From Somewhere Else

You're pulled over for texting, and launch into a diatribe on the correct use of sans-serif fonts, trying to explain that you're not from here, the land of barleycorned, quick-fix heretics, hog-wild tramplers of community gardens, flippant proselytizers of otherworldly elixirs as well as down-to-earth pharmaceuticals; that you are in fact from somewhere else, from somewhere along the macadam to enlightenment, the way littered with impediments and withering voicemails itching to be free. You try to explain that the overnight at Lord Weary's Castle was a mistake, a misstep, a singular disappointment, and that there's nothing wrong with buying into the psychodrama of the Method, that it is in fact the only proven, money-back-guaranteed way the pieces will fit, tattered but neat but so what, highlighting the proposition that cataloging the colors of Why is busy work for newhires naive enough to try to impress top brass with double-blinds. Sustain the effort? Pshaw! How-tos from a nobody in some backwater.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Catechism

You begin to compile a catechism
on the inevitability of change
having been blown away by the wind farm
the blades out-of-sync
shadowing the land
carrying pilgrims though a labyrinth of time
whimsically, as if nothing else mattered,
and, for that matter, nothing else did.
She’s bankrolling his latest venture.
So that’s that, and that.
Wrap up your bleating heart
return to the batting cage
practice your swing.
The expert's 10,000 hours, yes?
Of course, even those in the nosebleed section
will be able to read your face
time-stamped with now.
There have been others, gesticulating, pupils dilated,
lines out-of-focus, shedding intimacies.

Who made us?
God made us.

Why did God make us?
God made us to show forth His goodness and to share
with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.

What must we do to gain the happiness of heaven?
To gain the happiness of heaven we must know, love, and
serve God in this world.

You drag your feet through a maze of trials
leaving a trail of bread crumbs.
You know this, and you trust this?
Do not fall victim to distraction.
Wait a moment. Let me read your file.
Falls victim to distraction.
Happenstance.
Pointing and flushing.
Characteristic of the breed.
But do you believe in change?
And second chances?
Fear eats the soul.
A 1974 West German film.
Regurgitating an anthem will take you to the next checkpoint,
an affair of the heart
as comforting as down.
You can see the light at the end.
It's there, trust me.
Again? Give me a moment, will you please?

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Wait!

They've left off an ending

a wrapping-up

the closure that we're told we all hope for
that we all need

and that (we naively believe)

will tidy-up the guest room

and allow the would-be guest to return
along dwindling roads

to homegrowns
and otherworldly pleasures.

And so your intimidations -
the hunchback of your nightmares -

will continue to knock at the back door

at three AM

awakening you

to dig among the flower beds

for shards of the flower pots

from your childhood makebelieves
when sandcastles appeared like anthills
and images of candy canes lined your dreams.

And the benevolent accommodations?

None, only misinterpretations of twilight

leaving you wobbling along the path

to the gingerbread house

now overgrown with should-haves.

Lily Cole

Woman XXII

I sample the flavors of her 33 1/3 angularity.
Her tight typeface
wallpapers my memory
stopping me mid-sentence.
My iPad takes the wheel.

Marine Vacth

Woman XXI

She writes me into
her short story:
a walk-on
with one line
from Wittgenstein:
What is thinkable is possible.
I blow it.

Joyce Tenneson

Retrospective

We live to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection.

          - Anaїs Nin

Everything obscured. Obliterated.
Layered over, as Hockney says.
Matthew Brady moving the dead
instead of the cameras, circa Civil War.
Manipulating the image.
Making it more.
We talked about which movies we like.
Really. And so the drama:
Call me Ishmael and all that
through however many chapters
until the Rachel appears, and finds you clinging
to drowned Queequeg's coffin.
But what of the reliability of retrospection?
The eyewitnesses' embellishments.
Unintentional yet instrumental.
How you enter the frame and alter it?
Enter the room and the conversations change?
You're not surprised, are you?
The Doobie Brothers' Long Train Running
and you on lunch break from the bureaucracy
with a reference librarian
and they're doing a sound check
and people are beginning to segue
into the weekend.
He said. She said. Muddied.
Wait. Let's run through that again.
Warmify it this time, please.
Manipulate the image.
Move the dead.
Later, comparing notes
for the retrospective report
due Monday morning on your boss's desk.

Francesca Woodman

You Come Too

I shan't be gone long. You come too.
          - Robert Frost

Parabolas plaster the culvert
plucking passersby
like olives from reminiscent trees
in dot com groves.

There are moments in everyone's life
when a clear shot is possible,
when things improve
despite having to be redone.

The farther reaches, and you in the distance.
I didn't get that.
OK, that will be (insert dollar amount).
Regrettably, I won't be able to join you.

Scrimmage. A game of scrimmage.
A pickup game
like those in the old neighborhood
when we were always ready

at the drop of a hat.
A drop in the Dow. And now
it's time to unveil your latest masterpiece.
I almost said lasterpiece.

Lasterpiece Theatre.
Reset the screen dump, and examine the fallout.
That was off-putting. Pudding?
On the second page of the dessert menu.

One order with two spoons, please?
A tall, dark extra enters the scene
muddying the plot
making it impossible to follow

the cairns.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. 
Well, which is it?

Press the release button
and you'll be ejected into the new season
with new anchor stores
and the kinds of things you like to browse

with or without the right stuff.
Your obsession. An osmotic reaction.
Yes, that's what it was,
and that's what it is.

I've told you to leave
well enough alone.
I tried to do what I thought was right
but somehow things got botched

and we were left with dilemmas
which fell from the heavens
like there was no tomorrow.
You've got to be kidding!

ILY (your name here).
Unoriginal yet immense. Intense.
Immensely intense.
Winterson: Why is the measure of love loss?

What the hell was that all about?
Look, just follow the instructions to the letter
and you'll be done before you know it.
Before anyone knows it.

Francesca Woodman

Life in the Pits

The present tense is being rehabbed
and the creek rerouted to hear the trickling at night.
This will be held for you at the reservation desk.
The latter-day impostors were given walking papers.
They were last seen on the brink.
Elaborate, please? My pleasure.
I'm trying to keep my options open,
in other words, I'm trying to offset the strange way
they have of choking when I least expect it.
Kind of like certain types of printing?
Ditto for me. Forget life in the pits. It's a drag.
There are far more fascinating ways to make music.

Cut and Run

Now look what's happened: the party
of the first part bailed - Styrofoam Starbucks in hand,
warm-up suit looking the part.
And what part is that, exactly?
Whatever the contract calls for.
The foreplay wordplay served up with air guitar
and spiffy website hawking attitude apparel;
the three act play chopped to one.
A short run to the corner eye-candy store.
To begin again, yes?
What? You mean nothing more?
Do the math.
Opening day closed: your life discarded,
kicked to the curb, moments of passion cooling:
your weeping counterpoint
to the water music shadowing you.
No stranger to cutting and running,
you now reap what you sowed,
pack mules in the street hustling Post-its of dreams.

Francesca Woodman

Gone

          for Catherine Mary Connolly (1969-2012)

You have faced the final storm, and now float,
high above the seas, guiding fellow sailors.
The days have begun to lighten;
the nights are open windows.
I turn the soil for a vegetable garden:
tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant.
Rhode Island Reds appear
scratching for worms with gnarled, yellow claws.
My grandfather is here, too,
a stubby Philip Morris dangling from his lower lip.
He speaks to me, in Polish, about happiness.

Off-The-Shelf

Off-the-shelf placeholders know the Secret of the Dance and at least three or four Romance languages which they like to use off-season with aimless wanderers behind closed doors. They also like to play gin rummy on overcast days when most of us hide beneath piles of blankets counting the hours between bouts of blue. They dislike the sweltering heat that cuts through the calm like the hedge clippers of those marshaling efforts to test the waters of love. Insistence is key. In an eye-blink the tide can turn and wash the careless out to sea where, if lucky, they will be able to re-connect with long-lost ilk-mates and begin again. Making the most of tragedy is what it's all about, n'est-il pas? Like Rothko with his unframed color fields of dreams, or 20/20-ers with their panoramic views, unfettered by wire rim or tortoise shell, embracing the natural confluence of primaries and secondaries, giving them a foot in the door and a leg to stand on.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Without

You audition for the part
parading your naiveté as freshly-laundered linen sheets
the bed made with dreams of first times
around the block alien -
all perspective
all logic
out the window.
Your 180? Inconsistent
and undeniably out of character.
But then, perhaps not.
The recipient? Conveniently guilt-ridden
(Would do me in!) - 
a placeholder
a stand-in
a once and future insignificant other
the security camera's fuzzy evidence a TKO in the first round.
And the disruption?
Appalling. Nothing to be done.
You nailed it. The part. The opening curtain, though, snagging.
The audience, hushed, now whispering,
clearing their throats, shuffling their feet.
The unwritten novel of a passion
crumbling, falling away,
replaced, most assuredly, by dry-eyed re-entry
into the world of the living.

Fabio Chizzola

Redemption

In the final scene of The Scent of Green Papayas
Mui sits in a yellow kimono, reading aloud, pregnant.

It began long before the inkling.
The Magical Mystery Tour with Cell Phone

carried you into yellow, then blue,
two trains passing, you a passenger on both,

staring at your receding image,
trying not to deliver the lines you chose to ignore.

Trân Nu Yên-Khê

Disordered Interiors

. . . the most tangential clues could become brutally relevant.
          - Annie Ernaux

Your feeble metric yielded far too many false positives.
Really? Just how many are far too many?

And the straight line from x to y was returned unopened.
Of course, the semioticians were all ears.

I had a great time, but then, night fell.
Slow down, I'm trying to take notes.

Click Automatic Writing
and you'll be sailing away with your own true love.

Dylan, yes?
It doesn't jibe well with the course (select one):

a. You signed up for
b. You set for yourself.

Stop, already, with the parenthetical stuff.
Please, continue:

OK, we drove through darkness; she wearing glasses.
I was having a conversation with myself.

We ended up sitting on the floor, discussing facades.
And this was good, yes?

I remember her eyes, scanning the lines to the next scene.
I pulled out a three-ring binder

and began jotting down images.
Regrets climbed into my pockets.

For what?
Skipping ahead, channel surfing, the deck's changing milieu.

More hair splitting!
Not in a bad way, though.

Some, by the way, have been bronzed.
I tried to categorize incidentals despite their squirming.

Tell me, do you  enjoy being categorized?
I'm sorry, but it's a kneejerk.

And then?
I dropped out, along with those memorializing the moment.

Aleksandr Rodchenko

Posthumous

You've begun to feel temporary -
your dreams of the future
your arguments with the past
bent harmonica reeds
asleep in the closet
the tune out of tune.
You've joined the ranks of ordinary, confused adults
bottlenecking checkout lines
brown-bagging lunch
doing however many reps at the gym.
Has anyone noticed?
This is what it's all about, yes?
Your car leaves the scene of an accident.
You follow suit
reconstructing moments
with the Erector Set
you picked up at a garage sale
parts unknown.
Your son/daughter will graduate
and assume the position.
And your aging parents?
They've already passed,
their cat mingling daily with onlookers
lifting his/her head
to meet their questions.
Your present is tense, the sun offline.

Francesca Woodman

Overwritten

. . . and so to survive, they'd need to forget.
          - Lawrence Raab

You revisit the memories
knowing that soon some will be overwritten.
Permanently deleted.
Several refuse to join the lineup.
Others waffle.
A long ball into the right field bleachers
the runners advancing
too late now to rethink the gameplan.
You too had to be dragged in here
by the scruff of the neck
pockets turned out, shoes and socks removed,
trying to buy time, incoherent.
And then, of course, the room you pretend doesn't exist.
Sorry, but the title has been reworked.
The scene rewritten.
Someone had to do it, yes?

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Dénouement

Love's mysteries in souls do grow.
          - Seamus Heaney

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 cell,

and begin the trek, mindful of the signposts

for love, for betrayal, for the bagpipes' eerie call.
The voices in your head continue.

Albrecht Dürer

Woman XX

I google her and watch
the hits scroll.
She tickets me
for overtime
then removes
her uniform and gloves
which inflate
to cartoonish proportion.
They squeeze me
out of the room
as she enters the bath
where her nipples sparkle
like uncut stars.

Life as Film Preservationist

Moments with lost silents push you into deep pockets,
the bucket list morphing into indecipherables:
the menacing collage, the porosity of stalked time.
The rate of polymer degradation increases faster than you thought
but the intrigue locks you into a playpen of dreams.
Street vendors stacked in real-time
hawk claustrophobic incidentals, itching to be inventoried.
So what's a little queasiness?
This is what you wanted, yes?
Would you rather something else? I doubt it.
How then the pharmaceuticals?
The speech patterns which continue to tantalize?
Can you wait out the so-called trademarked expert
downsized to a handicap parking space?
The morning paper arrives as rehearsed.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Arriving at the Atocha Station

Your naiveté colors the faces of stand-ins
insinuating themselves into your beautiful life -

a life of free weights and free passes
a life tailored to mobile devices and mobile homes

a life for the tongues of videographers
advancing through the contours of time.

Do you really believe everything you've heard
about profound experiences

or is this yet another seduction of those
who continue to rummage among sinkholes

searching for the equivalent of happiness?
I’ve heard you threw yourself

at the Speaker of the House of Mirth,
who then favorited you, taking care to dislodge

his/her wedding band as a precaution
against discovery by clingers and clangers

slated to appear as footnotes
on thin plates of aluminum earmarked for museums.

He/she will remain shameless.
Your next feature has been deleted

to protect random somnambulists stuck in traffic.
A wind-up toy will be the innocent bystander.

Duplicity

Again, you've misplaced your words, dialed 911, and were added to the queue. Irregularities gather beneath your window, bearing moments, however improbable. The game of chance calls. You try to figure the odds this time before jumping in but hubris keeps knocking down the house of cards. Your request to be among the favored few will be submitted and ignored. Due to a lack of interest, stanzas have been deleted. There is no future tense. Can there be loss without gain?

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Until Nothing Is Left

. . . as longing fades until nothing is left of it.
          - Mark Strand

Images flood the page.
You hold an hourglass up to the moon.
The dailies begin.
Your eyes fill
with colors, and costumes, and angularities,
touch just out of reach,
the final scene,
you turning away.
Not fair.
And you thought it would be?
You do remember your entrance, yes?
Getting clobbered
with what you thought would never happen?
You had a copy of the script?
You knew your lines?
Hadn't we rehearsed the scene
gone over the details
made changes
discussed the incidentals
the ultimatum?
What ultimatum? There was no ultimatum.
Am I confusing you with someone else?

Saturn Overcome by Hope, Love, Beauty  by Simon Vouet

Nothing Personal

I never appreciated Stephen Rea
until I saw him opposite Lotte Verbeek
in Nothing Personal
a quietly intimate elegy directed by Urszula Antoniak.
Two wounded people.
A secluded house.
The beautifully austere Connemara.
She uncompromising.
He ironic.
They see solitude as freedom
and close a deal:
food for work
but no personal contact
no questions. And yet.

Stephen Rea and Lotte Verbeek in Nothing Personal (2009)

But would that be enough?

You worry the prime real estate
speckled with persons of the cloth
their jurisdictions incidental
the years of sidebars indifferent.
(Why are they here, anyway?)
There's little to do aside from the obvious.
Yes, I suppose, you could unfurl
the colored parachute
and make do with the droppings
but the tug on your sleeve
keeps reminding you that there's more to it,
more than the Hallmarkian images
would suggest.
But that too has patiently eluded you.
You could take to the swings
and begin scribbling
on the electronic blank pages
floating down, on cue, from wherever.
But would that be enough? Really?

Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons in Georgia O'Keefe (2009)

And Now?

Trailers awaken you with images
of the new season.
A new cast and crew.
And the script?
Emailed as an attachment.
The need to know, yes?
Stronger than the need to avoid pain?
OK, everyone deserves to be happy.
Everyone deserves someone.
Specifically?
How about Wrapped around you?
Aren’t those lyrics to a song?

You try to advance the images
but the remote quits.
The delete key refuses to delete.
Just go through it.
Isn’t that what Loman said?
Who?
You know Death of a Salesman.
Willy Loman.
You’re mixing apples with widgets.
Look, sustain the effort.
Let it wash over you, pass through you.
Beginner’s mind.

Philip Seymour Hoffman  as Willy Loman

Awash with Nuance

Then suddenly they resurface
and you wonder the nuance.
Or, maybe you don’t.
Or, maybe you look to make sure what?
That your shoes are on the right feet?
That your iPad is loaded?
We’re all expendable
at least as far as the elements are concerned.
Or the elementals.
And wouldn’t it be interesting
if on a given day
the DVDs you’ve been religiously stacking
and paying homage to
displayed identical images?
Your past lovers assemble
in the town square
and coalesce into the one you await
or will await
or  awaited
or whatever
assuming of course you are  the self you claim -
the one he/she told you would arrive
when you least expected it.

Hugo

Woman XIX

I lose my remote
in the excitement
of her cookware.
Thumbing through recipes
I find a photograph of her
as a marionette
lounging among cushions
in a room filled
with parsed sentences.
I reach for my cutting board
to capture her strings.

Chloe Sevigny

A High of 51

          ode to Schenectady New York

I am Proctor’s.
And the Parker Inn.
And Katie O’Byrnes and Mike’s Hot Dogs and Pinhead Susan’s.
I am counting my change on the corner of Erie and State.
I am counting my blessings.
I am counting my chickens.
Red lights are dancing.
Birds are chirping.
Twitterers are tweeting.
State workers on lunch break are taking off their coats.
I am Peter Pause and Geppetto’s and the First National.
I am the Backstage Pub and the Bangkok Bistro.
I am the City Squire and the Manhattan Exchange and Deanne's.
Cars are zipping by with frosting on their hoods.
Ballet students in tutus are crossing Broadway en pointe.
There are birthday parties in back yards,
and back streets, and cul-de-sacs.
I have just finished a vegetarian burrito at Bomber’s.
It’s the special on this special day.
I am Cappiello’s and Ferrari's and the Katz Kafe
And Scotti’s and Nico’s and Perreca’s and Civitello’s.
Marquees are flashing like crazy.
Families are lining up at Bowtie Cinema
with popcorn, and candy, and soft drinks.
I am CVS and the Van Dyke.
I am Trustco and Arthur’s and The Happy Cappuccino.
Why wait for the right time?
This is the right time!
There is no better time!
The sun is smiling.
The sun is basking in the light of this special day.
The streets are freshly paved.
Even the facades are bubbling over.
Day care tweedlers are holding hands and singing.
The Pizza King is striding the sidewalk with his subjects.
The cobblestones are polished and gleaming!
Someone has rolled out a red carpet.
I am the Grog Shoppe and Slick's and Clinton’s Ditch.
I am Kentucky Fried Chicken and MacDonald’s and Burger King.
Try some.
There’s something here for everyone.
Every taste!
Every size, every shape, every age, every color.
The train station is handing out free rides.
Buses are busing in tourists.
They’re wearing sunglasses.
They’re carrying shopping bags.
They’re ready.
Some have backpacks strapped to their backs.
I am the Orion Boutique‎ and Lennon’s Irish Shop.
I am the Moon and River Cafe and Subway and Citizen’s Bank.
C-130s are buzzing overhead.
Stop lights are blinking.
Cells are texting.
Diesel engines are skipping down the tracks.
Chess players are practicing their openings.
Actors are delivering their opening lines.
I am Family Tire, and Ken’s Subs, and Chez Daisie.
I am Cella Bistro and Gershon's and Center Stage Deli.
I am the Wedgeway barbers snipping their customers.
Their magazines are opened to pages you will enjoy.
I am the Union Inn and the Y.
I am the Aperitivo Bistro and Tattoo Blues.
I have put my best foot forward
and landed at the public library
and General Electric
and Schenectady County Community College
and Union College
and the Open Door Bookstore.
Paul Mitchell's students have just styled my hair
and I like it.
Mr. Wasabi's sushi is my sushi and your sushi and your sushi too.
Take some peanuts back to your office.
Take a cup of the Muddy Cup’s double espresso.
Take a cup of Ambition’s Mudslide.
I am Villa Italia Pasticceria and Canali's and Cornell’s and Pasqualina's.
I am Capri Imports and Morette’s King Steak House.
Don’t fret the small stuff.
Put your feet up.
Kick back.
Take in the skywriting
and the kite flying
and the chicken barbecuing.
Take in the weight lifters
and the walkers and joggers and strollers and bowlers.
Take in the car wash
and the window wash
and the butchers and bakers and candlestick makers.
Today is today with a high of 51!

Paging Through Jung's Red Book

She was young, of course. . . .
          - Siri Hustvedt

You've misplaced your archetype and now
your unconscious is collecting itself and leaving.
You thought you had it all worked out
but every minute brings a change.
Restate your case.
You bought into the line breaks and realized too late
that the enjambments were a joke.
Your trust has made you untrustworthy.
I've heard it from you before:
I had to protect myself.
OK, are you now free to be the self you see
or are you clubbing onlookers
with that old - and very tired - I'm confused.
You're lucky you have time.
Those you've blindsided refuse to pick up.
I can't blame them.
Jung broke with his pal Freud over scrambled eggs
built a scale model of his childhood village
then with gaslight proceeded to search for his self
carve it out so to speak
renew membership in the Square One Club.
You too can be an event horizon.
You too can block hostile takeovers by those
laying claim to your inner beauty.
It's all here in the pages of Jung's Red Book.

Scanning Photos to CD at Walmart with my Daughters

The high priests have stepped in
with their counters, tallying the evidence
as if I - the party of the first part -
have the option to redo the scene,
reshoot the photos, remake the obvious.
This is the one shot I got.
But spin? Infinite iterations. Always
another way of shading the images,
twisting the ends to secure them
against . . . ? Against what?
Embarrassment? Regret?
Of course, I remember the sleepovers -
or at least being told of them
(You had to ask, I suppose?).
And the ballet rehearsals and recitals,
snow angels, sandcastles, camping trips,
trampolines, sleigh rides, homework,
bicycles, books, Barbies, beaches,
barbecues, boomerangs, baseball bats.
Yes! Yes! All, yes! Quickly!
Feed the photos to the scanner
while there's still time.
Its faint chirp transports me like Glass.

An Adult's Christmas in Nantucket

. . . the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep.
          - Dylan Thomas

We paid the price and boarded for the rough crossing catching whiffs of a paperback rider as we took our faded vinyl seats amid designer bags and backpacks with stretch marks. Once off, I escaped to the afterdeck under the glare of Ahab's understudy, preferring the romance of the sea to the chattiness of the Times until the waving of hands by the long-time-no-sees guided us to the island.  Then on to the cobblestone slog from the wharf to white-haired Barbara's B&B, exacting its toll on the plastic wheels of space age luggage.  Later, the shrill of smoke detectors, unaccustomed to the seriousness of eighteenth century hearths, would punctuate the much-touted Christmas walk, where a no-nonsense spaniel of some unknown vintage sat primly on a sofa in front of a fire, eyeing the intruding landlubbers traipsing through his home at this most ungodly of hours, decked out in - get this - blue-tinged booties as if we were all to be herded posthaste into a delivery room for the birth of yet another ne'er-do-well in swaddling; while outside one of the larger evergreens, bedecked with strands of multicolored blinking lights emitting the scent of whale oil, was soon set upon by hordes of down-filled stamping feet for canned poses to be Facebooked in nanoseconds. The evening capped by a graybeard, whose highbrowed delivery of A Child's Christmas in Wales, with two thespianettes acting out various images, would have been enough for Thomas himself to fall yet again off the wagon and tip a few with the furrowed seamen whose varnished visages bore down on us from their perches on the library's hallowed walls with eyes privy to sights to which even Thomas's words would have failed to do justice.

Dylan Thomas  by Bunny Adler

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