On the Street (Where You Live?)

Next time I'll rehearse more, dissect my lines, diagram them, as I did decades ago for my Latin teacher, a young woman in full habit, who held me in thrall: You've got to change your evil ways, bay-beh. I never got there, and never would, which demonstrates something, I guess. Oh, by the way, I was riveted by the immersion and wherewithal of your coveralls as you mobilized yourself to meet winter, which will doubtless arrive amid a volley of head butts, attempting to escort you into oblivion, not unlike the killer whales on last night's Animal Planet, who took out a gray whale and her calf in full view of boatloads of whale watchers stunned by the realization - as professed by, among others, the late Stephen Jay Gould whose student evaluations at Harvard reputedly proclaimed: He knows everything about everything! - that the world of the wild is not a peaceable, ethical kingdom.

The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks

A Piece of Nothing

That's all there was to it. No more than a solemn waking to brevity.
          - Mark Strand

And then, again, you decide to look at the sketches of domes in cities you've never visited, and probably never will, the domes having insinuated themselves into your reading and into your life. You don't even know the names of the cities and towns but they're pleasant to look at, and spark images of travel. There are moments when the armchair you're sitting in by the window overlooking the park seems to lift off and float above the canals in the cities. You strike up conversations with strangers in languages you don't even know. This could be a wish, or a piece of nothing, connecting you to the world.

Some Disenchanted Evening

Another late night of books
and you slip on a stanza
spilling the words you've been squirreling away
for your next encounter.
The assignment calls for recommendations
that can be folded into your disembodied days
of garden salads, protein shakes, vitamins.
Do you have the wherewithal
to recommence your life
as artifact, clattering along rooftops,
peering into windows,
scrambling to hide emails under the rug?
There are benefits, of course,
as spelled out in the attached addenda.

Ivona, Princess of Burgundia (Opole Puppet Theater)

With Airtime Limited

But no one can prove that your life means anything either: on a good day you feel able to keep on living it, . . . following a plan when a plan seems to fit, but otherwise making it up as you go.
          - Stephen Burt

Backing into a parking space, half-smiling, earwormed,
the dime-store alchemy with its godless sneer
playing hide-and-seek in the darkening, overgrown garden,
you decide to break the mold, breathe,
the small script saying something about sincerity.
Intimidations aside, it couldn't have been avoided.
Of course, once you stepped into the ring,
the bell sounded the beginning of the round,
and before you knew it, you were rocked by a left,
glancing above the timekeeper's toupee
for a clue to the full catastrophe: the ride over,
backpacks unpacked and returned to the back room.
This time there wasn't time to rehearse.
This time the experience was framed, matted,
and on the street in a wrinkle to be picked over
by disinterested parties who scattered
the unwanted, while, all the while,
the mimeograph machine, posing new questions,
awaiting the verdict, commiserated with sleight-of-handers,
who, ill-advised, convinced you
that this was not what you had paid for.

Rosalind Solomon

Degrees of Freedom

Emails bottleneck at the back door
dangling profiles and memory hooks and terms of endearment
setting off smoke detectors
with lines like You are always on my mind
shifting irresistibly in Aeron ergonomic chairs
(permanent at MoMA)
the meter clicking off degrees of freedom
between you and whomever
your knees weak from the algorithm
you've been tweaking from the get-go.
Everyone has flirt options
especially when cloud banks dictate seasonal rates
and we riffle through closets for long sleeves
only to default to comforters.
The plot thickens.
Spare me the cliches, please!
I'm Kindling into you and your root cellar.
Do we have enough food and drink to weather the weekend?
To weather the sparring?
Bassoonists insinuate themselves into my dreams
retreating into anonymity when I look behind the curtain
and find your handwritten notes.
The drama of reading not unlike puppetry.
Pulling the strings, yes?
Where will you be on the night of October 12th, 201_?
The loneliness of the high seas.
And of course Job qua Ishmael:
I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

Ivona, Princess of Burgundia (Opole Puppet Theater)

Woman XXVIII

Slam-dunked
by her ___*
I am struck speechless
unable to call foul.

*aureole/beauty/glare/indifference/look/smile/words

Joyce Tenneson

Moving

We all have reasons for moving.
          - Mark Strand

No, no, don't lose yourself in the rear window.
Keep moving.
Isn't that what Patti Smith said?
Rewrite the script
run it past a few street corners
and you'll find yourself in the produce section
happy as a parking meter.
Maybe it was Bob Dylan.
I'm sure it was one of those two.

Back to You

You begin telling a funny story then stop
insisting your delivery is off a few cents
as if you were comparing musical pitches.
You assume tomorrow will arrive as scheduled
with makeovers and callbacks and returns.
Not unlike most of us, yes?
Bring the car around, it's time.
Shall we continue into the second stanza
which was left flopping around on the wet sand?
I can't believe it's you
but in fact it is
looking small yet provocative
for the part you've chosen from scraps of paper
blowing around the gazebo.
There was a time. . . .
Forget it. That was back when timetables
ran the show and the button
signifying the next move
was visible to all, even those in the nosebleed section.
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Intact at Daybreak

Yet we insist that life is full of happy chance.
          - Lyn Hejinian

You run into him/her in a parking lot.
Words tumble out, collide.
Screens refresh. Images avalanche.
The pain of updates.
Later you escape to Netflix,
before descending into a maelstrom.
Again, you can't believe what's happened.
What's happening again.
Too much at stake?
You had trouble last time, yes?
Why put yourself through this?
Why go there?
The honesty? The openness? The honesty of openness?
Surely, you can conjure a better reason.
Something more palatable with . . . ?
With what? The heart as lonely hunter?
Crack the window, will you please,
it's getting a bit stuffy.
Fortunately, they will be here shortly
with gossip from the four corners.
Irrelevant stuff, most likely, but therapeutic
when you're down and out
to your last roll of paper towels.

Francesca Woodman

A Night at the Opera

Aida opens with questions about the king salmon baked in rock salt with wild fennel gratin, and about the out-of-towners arriving by tram, a bit late, perhaps, but so what?, her angularity a stop sign, a natural for window shopping, open mics, shy interludes, late-night walks - a bit of fabric held between fingertips, watching movies together as one, hiding behind a spectrum of proclivities, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. The pit crew sporting Desert Storm footwear and J.Crew blazers - What's with that? - demands special accommodations for members of their extended tribe entering stage left with picnic baskets and perfect bound programs wet with autographs and Venetian doodles, tuning out the world, again, and again, and again, bathed in the cool breeze of this late summer evening. The lights flicker. Valets exchange glances. The monitor lapses into a display of stock quotes, the audience, lost without translation, carried aloft by mellifluous arias in the original.

A Night at the Opera (1935)

Day by Day

Your flights of fantasy nosedive into three squares which you concede is an odd number for the health-conscious. Gym rats continue to derail your train-of-thought with offers of sidebars and makeovers and junkets. You have been carved out and readied for the last coat. There's nothing to do but wait tables. Your failure to make eye contact with the old neighborhood has raised concerns about your suitability as a soulmate. The ball is at the top of the pole. The track is clear.  The conductor raises his baton. The first movement begins. You are on your way.

Dancing on the Roof

You sleep with jealousy and run red lights
bronzing conjugations of fornicate
trying to give the impression of laughing through intersections.
Scribbles aside you paddle to the middle
and sketch the shoreline.
The sun sits between timeouts.
It's all about staying the moment
finding a script with starting blocks tailor-made
then moving online for subtleties.
You got rid of most of her at the transfer station.
But some things are difficult to part with, yes?
Sticking to your fingertips
when a storm approaches for example.
Seeing them in your rearview mirror.
And now, she's dancing on the roof
the angle making it impossible for you to let go.

Andy Hartmark

Begin Again

Reconstruct your mud hut with notes from a concerto.
Philip Glass?
Yes, you like his style his style his style.
A quick recap?
I think not. The sun has moved, and left no forwarding address.
Of course, we can examine the damage
but that won't change anything.
You've been relegated to imitations of life.
This is where we're at, my friend.
It's called moving on.
You've got the U-Haul and the shepherd's  pie
and enough Willy Lomans to fill Ebbets Field.
But it was a good day in Flatbush, yes?
You Are There was being shot.
With Walter?
Navigators had been flown in to reconfigure watering holes.
Back to Nature placards everywhere.
Marilyn kicking a soccer ball.
And you thumbing a ride to the next Station of the Cross.
Wait, you're mixing metaphors.
OK, so I mix metaphors. Could be Bensonhurst.
You spend your days in an adjoining room,
courting free associations.
Hopefully, getting my bearings.
I try to avoid that usage.
Irrelevant, as far as the polloi are concerned, Your Honor.
The question remains, just how far?
I'm way off the beaten track, wherever that it.
But that's what we want, yes?
All the way from Flatbush to the Pine Bush to the Pine Barrens.
And then some?
Yes, you'll find yourself within every evergreen.
Will I know it's me?
Probably not, but keep moving and they will come.

Ebbets Field Opening Day 1913

John of the Dear Johns

The scene opens with you
popping out of the wings
costumed, quixotic,
rarin' to go
to the ends of the earth,
the four corners,
the wherever
to do the thing right this time

and for all time
as scripted, of course,
amanuenses readying their quills
to capture the permutations
and combinations
of an intimacy
that will become
a matter of public record.

You have been feted
and called sexy man.
You are the current placeholder,
your predecessors jettisoned.
It is tomorrow, yes?
The sun has come out.
You have bet your bottom dollar
without a tip sheet.

Alcandre and Amanuensis

The Coordinates of a Move

Undaunted, the U-Haul speaks volumes.
Have you been here before?
Your appearance bodes well for the extended forecast.
Were there enough corrugations
to keep the pachyderms occupied for the duration?
The shore can be therapeutic, yes?
Especially the white sand tickling your piggies.
It's not just that though.
There's something else, something I can't put my finger on.
This has been happening a lot lately,
and I fear it may become par for the course.
Bette Davis was one; there have been others
but she nailed it, and it's stood.
Did you think you could forestall the inevitable?

Bette Davis

Woman XXVII

She opens with a quote
closes with someone else
uses a compass
to stay en pointe.
I flip through my Rolodex
for her stats.
My paradigm shifts
into overdrive.

A Room (of One's Own) with a View

I remember the cadaverous approach to happiness
and something about a Gold Coin or Golden Coin
or Man with a Golden Arm.
The scene with the last supper was not the first.
Foodies! Always foodies - thinking a world
of impastos and gouaches, a world
where mistakes can be sent back to the kitchen.
These were a few of my favorite things:
John Coltrane at the Village Gate:
BE: Before eBay and confusion
and scads of DVDs coloring the silence
of conversations with (significant) others.
Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes,
the air salty at the outermost house,
the Pilgrim Monument's 100th.
Replaying the obvious for the off-center crowd.
And, of course, the scripts, always the scripts -
to consider to edit to create
grounded in small (under 100 notes) electronic compositions,
a few improvised or composed on the fly.

Noodling on Bamboo

August, and blackberries
the green wood thick
with yellow jacket,
Japanese beetle, horse fly, toad.
Deeper, deer and fox
and coydog.
Deeper still, bear.
Li Po here too
wind from pine trees trickling
on his bare head. Joy
in the mailbox I replaced, and
in the tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley,
and in this finicky piece of bamboo.

A Descent into the Mundane

In matters of the heart, logic is out the window.
          - Anon

The late night texts with pics of orphaned silos qua nurseries
strike a chord with those questing after the mundane
after the elements of the everyday
the elements heard but not listened to
seen but ignored.
You try intellectualizing it
but end up at a taproom sipping cosmos.
Chekhov's Uncle Vanya doesn't help
though Cate Blanchett gives you a second wind
and a cheatsheet on the symbolism.
We're all visitors here, anyway, yes?
Passing through, so to speak?
Isn't that part of the agreement?
Part of the understanding?
Retractions? Forget it, crows have eaten the bread crumbs.
When was the last time you saw him/her?
Before or after the pratfall?
And now so much to discover.
So much to rethink.
The train leaving the station, passengers waving
to their delicate lives backstage,
their delicate lives brief and undeniable.

Cate Blanchett  and  Richard Roxburgh  in Uncle Vanya

Fall Collection

Winsome though they are,
it was not enough.
Something kept nudging me
through the time trial,
keeping me attuned to the weather channel
with its reverential esplanades
stretching far and away.
I tried to make-do with the items you left.
No luck. Fragments of then
kept falling out of place.
I imagined Venice instead of the usual,
its narrow convolutions
just what the doctor ordered
forgetting of course my fear of water
which reluctantly I must admit
had a lot to do with it.
That didn't work either,
and I was back at Barnes & Noble
where this flirty little blond
in hot pink jeans
and Louis Vuitton knockoff
got into a musical chairs thing
with a plainclothes IRS guy
and ran the gamut of acceptable insinuations
all of which were carefully documented
by her incidental associate.

Woman XXVI

Her every sentence is a mini-pose
as she fills her eyes with world-weariness
while twirling her vintage-y skirt.
I record her narcissisms,
and can't wait to get into her archive.

Kate Bosworth

Your Next Gelato

          for Bets Smith

The inkman is on his way to the next match(up).
He has proved himself an unreliable witness.
The supporting actors, too, are figments of something,
and that something is filing past as we speak.
(Don't you just love the colors?)
You're trying to imagine how things will turn out.
Me too, I'm in the same boat.
I've gone so far as to pilot the endgame - the real endgame,
not this interim havoc with the clocks stopping and starting,
the menagerie's bedfellows heating up.
I'm sure they find humor in that. We have.
And the spectators, always opportunistic, jostling their way
to the parking lot with its freshly-painted regulations.
You'd think they have a mall to confiscate.
Oh, I almost forgot, have you closed?
Isn't that what it's all about? Closing?
Practicing the senseless script
so you can regurgitate it verbatim on the ride-along
with Miss Goody Two Shoes (size 11)?
There are so many ways it can go - no hints here, yes?
Of course you can speculate
which is what I assume you're doing
(your eyes have that pottery glaze look),
the mountains looming as if they were propped up
by stagehands whose tears are drying in the atelier.
(Incidentally, the atelier is a nice touch.)
Perhaps we should have argued more vehemently
with each other or for a rewrite at least
but you were in the thick of it
your mind racing across the palazzo
filled with images of Morandi's blanched vases (or vahses)
thinking about the next gelato to cross your tongue.

I Cook Rather Than Starve

Do you like to cook?
          - Dating site survey question

It's like listening to yourself
wrapping your arms around your own consciousness
(for the first time, perhaps?)
profiling your soul for a prospective mate
classifying your style
as egoistic or altruistic or both
or neither
the morality of the street
in five easily-mastered lessons
unencumbered by the cheering of the sandlot crowd
as you (or your clone) round second base
on the shadeless, macadamed ball field
carefully adding ballpointed tattoos
to your forearms between innings:
and now ladies and gentlemen
stepping up to the plate: Finnegan Beginagain
sunshine springing eternal
as his beautifully spotless mind
embraces the spectators
backpack filled with life's lessons learned
(a tad light, if you ask me)
the true (north) meaning and why it matters
comfortably ensconced
in a goldleafed pyramid scheme
which, if followed sacrilegiously, is guaranteed
to tag the long ball of happiness far out of the park,
the pearly gates agape
with peace, love, and all that jazz.

Cupid and Psyche by Antonio Canova

It could?

How long (has this been going on)?
          - Paul Carrack (Ace)

Nonchalance. Then trying something else. As mediocre.
OK, exiting after the thunderstorm.
That was a good start.
Capturing the moon in the emptiness between two branches?
That was good, too.
The conversation jump-started with you
bringing up - again - Woodstock.
Why did you keep returning to the image of a church?
There was no church. Ask around. No church.
And the hamlet?
Peaked about 25 years ago. Ask.
By the time we got there, the fences had been trampled,
and they were talking people down from the towers.
Yes, I heard you mention the thunderstorm,
and remember some guy doing acrostics.
The Star Spangled Banner.
The act ending mid-stride with you trying to sort things out.
Forget it, you found a silver (sand) dollar and a fob of sorts.
A dawning? Who knew?
He said it was about a band member
but that's not the way it's been written up.
So what does it look like to you? In retrospect?
A younger version of the reader disentangling the writer?

Woodstock

As Per

The task of the researcher is to disprove the null hypothesis, or the claim that there is no difference between, for example, two levels of something. Since it's usually impractical to inspect all instances of something in a population, we select a sample which - if valid - is representative of the population at a level of confidence that we are willing to accept (typically 95 percent). We run the study, come up with findings, and report that we are 95 percent confident that the findings we came up with by looking at the sample are the same findings we would have come up with if we had looked at the entire population. Alternately, there is only a five percent chance that the findings we came up with would have appeared if no real difference exists between the two levels. Further, when we say a finding is statistically significant at the .05 level, we mean that if we were to run the study or investigation n number of times, we would come up with the same finding 95 percent of the time. Level of confidence is kind of like the amount of reasonable doubt we are willing to accept.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

Woman XXV

She medaled in conjugation speed
and the javelin throw,
and holds advanced degrees in episodic aimlessness.
Her latest pin is ancient alphabets,
and she's been spotted at the deli counter
practicing cursive.
I forget why I'm standing in line.

Corrado Amati

The Gypsy Girl’s Guile

          for Catherine Mary Connolly (1969-2012)

The practitioners of inner peace
clamor for recognition
offstage in the wings
among the jugglers and other resellers
of souls worldwide.
They insist on being heard
and resent the assertion
that the end is in the beginning.
Many are puzzled
and await word from above.
It will come.
The gypsy girl knows this.
The gypsy girl knows the Secret
of the Dance as well
which she guards with her guile.
She has used her guile many times
to get what she wanted.
She would have it no other way.
Neither would those
seeking her gifts
word of which has been spread
throughout the land by fireflies.
They come for a glimpse
of her painted toes.
They do this with abandon
and without regret.
Offshore, a vessel lurches
trying to make headway.
The sea enjoys this sort of thing.
The vessel will arrive on time.
The gypsy girl can see this too
with a clarity
that would put most to shame.

Greenhorn! and the Art of Imperfection

Me. And me now.
          - James Joyce, Ulysses

I hadn't heard that expression since Cork Hill.
Half a century ago.
My grandfather and his cronies, sucking suds at the corner saloon.
Polish fellas. Words unminced.
You betta get the hell outta here!
C-130s. Touch and go,
bringing fame and (mis)fortune.
But now, from a couple of fogeys in The Bellevue.
Might as well have been the psych ward.
Might as well have been spring.
Black clouds rolling in over last night's ninth-inning call.
These are the Majors,
mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!
Conundrums amid homemade specials.
Farm fresh. Indeed!
A summer stew. Bland. Soy sauce? Sorry.
Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck . . . out!
Friends in another booth telling my daughter and me
about the berm in their backyard.
To quiet the road noise.
Berm. Another term I hadn't heard in a while.
Thirteen years, if you must. (And, of course, you must!)
A house in a new development.
With berm to quiet . . . the madding crowd.
Down payment and all.
Here we go! à la Heath Ledger.
(Where DID he go? Better: Where did WE go?)
Significant other #2 morphing into insignificant ex #2.
I suppose it does take two to tango.
Or, maybe three?
The rice bowl with crack.
The Wabi-sabi(ness) of it all, yes?
There must be some kind of way out of here,
said the joker to the thief, . . . .

Steamboat Willie (1928)

Into Thin Air

Oblique stories unfold before your eyes:
the stranger as mirror image
insinuating himself/herself between the lines.
You will repeat this over and over,
and log 1000 miles before the call to begin.
You google unintentional silence
stopping briefly to explore the tributaries of exhaustion,
leaving you floundering. Shake it off.
There's no time now for dead air.
Perhaps your internal derailleur
lacks a granny gear for higher elevations,
the air thin with exhilaration, echoing those moments
when runners spirit to the finish line.

1908 Olympic Marathon (National Geographic)

Sidebar

I can't bite into an ear of corn without picturing Johnny Depp in that 2004 desert island favorite Secret Window based on Stephen King's novella Secret Window, Secret Garden though, Scout's Honor, the rotting remains of my ex-wife and my understudy are not pushing up corn stalks in my garden which, incidentally, is being slowly decimated by deer whose nightly takeaways are notated in the soil by their bifurcated hoof prints which has led me to google ultrasonic pest repeller as touted by my 90-year-old neighbor who, embracing technology, closeted his muzzle loader and bought one of those sonic gizmos at Brookstone in the mall. Deer aside, my immediate concern is preventing the appearance in late fall and early spring of a mud pool in the middle of my path to the wood shed by diverting runoff into a four-inch slotted drain pipe which I have ceremoniously buried in a 40-foot long three-foot deep trench which I carved out manually with a composite-handled pick ax from the local Agway while imagining Steve Jobs on tractor happily mowing my fields of dreams.

Woman XXIV

She friends the God of Doors,
looks forward and back
texts stage directions in triplicate.
The curtain rises.
I fantasize her
costume changes,
and lose myself
in her unnumbered addenda.

Saskia de Brauw

In the Hall (House?) of Mirrors (Glass?)

How did her life live itself without her?
          - Jonathan Safran Foer

Sketch the images in the mirrors to preserve them.
To show them to others.
To share them.
Sketch them quickly.
The way your art teacher had you do it.
Forget about getting it right. (Whatever that is.)
Forget perfection.
You have 20 minutes.
For what?
Never mind, just sketch.
Do any of the images remind you of people you know?
Or people you knew?
People who play - or played - a role in your drama?
Think about the people and their delicate lives.
How their delicate lives impacted your delicate life.
How your delicate life impacted their delicate lives.
How whatever they did impacted whatever you did.
Whatever you chose to do.
Don't point a finger.
You are the architect of you.
You are how you are.
Not how you should be or could be.
But are.
The Captain of Your Soul.
Captain America.
O Captain! My Captain!
Captain Midnight.
Captain Morgan.
Captain Hook.
The Captain and Tennille.
Keep sketching, please.
Are you beginning to recognize the people in the images?
They're in there.
And if you can, think about the questions.
What questions?
The questions you've written on index cards.
Think about the order of questions.
The questions you've been dying to ask the people.
The people in the images.
The people you know.
The people you knew.
The people you don't know but would like to know.
Irrespective of how shallow the questions may seem.
How seemingly shallowly secular.
But isn't there another way?
No. This is the only way.
You wanted feedback, yes?
Doesn't everyone want feedback?
How am I doing?
How do I look?
Do you like what I've done?
Where am I going?
When will I get there?
How will I know when I've gotten there?
You've come here to ask the questions.
To ask the people in the images the questions.
The questions on the index cards.
Surreptitiously?
Perhaps, but necessary.
Wait. I think I see a dog in one of the images.
Perfectly acceptable.
What?
Animals are perfectly acceptable images.
Yes, it's a pit bull. It's his/her pit bill.
A white pit bull with a black eye.
He/she called him Joe or Joseph or something like that.
Friendly.
Please. Keep sketching.

Francesca Woodman

Woman XXIII

She strikes a pose
in life drawing class.
I forget the model.

Luisa Bianchin

Outtakes

I am not now that which I have been.
          - Lord Byron

You befriend a Chinese Puzzle Box,
walk through scenes of over-rehearsal and exasperation.
The (mis)direction is good for both of you.

This time without the backdrop.
You begin to lose interest, yes?
Nonetheless, proceed as if smearing paint on canvas.

Forget the image. There is none.
Wing it.
Let yourself be enveloped by the drama

of the moment, the spontaneity
of the lens, the elements of time captured.
Bemoan the loss.

Again, this time with tension.
The method is beside the point
resurfacing as binaries

which down the road will have their say
striking a chord with many.
(Pretend an audience.)

See how far you can take it.
The surprise will be costumed in the next chapter
however oppositional.

Rosalind Solomon

Pareidolia

You've taken it to the far corners
and then some
without the least bit of worry
that someone's derailleur could jam.
And now what?
You're without a signal
and your merit badge in Morse Code
is just that.
Perhaps a recapitulation would help,
a wandering in the dunes
beyond Commercial
past the Inn and tiered gardens
the tiny liquor store
the ice cream parlor
opposite the post office
with steps ideal for people-watching
and time-sensitive commentary
to the lighthouse
that years ago we walked to
in low tide and later
found ourselves neck-deep in the Atlantic,
but I doubt it.
The Pinot Noir you're nursing
awaits the green light
in the green room
as the cost of casualness
leaves you backpedaling
to remembrance.
Your life has taken on a different hue, yes?
Even for bookmakers
whose long shots revisit you in the wee hours
multiplying location by desire.

Friends With Benefits

You shrug off the probability
and continue down the condiment aisle
eyes the color of mirin.
Penciling in the moment
takes the effort of the Nile
but over the years you have come
to accept it, even enjoy it.
Your costume has the shortness of breath.
Presentation is everything, yes?
The stalemate is clear
even to your friends with benefits
deplaning in Hoboken,
the culinary extravaganza a prelude
to the main course which the players
though dedicated seem to relish
dismissing with yellow #2 Ticonderogas.

And so the day begins . . .

And already you're retracing your steps
replaying the scene
trying on this, that,
and the other,
searching through your backpack
for the notes you jotted
while waiting for the roar of the waterfall
to sooth you, transport you,
and you decide
Yes, it would be good to continue to the summit
(or to somewhere) à la Caballo Blanco.

Micah True (1954-2012)

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