well aware that admission is restricted to a select few
but I'll try again later anyway thank you.

A catamaran is the way to go
losing yourself in its wake as you skim a surface
as taut as the Half & Half's

left on the stoop without a worry in the world
by a starchy driver in his snub-nosed truck
addressing the route

with black bowtie, spit-shined shoes, and time to spare,
greeting everyone, even those who on this frosty morning
have fallen through the cracks.

Assessing Forgiveness

That woman riffing on a djembe is a treat for deep listeners
and cluster flies
whose haphazard flight patterns
earmark the seasons.
The answering machine will have to go unanswered
until the muffins are removed by forensics.
Runways are overrun with full-figured tattoos
that never seem to get off the ground
despite resolutions
and contractual negotiations.
I too am in a holding pattern.
Regarding the missing photomontage of wunderkind?
Was it striped or stripe-ped?
Take notes; I'll try to consolidate things later.

Our Voyages Endlessly Maiden

The phrase full cast of characters
in an article in Art in America
sends me out of the tub
and into my workroom
for yellow pad and pencil
knocking the wine glass
off the edge
chipping a piece from its base
which I'll need to find
before my daughter arrives
for an overnight and cuts her foot -
a no-no for someone
who goes up on pointe
as part of her daily routine -
a routine that will take her
I fantasize to a performance
for the mute heads
of Easter Island.
I've heard they sign
when no one's looking
commenting on civilization
and its discontents.
Have they seen it all?
Most likely.
Yet they fail to compel us
to rethink our strategies
for repairing the leaky faucets
that continue to plague us -
the leaky faucets
that have become earworms
of no mean insignificance
that we might revisit the silent era
with its mute cityscapes
and exaggerated gestures
captivating audiences
holding them in its grip -
a life not out of balance
scored by Glass
transporting us to a netherworld
where in a New York minute
we'd be able to tweak
all final segments
retrofitting the skin bag
well enough to fling it into
a field of dreams
recasting ourselves as the captains
of our souls
our voyages endlessly maiden.

With Eyes on the Prize

A pair of boomers awaits a delivery of boneless wings.
Severe aluminum ladders stretch skyward.
Drops are busheled and hauled off to presses.
I ask about first editions.
A petting zoo is installed for pets.
Stick figures turn their heads.
An elementary school remnant sticks her head in.
Others have done the same.
Lives depend on it.
We open a steamer trunk for an afternoon of two-step.
The caller is called away.

With New Programmable Reading Lamps

It was a welcomed change, having spent the better part
of a month tracking the migratory patterns
of overdue library books, amassing anecdotes

for a journal article, or better yet, a junket.
We laughed at the proposition
knowing that our colleagues wouldn't be able to resist

the anticlimactic elegance of the main course
which had many going back for seconds ... and thirds
despite the initial apprehension

of those ubiquitous ladies-in-waiting
who, at that moment, were standing in the portico
with faces of clay, black magic markers in hand

admiring their gilt-framed likenesses.
A month ago the images of the patrons' saints
were featured in a juried exhibition

in the newly-renovated arts complex.
Several sold. Come to think of it, selling yourself
would indeed have been fodder

for a sci-fi thriller maybe even a best seller
setting the genre on its elbow. Meanwhile,
the village became an anthill; the villagers, ants.

We could hardly wait to return to our cabin to switch on
the new programmable reading lamps, and reread
the cruise literature of this soon-to-be forgotten voyage.

Worth Every Penny

The CD player only plays what it wants to play.
I'll have to hum my top ten.

You can strum along if you like.
The neighbors, however, frown upon that sort of thing.

Amateurish, I've heard them say.
So be quick about it

and we'll get back to work
restacking remainders

before anyone's the wiser.
It's all a wash, anyway.

Trees shed with nary a whimper.
Geese gaggle overhead.

A stream meanders under a curious sky
depositing the results of an exit poll along the bank.

Apparently, warm milk is only one of many secrets
to a good night's sleep.

Others will be revealed
on the six o'clock news, and again at eleven.

But before you fly off the handle to 7-Eleven
with the last telecommuter on earth

can you spare some pocket change for my cello lessons?
You always said music was worth every penny.

Mere Image

Gregorian chants shuttle me to work dovetailing
with the austerity of back roads.

I busy myself with laundry.
My nights fill with remotes.

I’ve removed my shoes to quiet my appearance
mumbling the same lines over and over -

a soap star dressed in seventeenth-century.
My image fails in the bathroom mirror.

My ophthalmologist ever the optimist prescribes glasses
but the facts remain a magic square.

I’ve a mind to return them for a full refund
though the salesperson who works on commission

was very helpful going on at great lengths
about the images mirrors have held for centuries

detailing the perspective needed to capture
the true vanishing point.

Soup to Nuts

I’m folding words into packets for open source monologues
after this morning’s riveting performance at the diner.
The add-ons for omelets were over the top.
Even the Harleys curbside spelled amusement.
If things continue at this pace there’s no telling
where we’ll end up. Of course, anyone can flip the switch
and shut it down, but there’s something that seems
to goad us - most of us anyway - to hang on
for the full catastrophe. There are far too many crashes
littering the landscape, pining for placards touting B&Bs.
He said soup to nuts then split for a convenience mart.

Aleutians

An aproned woman hands me a piece
of chocolate cake on a paper plate.

The plate bends under the weight.
The woman returns to mowing the lawn.

Women on riding mowers begin populating my dreams.
The woman appears as my sixth grade teacher.

She locates the Aleutians on a wobbly globe.
I draw a map of the islands in the frosting

as her pale shoulders return to the chalkboard.

Mapping the Rest of the Journey

You’ll notice it in your rearview mirror
at the bus stop, umbrella in hand.
The day will turn sunny, and later
it will promenade down a side street,
packages under its arms.
Your back seat will become littered
with gum and candy wrappers.
It will bark at you though the gray speaker
hanging off your window, steal you
to a different world without a change of clothes.
It waits for you now in the wings
its wooden leg mapping the rest of the journey.

Openings

The impastos and gouaches in the small gallery
on the third floor, the long-limbed bronzes
crowding the poorly lit hallways, the after-hour
departures rehung as an homage to the lives
of the long coats and wide brims that filled
the spaces between the shows and now daily wait
for the commuter train and the safety of the suburbs
are not unlike the visitors who drift through,
stopping occasionally for a closer look
at the work of the brush or painting knife,
the blending of color, the play of light and dark,
scribbling their lives, page after page,
revision upon revision, against the collage
of empty limbs in the courtyard,

moving to the rhythm of the wind

amid the color fields of seasons
with their unmet promises, their table settings,
their half-filled water glasses.


La Foret  by Alberto Giacometti



Forgotten Lines

An overturned car at a fork in a road
on the TV in the husk of a 7-Eleven
where I sit near a noisy cooler with crayons
and a blank phonebook:

they are no longer here
no longer anywhere
their identities no longer known.

I draw on the moon and the stars
and visit their neighborhoods
delivering emails to shut-ins.
Their shoes take on different meanings.

A faded curtain in a remote village.

A Mayday unheard.

This ends Act One.

In Act Two, marbles are divided
among the players

one with a cat's eye
filled with the shadows of roads
leading out of town.

The veins on the back of his hand
tell another story
to be serialized on cable.

A stagehand asks for directions
to his high school reunion.

I find myself among strangers
some well-heeled and beautiful
standing in a hallway decorated for Halloween.

They wear masks and are fluent in foreign tongues
their conversations flavored with memories.

Nearby a string quartet tunes their instruments.

The rain has seen this before.
They too will run out of time.

A bell sounds the beginning of the third act:

teachers scramble for their attendance books
littered throughout the building.
Their lesson plans are projected overhead for all to see.
Some hide their eyes.

Hall monitors have their hands full.

I stand alone in the middle of a stage.
I've forgotten my lines.

The other actors exchange phone numbers.

Hero

I’m the hero of the story.
          - Regina Spektor

Someone’s old soft shoe is tapping out a code
in the corner of the room.

How many lines of code to order Thai take-out?
How many lines . . . ? Wait a moment, will you please?

There’s a break in the weather and in this poem.
OK, I'm back.

I  went for a walk along the salted snow-banked roads
listening to the soundtrack from (500) Days of Summer.

I especially like Regina Spektor’s Hero.
I’ve heard she sometimes composes on the kitchen sink.

How many poems have been composed on appliances?

On the head of a pin?

How many in the back seat of a '57 Chevy?

I’ll bet Wikipedians know.

Broom Clean

. . . and the incapacity to live with anyone.
          - Nina Zivancevic

The apostrophe of your face resurfaces
in the foreign category on Netflix
your name missing from the credits
your plans awaiting the ferryman’s text
which appears with the tide.
Too late to tiptoe through the peephole of the capsized vessel.
Too late to re-enter the hall of two-way mirrors
where we cameoed in each other’s fantasy
bookended by bodice rippers
every shape size and persuasion
sandwich boards brandishing positions
straight out of the Kama Sutra.
A missionary! A missionary! -
your voice not unlike a carousel of loosely-fitted conjunctions
its slowly-unfolding symmetry
mimicking the Golden Age of Silent Films
echoed in painful evenings
the river gurgling a perfect fifth to our wailing.
Is this how it ends?

Immense Doorknobs Populate His Dreams

Immense doorknobs continue to populate his dreams
as well as late arrivals
complete with transitional accoutrements
that do nothing but clutter the walk-up.

I’m afraid several of you will be left pondering the moment
as it extricates itself from routine
and tumbles upon us after the fact.
Be sure to pinch your rebate coupons on the way out.

Phoning ahead for reservations won’t help.
Sad, but the so-called perfect evening wasn’t
and has been queued for the playbook.
There’s no telling when things will begin to heat up.

After Hours

A potato-eyed urchin in fierce pajamas
climbs out of the root cellar
festering with the anticipation of an evening with Bach.
We test her finger speed.
Her repertoire includes an excellent rendition
of Home on the Range
which has everyone’s feet tapping
until one of her potato eyes catches sight
of the dumb waiter in the food pantry.
The houselights clot.
The competition begins.
A hush overtakes those shortlisted
for rosining their bows after hours.
I start snapping away like crazy
forgetting that I had forgotten to turn off
the coffee maker in the heat of the morning’s moment.

In the Round

Creased with envy
we thought we were ahead of the curve
laughing at the faces we made
our bent knees
the costumes which gave off an aura of ennui
the plenary indulgences.
We were told to keep track
of our comings and goings
in marble composition tablets
and to plant seeds
in straight lines
several inches apart.
There was enough material for a short story.

Guides to the Unconscious

1
The floaters in my eyes
are shooting stars -
intricate constellations
I can enjoy
while grocery shopping
doing laundry
meditating
on the plight of recyclables.
Friends have suggested
listing them on eBay
as guides
to the unconscious.

2
A Pilates practitioner
on the evening news
recommends
immersion
as a guide to the unconscious.
Lean in to your work.
Break the bottlenecks.
Find a safe harbor
for your button collection.
Embrace unnecessary gestures
if necessary.
Read a book
from cover to cover.
In either direction.

3
Spending a day
on the windowsill
was once thought to be
a fairly reliable guide
to the unconscious.
I had a dream
that Freud wrote
The Interpretation of Dreams
while smoking a cigar
on a windowsill
in Vienna.

4
I’ve started hanging out
with navel oranges
and a belly dancer.
She uses finger foods
as guides to the unconscious.
It’s got me thinking
about shutter speeds
and house salads
and a half-brother
I never had.

5
Eighty-three point five percent
of Americans
reported searching
for guides to the unconscious
last year.
People streaming through turnstiles
half-walking
half-running
trying to avoid
the pitfalls of anagrams,
the loneliness
of buttonholes.
Day after day.
Little warning.

6
I’ve mentioned my interest
in guides to the unconscious
to my co-workers
who seem uninterested
or more interested
in the water spots
on their annotated
coffee mugs.

7
Did you expect this so-called poem
on guides to the unconscious?
Did you expect your croquet balls to vanish
willy-nilly?

But is it realer?

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is
to be master . . . ?”
          - Lewis Carroll

I trip on someone’s mispagination
stumble into the aftermath
and find myself
tumbling down a rabbit hole
CPAs riding shotgun
surrounded by geishas
the whole thing streamed
laced with clips of Umbrian carousels
women on wooden horses
slender downy arms
detached from torsos
stretching for gold rings
their long, lean legs straining
against stirrups
ankles capped with silver
holding me trancelike
my breath tottering on the brink.
I hit the refresh button
escape though a hidden panel of experts
and search for one of those
elongated nudes by the sculptor
whose walking man
set a record at Sotheby’s.
A trombone accompanies the search party
hosted by a woman wearing nothing
but a virtual apron
the theater of her teeth
so white so straight
delivering lines with the precision
of a metronome
perseverating on a checkmate
and determined to act it out in 3D.
I am lost in translation
my imagination
the resident of a double-wide
with high speed Internet access and dish
awaiting spring
and the advent of the buy one get ones.
When I awake
I am wet from top to bottom
my vision double
my knees shaking
stained with grass.
I shake blades from my hair
check the looking glass for evidence
and find an invoice
scribbled with a blunt object
crouching in the hair of my left armpit.

Everyday, Another

Everyday, another:

the mirror with its flat images
its bewilderment
its raucousness

and the memories
ill-formed, ill-fitting
quick to welcome the stranger
at the door:

the door as advent to the trailer park.

A wooden playground
with wooden figures
that move with your thoughts

like the tin figures
on a cardboard stage
from your sixth birthday
controlled by a magnet
at the end of a stick.

You stand in the landscape
of this year's youthful pout
waving a debit card
with the righteousness of Luther
ready to drive a nail
through your collected works
taking you back to the shadows
loitering in your dreams of high school.

How many times have you rechecked your voicemail?

How many times have you rewritten your opening line?

The ventriloquist dummy in your closet
threatens to share your secrets
with the neighborhood hooligans.

You live in the endpapers of books:

your memoirs will soon be published
by the local haberdashery
where a suit of armor waves at you from the window
as you pass -

the same suit of armor you coveted
through your teens
and photographed again and again:

the prints now somehow lost.

How could the clock have struck
so quickly, so loudly, so rudely?
Without warning?
Without so much as a smidgen of remorse?

Word Got Out

That dog is getting on my nerves.
He seems to be texting someone
or at least drumming up business

for the next sideshow attraction
deplaning in the second room on the left.
Watch your step, will you, please?

It's quite nice to be a Chinese take-out
not unlike reeling in a really big one
with twenty-pound test.

Yet another kindred spirit emboldened
to take an early retirement.
The way it's done is theater:

the house lights dim
the strings coax a melodic line
creating a surplus of found nail art

while hard-to-buy-for relatives
accessorized in ways not worth mentioning
blow in on antique cookie cutters.

Ezra in Exile

His conch collection cameoed in Warhol's Sleep.
He worries the acqua alta and is in demand
as an expert witness on pencil shavings.
Retractions fog his windows.
Cantos clutter the corners.
Mornings, with Olga off to the bakery for violin lessons,
he conducts his words
while tabbies skirt the canals singing his lines.
CPAs rethink their numbers
upon hearing his rants.
His blog is blank.
Sundays, he phones his mother
and tells her how much he misses her
potato pancakes and tall tales.
The Coen brothers pester him
for the particulars of his caged life at St. Elizabeth's -
a life spent helping others while pissing them off.
Vendors moor their gondolas outside his palazzo
waiting for him to pass
in cape and broad-brimmed cappello
hawking images, making it new.

Emily Update

There is no Frigate like an eBook
To takes us Lands away

Walking the Cat

He prefers to spend his days lazed
in the stuffy arms of a chair by the window
where he can keep an emerald eye
peeled for caricatures in the street.
His pleasures are unparalleled
though this morning he carried on
about the hot cereal being anything but.
Later, despite the coming snow
he insisted on our usual walk -
the side streets troubled by student drivers
at ten and two, the vacant lot flecked
with white. We stopped for a paper
which pleased him to no end, knowing
it would eventually wind up in his box.
He doesn't seem to mind old news.
On the way home he mentioned
the snow blower which I should have
had serviced in the fall, and his wish
to return to his pastime of compiling lists
of restaurants with take-out sushi
at reasonable prices for friends and acquaintances.
But you know how that goes.

ars poetica (with a small p)

A poem should not mean / But be.
          - Archibald Macleish

Outside, the snowflakes dance a minuet.
Wait a minute.
Do I need outside?
Isn't it implicit?
Outside, the snowflakes.
Inside, a minuet.
The snowflakes minuet.
No! No! Too telegraphic!
Try this.
The waves lap the shoreline.
The shoreline?
How about the shore?
The cat lapping the milk.
A minuet of cats.
And the paperboy?
He too could be pelted with snow.
On the beach?
Yes, on the beach.
In the middle of winter?
Why not?
What about the middle of summer?
What about it?
An evening of minuets.
Outside?
Yes.
Under the stars?
Of course.
The empty parking lot filling with snow.
Tracks.
In the snow?
From the dancers?
Dancing a minuet?
Yes.
Outside?
Yes, outside.
Under the stars?
Maybe.
Implied?
Possibly.
Possibly?
Possibly.
The newspaper is snow-soggy.
I'll speak to the paperboy tomorrow.
Outside?
Wherever.
Whatever.
In the middle of a minuet, if need be.
A paperboy dancing the minuet?
Why not?
As one of the snowflakes?
Yes, as one of the snowflakes.
Wouldn't his legs get cold?
Perhaps.
Are they made of paper?
Of course not.
They're made of snow.
He's one of the dancers.
Of the minuet?
Of the minuet.
The dancers have spent weeks rehearsing.
The minuet?
Yes, the minuet.
And now it's snowing?
Yes, and they're dancing.
The minuet?
Yes, the minuet.
I can see it.
Yes, it'll work.
Outside?
Yes, outside.
Outside, the snowflakes dance a minuet.

Valentine

Over the river and through the woods
to Grandfather's house.
But that was then.
When you believed in magic
and wore heels to bed.

Sienna Miller

Eating a Footlong in the Car on the Way to Ballet

Her older sister’s theatrics following last night’s breakup
segue into a sociology final
which later morphs into an episode of Friends on Facebook
with Scott as placeholder until the next real boyfriend.
Corleone the cat cleans out his Buddha Dome
then spends the rest of the afternoon
eyeballing the antics of the neighborhood beneath his window.
The super in the apartment building
sporting bib overalls and snake
attacks the bathroom’s drain
worries that his name will be listed among the missing
that his bones will be discovered
five years down the road
in a culvert along Route 169 outside Hibbing, Minnesota.
There are afternoons when the backed-up traffic
on Route 20 West is kaleidoscopic
catapulting drivers into Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone
with close-ups of Rod and cigarette at Ithaca
lecturing the wide-eyed on scriptwriting’s secrets
submitted for their approval.
I am Richie Havens’s High Flyin’ Bird
brushing my teeth before heading the few blocks
to a classroom filled with middle schoolers
whose trips to the pencil sharpener on the window sill
to spot the cars waiting for the only light
is their best shot at escape.
Another substitute and I jack up the rear of a housewife’s van
to free it from the stub of a stop sign
it has somehow become impaled on.
Jittery and apologetic she climbs in tugging at her housedress.
Later I pen a note into a permanent record about a kid
whose oblique view of the world 20 years hence
would likely be labeled ADHD
and win him a bag of pharmaceuticals.
I find his scribbles fascinating.
I’m telling my younger daughter
who’s devouring a footlong in the car on the way to ballet
about Woodstock
and how Richie would bar chords
with what appeared to be a lemur’s thumb
reminding me of Uma in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
her long lean legs only partially hidden by a short denim skirt.
Adjusting her iPod, she asks whether it’s true
that everyone there was stoned.

In a Heartbeat

There are far too many options
and having bartered with bargain basement shelvers
you know you can be talked into unwanted purchases.
What’s this?
A new role?
The role of a lifetime?
Enjoy the revamp.
The camaraderie.
Don’t waste time worrying
about providers of on-the-spot coverage.
Change your profile picture, pronto!
Decide which ending you want.
Which melody.
Stop squirming.
Pack your duffel.
You have become part of the equation.
Yes, call someone if you wish.

Respite

Later, with the kids tucked in, we can rearrange
our collection of fortune cookies.
By the way, have you finished reading
what the French call that novel with drawers?

Matching Wits with Strangers

A mother hangs out of a window
calling her son home for a steaming plate of Golumbki.
In an alley, an acquaintance matches wits
with a stranger carrying a shoe-shine kit
while across the street barroom patrons
try to guess each other's weight.
A small boy watches combines trundle across
a yellow sea of caffeine.
Years later a portion of this
will be spun into yarns
by honest-to-goodness cowboys.
Poke around the barn if you think I'm joshing.
You'll find an envelope with the answers
to last year's SATs.

The Dogs in the Trees

The dogs are in the trees again
and they’re barking
waving to their friends
refusing to come down
scratching shedding ordering Chinese
hounding me
to do this
and that.

 

The Mathematician’s Daughter

But what of the cul-de-sac of her childhood?
The slow circling of bases on the dusty diamond,
calculator in hand?
The unraveling of ribbons on warm Saturday afternoons?
Her knack, yes, for movie theaters
and the sheer pagination of her intellect.
Her ability to plumb the depths of bodies in motion
to retrieve artifacts long forgotten
pinning onlookers to the mast with her proofs
as she practiced higher-order equations
on the sweet-smelling turf
under autumn’s orange sky.
Forget as well that she knew by heart
the names of Leibniz’s monads
the mass appeal of transits
the high rise of sorts with the stop sign in front
the vase of freshly-cut delphinium.
I once found her calibrating the pulsating, scratchy music
of stoops, wearing a smile filled with late hours -
hours spent spread-eagled over reams of graph paper
lined with doodles and obscure footnotes
from the sixteenth century -
her first four words as illuminating as ever.
She tried hard to find happiness in coefficients
in the beauty of imaginary numbers
staying the required course despite the odds
instead of shortcutting to the breakfast nook without a word -
an unmade bed, some fast food bristling in the wastebasket
the canned soups in her cupboard
arranged as they were in powers of ten.
In the end, she returned to the lecture hall
where, amid furious note-taking, she had once plotted our future
filling the whiteboard and the air
with intricate drawings of the Interstate at dawn
calculating the logarithmic distance from x to y to z.

Intermezzo

Which reminds me:
where shall we grab a bite?
Is your workout behind you?
Before you know it
the tide will turn
and you’ll be mired
in yet another infinite loop
wearing out your welcome
as she knew you would.

First and Ten

Despite icy roads and temperatures in the teens
I have decided to stream tailgate parties

for Pied Pipers recast as extras
and dispatched as late-night uber-bloggers

blinking the Great eBooks out of town.
My obscurity is on the line but little matter.

The excitement of the snow plow can no longer be ignored.
Sow’s ears can always be reconfigured.

I will be in the driver’s seat on the 50th yard line.

Saturday Morning

. . . she feels the dark / Encroachment of that old catastrophe.
          - Wallace Stevens, Sunday Morning

God’s inner ear tucked into my back pocket
I am my own chorus:
His Master’s Voice (Wikipedia’d, no less!)
atop a building on Broadway in Albany.
Miles Kind of Blue - Here’s your part. Here’s your part. -
springboarding sidemen
into the modal life. I too
am jettisoned into a riff:
Showgirls cluttering the walkup.
Elizabeth Berkley licking a pole in Vegas -
You can call me Versayce!
Joe Eszterhas dabbing a Latina cleaning woman
who stopped in the dessert aisle at Hannaford
on her way home
arms laden with trance
never to return.
A window seat unclaimed.
Tickets! Tickets!
Next Stop Wonderland
its nightlife of cephalopods
trumping Ledger’s Joker: Why so serious?
But where?
The ghosts of Oliver Cromwell and Philly Joe Jones
stretch out, pharmaceuticals and all.
The Book of Silence awaits your every note.
The woman in the dunes of your dreams
enters the ring for the welterweight Sudoku championship
of the lower 48.
Michael (Let’s get ready to rumble!) Buffer at the open mic.
Pomes Penyeach.
Quickly! Before what?
Ah, the neighborhood food co-op:
Too late to reclaim the bargaining chip implanted in my brain.
I grind my own, she says
and proceeds to pour
as the rest of the story unfolds.

Nipper

Why I ignore messages left by the snow ...

Lots of otherwise decent folk lose their balance
and, that's it, they're left standing on the platform.

A star falls from the sky without warning
and brings down the curtain right in the middle.

Would you revisit your former self if you could?

Oscar

A flyer from the neighborhood body shop
touts the usual seasonal fix
for uncooperative dimmer switches.
The path through the woods
is clogged with snowmobilers,
cross-country skiers, snowshoers,
and assorted furry friends
who, not unlike the rest of us,
are trying to squeeze a bit of happiness
out of these gray (grey?) days.
A talking cure cannot be far off.
I realize now that your favorite ending
to the Oscar-Nominated Films you’ve seen
is one of my favorites as well.
Perhaps my all-time favorite.

Bipolarity Among the Ancients

The snow arrives as promised
followed by a pop-up steam locomotive
filled with ancients.
Most are apologists.
The women sport jogbras in cool colors.
I want to be their tour guide
I want to show them around
but not knowing the town
I do nothing.
The ancients are eBayers as well
and continue buying and selling
from the third tier of the tour bus
as it winds its way up and down
the icy, centuries-old roads.
We barely miss being sucked
into a YouTube video
narrated by William of Occam.
He signs my book:
To Tom, Cheers! Bill
an inscription in keeping I guess
with his reputation.
The bus route is dotted
with several strategically placed placards
emblazoned with the caveat:
Choose the hypothesis with the fewest new assumptions.
I like its ring, and jot it down.

From: A History of the World in Four-Line Feeds: Part 18.1

Now what? Now what do we do?
Do you believe everything you’ve heard about him?
About her?
About people in general?

About the Burning Man?
I don’t know.
And where do we go from here?
I mean just check out YouTube.

Provided of course your entity allows streaming videos.
Well, yes, they may allow them but believe you me you’ll be on the clock.
It’s all about time and attendance.
It’s always about time and attendance.

But, hey, I’m nobody, who are you?
I’m your waiter.
Well, it’s about time.
And attendance?

Repetition, the conundrum.
The what?
He had this vision of a woman on the breakers with an umbrella.
It was a scene from a well-known diorama.

Look around the bookstore at your leisure, she said.
She pronounced it lehzure.
Just back from the book tour
he noticed his shins were skinned.

Rotating his hand slightly at the end of the pour
he discovered a spoiler
approaching the station.
The Last Station?

Yes, The Last Station.
Which incidentally is as the Brits would say smahshing.
I’d walk a mile for Helen Mirren.
Actually, more than a mile.

How much more?
Hard to say.
Really!
Cut to the scene of the empty railroad platform, please. Quickly!

Dylan strumming Good car to drive after a war.
Here comes that injunction I warned you about.
I’m sure he’ll skate through it.
With some intractable community service?

I suppose.
As dissected on page 12?
Yes, as dissected on page 12.
And that too,

and three, four, maybe even five extra innings.
No more George, though.
Sad, indeed.
Lots of coverage, yes?

Opening Day is always exciting.
You were there, weren’t you?
At least I thought you were there
brandishing an elephant gun

as if a line had been drawn.
As if a die had been cast.
So we skipped a few parts, so what?
To cut to the chase, so to speak?

I guess.
Wait, you mean like Steve McQueen in Bullit?
Was he cooperative?
As cooperative as Steve could be.

On a good day? With Ali?
Here comes Erich Segal. Ask him.
Act 1 Scene 2. Action!
Slow down!

Did someone interview Hannibal after he crossed the Alps?
Yes, I believe it was Jodie Foster.
One of her texts mentioned something about a summer frock.
I think you’d look good in one.

Reminds me of The Girls in their Summer Dresses.
Which isn’t about girls in their summer dresses!
Why do they do that?
Do what?

The other morning, for example, a flock of birds flew from the trees
with the message It’s never too late.
You’ve been Potter-ized!
What’s a group of vampires called?

Yes, I’ve had my share of vampires.
And German Expressionist films?
And Max Schreck? And Count Orlok?
Yes. Yes. And yes.

Now there’s a classic.
I remember watching it one summer evening
and thinking about a text message I received.
From a girl in a summer dress?

There was nothing outside the text.
Meaning?
Let me back up a bit.
The checkout line has bottlenecked

and I’m thinking about the last line in the romance novel
that floated in over the transom last night:
The moment passed.
Surely, someone will throw a hissy fit.

But what about the fit and finish
of the models rolling into showrooms as we speak?
Is there a lesson to be learned?
So long as it’s value-added.

The famous late-in-the-novella Updikian switch?
The what?
You know, where Ed and Eunice emerge from the pool
to the open mouths of their respective spouses.

So that’s it?
Not necessarily. But that was then.
Yes?  And?
And this is now.