5 PM, Christmas Eve

Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas. . . .
          - Ralph Blane

Santa and his reindeer
line up for beers
at the corner pub,
their day in the sun done

for another year;
their sleigh,
loaded with empty promises,
mothballed.

Last minute shoppers
down to their last minute
converge helter-skelter
on shopping malls

as Blue Light Specials
blink throughout stores
like Christmas lights
on artificial trees.

Sidewalk Sleepwalk

Sea urchins sip iced tea
laced with ginseng.
Urban blight sashays
through the town square
the town circle
the town triangle.
Clouds laugh with blue.
Additional parking spaces
line up for free
skateboarding lessons.
This is the dawning
of the Age of  Somnambulism
when willows stop weeping
dreams sprout arms and legs
and cartwheel naked
up the Capital steps
and every mother's son
emails every father's daughter.

Anka Zhuravleva

Another Wintry Day in Yoknapatawpha County

Absalom bubbles up from my memory
along with other bicycle mishaps at forgotten intersections.

Yesterday, the composer-in-residence next door
disappeared into a train of thought.

I think of the beers we enjoyed on her back porch
watching movies from the drive-in across the field

until the corn blocked our view.
I tried listening to the music of magic markers

but found it useless without my hearing aids
which someone had written into a short story.

Outside my window, flurries hang on my every word
like my friend from college who called

to remind me of the class we had taken on Faulkner.
I looked through my books for Faulkner

and found a photo of my parents wringing their hands.
They too are no longer here.

William Faulkner  by Martin J. Dain

Feeding Spam to Venus Flytraps

Misdirected last minute shoppers with
late-December arms in slings
search for intimates for that special someone

in the Garden Center at Walmart
among them, a handful of pedophiles
and garden variety dirty old men

lick their chops over the long-limbed
pouty-lipped tweens in plaid uniform skirts
hiked well above their smooth unlined knees

shaking their boxes of Jujubes
in sync with their iPods - earbuds
directing jaundiced eyes to patches of skin

beneath unbuttoned starchy white blouses -
giggling their way down the hardware aisle
and into the Garden Center

to again feed Spam to the Venus flytraps.
Were Freud or his pal Jung here
with their unconscious what-not-to-do lists

we could freely associate the times
we abused the hell out of ourselves
on those Thursday afternoon breaks

during summer's dog days now that we
with years of fifty-minute hours under our belts
have finally managed to tuck away

all our Adlerian inferiorities into
the walk-in water closets of our minds
where now we drool

onto the latest graphic comix
special bondage issue, until our supervisor,
suddenly re-energized,

snaps us back into the ever-present present
with its incessantly-blinking Christmas lights
beckoning the homeless to leave

their cardboard duplexes double-parked
over the heating grates outside in the latest cold snap
and join us through the automatic doors

and into the world of joy to the world
with only four shopping days left
for a complimentary cup of holiday joe.

Woman XVIII

She has the moves
and is especially ruthless
with knights.
Entranced by her
play, I lose my pawn
en passant.

Sandrine Bonnaire in Queen to Play (2009)

This Trajectory Life #10

This trajectory life is often misrepresented in the media especially in times of plenty, when stoicism pins common sense to the mat and celebrates the indignance written on the faces of those working the mines and fields and factories listening to morning shock jocks on the AM commute as they parlay failure and catapult themselves into superstardom only to be brownlisted within the same gasping breath.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Expected Gain

While I'm digging in the tunnel, the elves come with solutions.
          - Seymour Cray

You made the pilgrimage to Cray's tunnels
but the solutions didn't come
and now you're telling the world about simulations
standing at the curb lip-syncing an aria,
the one you carried on about
after seeing the opera
how it bathed you
and filled the emptiness -
the emptiness that was always underfoot
like a stray cat
tripping you up more than once
culminating though
for some strange reason
in merriment and laughter,
you arguing against
The Law of Small Numbers
insisting it was the end point that counted
trying to convince yourself as well.
You kept telling me
you're waiting for it to wear off
your voice catching
as if you wished to touch base
one more time.
You knew the path was obscured
by fellow pilgrims preoccupied with gear.
You finally opened it up
not only your life
but your living space
knocking down the wall
ripping out the carpet
sanding and sealing the floors.
I've got to hand it to you.
You pulled it off:
on clear days, you can even see the lighthouse
that long ago protected those who lived here.

Francesca Woodman

Stone Bed

          for her

In bed she counted stones,
each stone a memory
of a place she had visited,
a place she felt drawn to.
We'd lie there
in the cool darkness;
she'd remove the stones
from a small pouch
and tell their stories.
She'd say the stories
were for me,
each stone's memory
a memory of me.
But as her words tumbled out,
they'd avoid my glance,
tiptoe past our nakedness,
neither lingering
nor caressing,
scamper out of reach
across the floor, and,
as I'd watch,
climb out the window
toward the rising moon.

Woman  XVII

She enters my dream
through a side door
a blues harp player
in snakeskin boots
and weathered jeans.
Getting out of bed
I slip on a musical note.

Kim Addonizio

Whiteout

Gridlock at the supermarket checkout:
customers shoring-up supplies

as if they were heading out to the Yukon.
Shopping carts abandoned to drifts

grow dim then disappear.
I am socked in.

The wall of snow approaches.
It envelops the river, swallows the cornfield,

straddles the edge of saplings. They sway -
nymphlike - as the whiteness takes them.

#16  by Tom Corrado

Woman XVI

Her voice spellbinds me
like the sound of a cello
note for note
measure upon measure
leading me through a maze
of fantasies
before releasing me
into the morning commute.
My GPS jams.

Frances Marie Uitti

This Trajectory Life #9

This trajectory life follows a revised lesson plan
directed at the inferior design of appetites
for students who, iPads unholstered, walk
slowly down the school's darkened corridors looking
for tweets in the school's darkened windows.

I need my (negative) space!

The endearments were lost in translation
and the nexus as they say went south:
upon awakening, you had a new script
and were off with
This is what I wanted!
OK, I got the rhythm
and have stopped taking the phone
into the bath -
a dimly-lit syncopation
its talking walls festooned with computer code.
And now I'll introduce the express line
(You knew I would, yes?):
standing - no, mired - in the express line
you reviewed the cacophony
and tried on re-entry for size - really? -
climbing into one, then another.
No dice. So, you figured you'd deconstruct it,
take it apart, examine its individual parts.
The easy out:
You screwed up!
Wait, are you referring to me
or to you?
Ready? Next level!
Repeat after me:
A fictional essay in 29 tangos.
Sounds like? Anne Carson. There you go.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Gathering String

We never keep to the present.
          - Blaise Pascal

You're skating on the edge
losing momentum
the farther reaches no longer a pull
the stories limp
excuses gathering string.
Refuel your late-model subcompact.
GPS the snow castle
where a room awaits your laptop.
Resume your memoir.
The last time doesn't count.
You were distracted.
You do remember, yes?

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Woman XV

She can whistle in three-part harmony
and keep five balls in the air.
The words free agent  are tattooed
in Garamond on her inner thigh.
I am lost in her flurry of Post-its.

Ana Nuno

Soaps

Those last afternoons in the hospital
before I brought him home
were populated by actors
clattering across the screen
in their life and death dramas.

Crap Shoot

Tremors of love through your brief, undeniable selves, . . .
          - Mark Strand

You awake to unconsciousness
to the sound of trains arriving and departing:
furniture music from a far-off country -
a country you seem to remember.
You've tried to capture the language.
They have little to say.
Hiding behind text isn't the answer either.
Your words are compiled and forgotten.
You're anxious and confused,
your compass useless. Why bother?
The world of street corners expands and contracts.
Cameras continue to roll.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Woman XIV

I browse the stacks for lines
and wear my best shirt.
Every picture bears her resemblance.
A stray gives me direction.
I practice in front of a mirror
but the image is someone else.
My pen runs away.
My index cards go blank.
I arrange them in her likeness.

Woman XIII

She is awed
by the Great Houdini
and trawls eBay
for handcuffs and leg irons.
I become animated
after calling her cell.

Rie Rasmussen

This Trajectory Life #8

This trajectory life colors the struggles of those around it
shuffling and scuffling through the day's muted palette
shaking itself free of those shopworn conventioneers posting
promises on the bulletin board at the end of the hall.

You Are No Longer Here

A snowy afternoon in early December:
Miles ferries jazz into the Cool.

Matthew Broderick plays Richard Feynman on cable.
Later, I'll warm yesterday's Chinese

pour a glass of red
soak in the tub with a short story.

Why do I tell you these things?
You are no longer here.

Robert and Shana PakeHarrison 

The Pale Gray of Winter

There's a certain Slant of light, . . .
          - Emily Dickinson

A kitten batting a grape across the floor.
The last few leaves.
Snowflakes pirouetting in the air.
Can you imagine otherwise?

And Again

And now, the holiness, the uncertainty.
Googling yourself senseless for the answer.
Looking at the question sideways.
Turning it upside down.
A Magic Eight Ball atop a pile of typos.
You check yourself out of the library
as a large print monograph and graduate -
with honors - from sidewalk cracks
to the parallel universe of the Appian Way:
a marquee player, a foolhardy candidate
for the book of latter-day dinner theaters.
This too is drama.
This too has its own hopes and dreams
its own pitfalls
its own hooks for happiness.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrrison

Again

The mispaginations inconvenience.
So too the false starts,
the empty promises.
And now the restructuring.
As if a Chapter 11.
Don't you just love/hate it?
Well, if you're going to play, then?
Then what?
Then take note of the footnotes!
The footnotes?
Yes, the footnotes.
They tingle
their fascination giving new meaning
new direction
to blind alleys,
the backpedaling
a new perspective
on where you've been and where you're going.
No longer worry the can of worms
the unknown
the lost poems of Mathilde Blind.
The sum total of trifles à la Dickens.
A brand new day, yes?

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Saturn's Rings

A carousel is smitten.

Old timers are quick to fill in the gaps

created by leftovers:

a heady afternoon by anyone's standard

but especially today

with movie houses

backed up as they are.

The angularity impresses pharmacies
cashing in on the flux.
Sales reps reconfigure their TweetDecks.

Around here, Saturn's Rings are clearly visible.

Sadly, it's not a big deal.

Shopworn Estimates

The Piltdown Man's spitting image in the express line
seems to have overcome his fear of numbers.
He thumbs the Sunday papers with astonishing specificity.
Did he do it on his own, I wonder,
or did he get help, like so many others?
Do we have enough to optimize his footnotes?
Like that memory of a hot day with a vendor hawking umbrellas
he was last seen riding on the back of a garbage truck -
his password conspicuously absent.
Someone said he had left it out intentionally.

Or the other day, for example, when we dressed accordingly
following your giddy shopping spree.
Wasn't the checkout girl inebriating?
And those knickers, standing out as they did on the green.
Can you imagine?
Perhaps next time we can arrange for a proper sendoff
with nosegays and what-have-you-nots
shimmering with the propinquity
of something bigger than a collage of favorite vacation spots.
But who knew?

Certainly not the squanderers
documented in that abysmal miniseries that aired last week.
To think we lobbied so vigorously for his directorial debut!
It just goes to show you that with drivers like these
so tidily ensconced in their SUVs
there's nothing to do, nothing that can be done, nowhere to go.
And now with the final stages of this morning's coffee break
bearing down on us like a deranged high school principal
it's really none of his business whether we're present
when the substitute arrives for the table read.

Snow, Heavy at Times, Beginning Around Midnight

Snow-flecked cars snailpace home.
Drivers, belted to seats,
balance thermoses and theorems,
worry layoffs and bills.
Road crews ready their plows.
Schools will be closed, and minds
whited-out, as the snow deepens.

Long Cold Winter  by Grande Ombre

Woman XII

Feeding on her every word
I retire to my room
to compose a sonnet
laced with nesting doves.
She appears on my screen
and casts bittersweets
onto the stones beneath my window.
I am breathless
with second guesses.

You Will Be the Death of Me  by The Lucky Nine

This Trajectory Life #7

This trajectory life may not always be able to engage the moment
but calling upon memory and imagination will manage
somehow to rise above the humdrum of the blank screen
and populate itself with archival emails of indigenous tribes.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Trading Eights with Storyville's Ghosts

A nun talks about the red light district out of habit
clutches a dog-eared copy of the Blue Book

of fast, faster, fastest women
its pages the color of cheap perfume.

Baby's older brother, Johnny, relaxes on a tailgate
where the Kid's 'bone hangs over the edge.

Behind the block-long bar at Tom Anderson's on Front Street
a dozen bartenders lubricate patrons

for a taste of the sporting life
awaiting them upstairs in private rooms -

100 lightbulbs guiding their way.
Madam Lulu's Mahogany Hall features Mr. Jelly Roll

a sometime pimp and ladies man
who calls himself Doctor Jazz

and likes to make housecalls with his Red Hot Peppers.
The 78 in the background is so scratchy

I can barely hear the steamboat
but it's there

along with the minstrel music and laughter
of long ago Sunday afternoons in Congo Square.

Sometimes White Pebbles

I spot white pebbles
on my way to work
and pocket them
for my daughter.

She's across town
at daycare
in the three-year-old room.
Her mother's already at work.

This day
like so many others
will trudge by
with meetings memos messages.

Later, if we're lucky,
we'll enjoy some time together
apple cider
maybe a story or two.

After she's asleep
I'll place the smooth, white pebbles
beside her bed - a surprise
when she awakens in the morning.

The Roundhouse

Most Sundays we'd drive west ten miles
to a town with a roundhouse
for steam locomotives.
I was four, and mesmerized
by the steel and brass eighteen wheelers
all smoke and steam
that daily wailed through the valley
hauling coal and freight
and passengers
to stations along the Mohawk
with names like Fonda,
Canajoharie, Fort Plain, Little Falls.

The huge roundhouse stood at the center of the yard,
flanked by a water tower and coaling station.
If you ran your hand
along its rough, cinderblock sides
you'd come away with a layer of soot
so thick it would take
a quarter can of Boraxo to remove,
while in the background
your mother'd be warning you
not to mess up the bathroom
she'd spent the better part of Saturday
on hands and knees scrubbing.

We'd watch as yard men
guided the huge black creatures
heaving and spewing
onto the turntable,
then with a roar and fury of steam
into the darkness
of the roundhouse,
where gray-coveralled men
would wipe them down,
minister to their needs
and where I was sure
they'd be sheltered from night.

O. Winston Link

Pigeonman

We'd watch him
sitting there
in the park,
gnarled, weathered,
ornamented with pigeons
and the occasional sparrow,
his numbered hand
disappearing
now and then
into a crumpled sack.

Woman XI

Her harmonics
fill the practice rooms
and hallways
and the spaces
between my days
when she's on the road
traveling
to her next gig.

Zoe Keating

More of the Same

You try to let go of the memory
but the music returns,
without images,
so you google what you recall,
picking and choosing.
Some work, dovetailing
with the spectrum of sounds
traipsing through empty rooms
which only a few days ago
held the magic that most of us -
well, maybe only the lucky ones -
enjoy for months,
sometimes years.
The etchings tell it all,
brimming with desire and ecstasy.
The path cleared, stretching out.
This will have to do.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

PB&J

Of course, the accoutrements.
The insinuation of the inevitable.
Stumbling into Starbuck's
geo-caching
and you're at it again
trying to make last minute changes.
Your entrance isn't until the penultimate scene
whatever the hell that means
but, face it, it's never slowed you down,
not knowing your place
your lines
and though you have captured the envy -
no, too strong -
the curiosity, yes, the curiosity, of a landfill
you've parlayed that
in your mind, not unlike most.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Living Happily ... After

Here, a fumbling of alternatives.
Dante’s Nine Circles un-numbered,
gift-wrapped, pharmaceuticals
from the local haberdashery.
Well wouldn’t that be peachy!
And you refuse to proceed without direction?
You're right, far too many
have been lost,
shooting from the hip,
especially now with things the way they are.
What? Again?
Instructions will be forthcoming.
Meanwhile, your horoscope will do.
Of course, without foreplay, words fail.
Would the real Joker please stand up?
It was  really good.
Punctuated by trains bumbling through crossings.
The lead-in.
Jumping right to the comments section.
Then the brakes.
Trying to apply the brakes.
Does it matter?  Now?
Now that the best intentions are lost?
You’ll see what I’ve been talking about.
And I could go on.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

This Trajectory Life #6

This trajectory life captures the fancy of hangers-on
who seem to know a bargain when they see one
notwithstanding entanglements or entitlements or estrangements
reminders that the editing must begin before sunset.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Shed Skin

A homemade cement roller rolls in. A red English racer with chrome fenders and Sturmey Archer hub follows. Cast-iron lawn furniture and garden tools crowd the walls. Presto the Magician appears in the former lab of the Sherlock Holmes Club. A small workbench works a corner. Scraps of wood and window sashes sit on shelves, applauding. Aluminum deck chairs with plastic webbing arrive, along with two dogs, a badminton set. The dogs sleep through the wintry afternoon.

The Healing Power of the Day-to-Day

Across town a priest yawns
while carrying groceries up a church's steep steps

accruing no doubt plenary indulgences
his soles worn from years of ministry.

A few doors away beads of sweat appear
on a short order cook's forehead

as he scrambles eggs for a hard hat
sitting next to a bridegroom with a faraway look.

In the window
a local theater group's announcement

of its two-week summer run of Chekhov
brittles in the early winter sun

while the world's most accurate clock -
a cesium fountain atomic clock -

sits, without hands, in a room in Boulder, Colorado
it's uncertainty having improved

from 1 x 10 ^-15  to 3 x 10 ^-16
since the summer of 2010.

The NIST-F1

Paying Out of Pocket

Not too many people at the mall today.
Could be the weather.
Look, the toothbrushes are all lined up,
happy as clams, waiting for the sale to begin.
Mouthwash might be a wise investment.
I'm sure my accountant would agree.
I think I'll grab a bite in the food court.
Maybe a hot dog with mustard and meat sauce,
the way I used to order them
30, 40 years ago at Steve's Hot Dog Palace,
before Steve ran away with the spoon.
Later I'll check whether the best sellers
are doing just that. Probably
find some discrepancies.
And who knows what magic the kiosks hold?
Or what's showing at the show?
I want to get back home though before the front.
The local meteorologists have been chatting it up.
And you know what that means.

Woman X

Her hair is the color
of infidelity.
Her legs speak
in tongues.
I sit on a stoop
and count my toes
morphing into
an elderly gent
with graying tufts
sprouting
from both ears.
I am spellbound
by her apps.
My shoes
keep switching feet.

Ordinary Strangers

The kids remained unfazed and continued to marvel
at the vicissitudes of sandcastles
spending most of the rest of the evening
up to their noses in the moist sand.
It was exciting.
I don't know why but I began to contemplate
different brands of astringents
especially those considered hazardous to your health.
But not for long.
The pie, identical to those we had drooled over
on the food channel,
emerged piping hot from the clay oven.
Some of course were fortunate enough
to have received them as stocking stuffers.
The studio audience meanwhile was invited
to test drive one of the many ergonomic chairs on display.
Several went for a spin in the park.
The architects did finally arrive though
amid an ensuing rash of rubbernecking
opening their attache cases in unison with a strange drone
unlike any we had encountered in the archives.
We sat down without hesitation
pie etching the corners of our mouths
bats looping erratically overhead
and began poring over the papers
which were supposed to spell out the redesign
of the last quarter movement
but which to our dismay
were found to be sadly missing several critical passages.

On the Line

Neither world-weary nor wise
we took our summer place

on the line
with those already there

with those who would be there
long after we had returned to the Groves of Academe.

Punching in and punching out was our luxury.
It brought the extras -

smokes, six-packs, vinyl,
especially vinyl.

In a pinch, we could, and did,
run to Warbucks.

One of the lifers - an ex-con -
showed me how to operate a forklift.

That afternoon I filled the loading dock
with the blue haze of its electric motor

while he sat among the pallets
with Penthouse.

Two weeks later he was gone,
sent back, I was told, to the pen

with someone else's roll of twenties
in his greasy pocket.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Self-Portrait in a Fotomatic

The canvas stretches out on a chaise lounge.
A palette arrives, loaded with primary colors.
Several brushes, up all night, bristle with anticipation.
Customer satisfaction is not guaranteed.
I deposit my quarters and strike a pose,
then another, and two more.
The mirror chuckles, and begrudgingly reflects my dispassion.
I have, among a half century of vehicles, no truck
with luminosity, no corner on the supermarket.

Rubber Maid

          Rubbermaid for your needs!

I melt at the sound of latex.
I can hardly talk about it
even in the confines of this poem.
I melt at the sound of latex
especially when she bends over
to hunt dust bunnies
under bed or sofa.
They're part of my plan.
The dust bunnies.
I've told them to be fruitful and multiply.
I pay them well.
Right now they're prepped,
ready, and getting antsy.
I know I should be flossing my teeth,
applying cologne, that sort of thing
but I keep fondling pairs of rubber gloves,
burping lids on leftover food containers.
I avoid vacuuming like the Swine Flu
so she has more to do,
more solutions to apply
to my many needs
staving off the maelstrom of depression
I am plunged into
every time her bright yellow cabriolet
with its magnetized sign -
Rubber Maid for Your Needs -
slowly eases out of my cul-de-sac.

RSVP

We jump at the chance to parse the sentence.
Our lives are booked solid.
The words winter storm watch
spring from our lips.
The guests, undeterred, begin arriving
at the appointed hour.
It is as it should be or as it should have been.
A bed trundles from place to place.
There's so much to do.
Place settings take control, and
before we know it, invitations are sent out
to fetch condiments.
It is a cacophonous affair.
The presentation is exquisite.
We line up in single file
amid much pomp and circumstantial evidence.
Outside, a snow plow argues a grade.

Rod Serling

Rimbaud is Not Sylvester Stallone's Persona

Fledgling Bukowskis abound in poetryland
drawn to open mics
like tattered, unemployed DJs
ranting their ravings
to audiences of poeteers
their hard times
their drunken debaucheries
their fornicability
the extent of their twenty-odd years,
sputtering and splattering
on and on
onto their Timberlands
onto their Kerouacian flannel
onto their denim overtures
painstakingly frayed and weathered
by The Gap
transporting themselves
and their gaggle
across blanched, pancake terrains
to the echo-chambered
Coney Island of the mindless
reverberating with pre-ponderings like
How many belches
can be crammed into the lines
I'm drunk
Under the bridge...?

Arthur Rimbaud

Remainders

sold to the highest bidder
by the pound
like a piece of meat

Rain or Shine

At night
practicing the double bass
I imagine Thelonious
and a small group
of pretty, smiling women.

The old woman downstairs
whose husband passed on
about a year ago
dozes
in front of a blaring TV

so loud, I sometimes listen
to the Lifetime movie
casting my own characters:
this one with big hair
that one with long, shapely legs.

She's just returned
from visiting
her forty-something, careered daughter
in Maine.
She hasn't moved her car since.

Her ninety-year-old friend
from across the street
looks in on her
every afternoon
rain or shine.

I lie in bed reading
with a 15-watt.
The frogs in the pond out back
croak
their enjoyment.

Around two
she calls it quits
washes
puts on a frayed nightgown
and slips into her side of the cold bed.

Rosalind Solomon