Separation Anxiety

You present with symptoms of naiveté.
A late-night phone call. Texts. An early-morning phone call.
And, voila, you're seduced
by the immediacy of the overheard conversation
the immersive apparatus engaged
knocking the corners off the foundation.

But. But. But. But, what?
But the symmetry is off.
So? It doesn't take a Sherlock.
Why should the party of the first part party?
A minimum of two, or three, or five? You're kidding, yes?
Perhaps not. Perhaps the disingenuous are hardwired
for tolerance or at least stick-to-itiveness.

Regardless, take a hike.

The evergreens, frosted, await your passing.

May I Have a Word With You?

Your passion has yet to be downsized or frozen in amber.
I too have been away from it all
the opening dialogue an experiment in plenitude.
At least that's what I tell them.
And the loneliness? A gambit
that should you wish can be spun into silver -
not unlike the earrings -
with a tap of a magician's wand.
Reminiscences aside, you trickle forward remarkably well.

Anja Niemi

The Whole Nine Yards

Several weighed in but are still out.
As irksome as a waddling equid.
I guess things have improved
especially since the restructuring.
Circumlocution as earworm, yes?
Filling in the blanks
with nonsense syllables.
Trumping away at revisions.
Could be fun.
But will it fly, she interrupted?
Little matter.
Even buses tune in
and tweet their little hearts out.
A few endearments, please.
They sometimes do the trick,
and certainly can't hurt. Tell me
about the cute anchor
with the ink.
Wait. You want out
but you're not sure from what?
Nothing new.
Review the nominees.
We'll see what happens.
I'm sure you can't wait to get going.

Joyce Tenneson

The Befuddlement of Enjambments

I cannot make it cohere.
          - Ezra Pound

Your co-dependency index jumps off the charts.
You no longer care or feel obliged to write your own words.
Collaboration as crooked smile.
To make ends meet you take up origami
and deliver e-meals-on-wheels
to the marginalized and semi-marginalized
who will feature at Friday's open mic
along with the cigar-chomping Viennese neurologist
you freely-associate with.
He knows - or thinks he knows - the secret of the Sphinx.
For him, everything is a cigar.
It's as if there are no connections -
only superficial encumbrances
whose patina changes with the seasons
and can transport you to the Land of Oz
where the good doctor spins aphorism upon aphorism
underwritten by neurasthenia and by people like you.
Soon you will be carried to distant shores in a tiny ship.
Say nothing. This will be your 15-minutes
of a new and everlasting covenant.

Roberto Kusterle

Close Listening

          for Lola Montez's rubber tarantulas

You decide to unloose fractured narratives
stipulating headphones for audiophiles winked into submission
fearing cognitive overload will alienate thumpalongs
who - let's face it - are in it for the freebies.
All this and a Joanna Newsom look-alike.
Your Rolodex demands an upgrade
and recognition for the abstractions lining the water closet
where insiders will most likely meet bimonthly
to trade secrets.
You've heard this before, yes?
Good! That's the first of 12 steps
novitiates must maneuver
along with a moonlight tour of the outer reaches or branches.
You are now one move away from the symmetries
as fearful as feared.

Lola Montez

Lovestruck Valentine

Roses are red
Roses are red
Roses are          red
Roses          are

Martina Hoogland Ivanow

Life As Speed Bump

Discovery consists . . . in having new eyes.
          - Marcel Proust

Forget the discarded profiles.

Their iterations will suck you into a maze of mirrors

reflecting your miscalculations.
You don't want to go there again, do you?

Life as speed bump, yes?
A marionette in his/her hand

costumed for the role
bemusement your mantra.

Perhaps journaling the speed bumps
the alterations and altercations

the incidentals in the remains of a day
will give you new eyes.

Perhaps it will help make the accoutrements
of your discovery

as manageable as a connect-the-dots topographic map
of a path disappearing into the woods.

Roberto Kusterle

Woman XXXV

She eats waffles

with a cartographer's

exactitude

mapping each piece

with the compass of her mouth.

I become lost

in her topography.

Mere Players

You googlemap the directions from here to there
and find seven minutes -
seven minutes that could make or break the diorama,
the other players arriving out-of-turn,
unannounced, at all hours,
sometimes with bags of groceries
which they unpack and shelve
as enthusiastically as new hires,
later flopping down
on the couch, grabbing the flicker,
channel-surfing,
leaping intuitively to the ending they must have,
these mere players,
playing their many parts,
their table-reads off the grid,
between the lines,
improvisational, winging-it,
flying by the seat of their pants,
creating havoc, scenes colliding, mounting to confusion.
And then the ungraspable somewhere.
The moment to moment.
Drafting the incense of homecoming
as you follow the directions,
follow the rights and lefts,
climb the stairs, and review your notes,
one last time, outside the locked door.

Anja Niemi

Woman XXXIV

She paints pyramids and
calls out to eat in
underlining lines
in the movie she's watching
with the color of sand.
I grab my pail and shovel.

Roberto Kusterle

Outsourcing

The ramifications snowball with indifference,
the blue-lined notebooks
fat with FAQs sideswiping you
as you again test the waters
the default set to stream.
Perhaps you should buy time at the kiosk,
the one with the the Buy One Get One
of pics of your former selves -
some then some now -
picking up fragments of what might have been.
Perhaps you should rethink your lines -
the read-through pristine yet unconvincing,
as if the bell lappers knew all along
when to retreat into the background.

Anja Niemi

Out-of-Sync

The snow is the least of your worries.
Fill your pockets with pebbles and see if that helps.
Do you recognize any of these facades,
some new, some rehabbed?
Where are you, anyway?
There are too many people here
talking at the same time.
Are they getting it down accurately?
Do you think you should ask?
Have you ever asked?
You'll never know, you know.
These last two weeks have been trying
to get into the picture,
pushing and shoving, trying
to insinuate themselves onto your to-do list.
When did sharing go out-of-sync?
Continue to review the dailies
and build digital snowwomen until spring erupts
with warm breezes and open windows.
What else is there to do?
Why do your footsteps betray indecisiveness?
Did you think he/she still cared?

Anja Niemi

Hazarding Extinction

The spooky genius in you again hazards extinction. Has the inevitable contact with its inevitable uncoupling allowed you to pass through without knowing why, without clicking I agree, without committing to the restraining posture of the unchartable, the words squeezed, the outcome windswept? Does the alternative, laced with spirals of forgotten, seem out of reach? Why bother? No idea? The rehearsal to get it right, alone, without collaboration, is enough, you think, to confess to, again and again and again?

Anja Niemi

Easier Not Easy

The subsequent pleasure, a map for the less-traveled.
This is not a fluke.
The tick-tock tick-tock surcease of sorrow.
Perfunctory, yes?
What of those without ambition for catharsis?

Is this why you rise early, brimming with alterations,
and a new pocket protector?

Little matter. No one will be duped.

Nothing incidental here in the foundry of stamped emotion.
You can examine it, dissect it, take it for a walk -
without recrimination without regret -
leaving indelible - and very real - turnabouts
for those who feel nothing about feeling nothing.

Anja Niemi

Again the Snow

Enough already with the requisitioning!
I'm up-to-here with the whatever-you-call-it-ese!
And, please, return the funnel to Shelf #221-B.
We're done with that part of it - at least for now.

Repositioning the sentence fragments
could change the course of your personal history.
The elements of style?
A glimmer in your glass eye no doubt.

The cruise ship aground. (A hyphenated juncture.)
Straight bingo and Prize-O under house arrest.
Forget the iterations on (insert title)-for-a-Day.
You had your chance. The days tumbling past fast.

Your clothes and furniture moved in(to storage).
Wait, this dialogue is unrehearsed.
Not unlike the yesterdays, yes?
I thought we had agreed on the parameters of then, then.

Again, the snow.
And the drifting.
And the hunkering down.

Excerpting prepublication quotes is a No-No.
That's a tad stupider than expected, isn't it?
Of course, with the cumuli - very large cumuli, I might add -
backgrounding the scenario, everything seems hunky-dory.

That's his/her Jack Russell's name, isn't it?
Who? David Bowie?
A review in TLS sent him over the edge.
That, too?

Q&As! I want Q&As!
Loopholes and segues and digressions and sidebars and whatnots.
Oh, the Places You'll Go! à la the good Doctor.
More like the places you should've gone, yes?

Were the consequences considered
or simply added to the stew willy-nilly?
Thanatopic he/she was heard to say.
As reported?

Again, the snow.
And the drifting.
And the hunkering down.

Several bought into that.
And why not, it was Wikipedia'd?
Send in the copyeditors with their retractable colored pencils.
They're paid to write wrongs.

Funny how the genes have their own agenda
which, up until a day or two ago, ruled.
Picture the nanoscientists sans venue
on a typical dressed-down Friday abroad.

Could be fun, yes? parlaying a piece of the voice
operating in second gear, blurbs formulaic and sepia'd
in dead languages we all know and love.
Try vetting that, and I guarantee you'll run into a group

of entrepreneurs on holiday smacking their lips
with unbridled self-indulgence
the whole thing underwritten by the makers of Freytag's Pyramid.
Got more?

Again, the snow.
And the drifting.
And the hunkering down.

Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison

A Most Beautiful World

And then there's this sound

like a truck hitting a truck

and you try to convince yourself

that you didn't hear it.

Then it happens again

and black smoke starts streaming

out of the fresh-air vents.

And the kid sitting next to you asks

if this is supposed to be happening.

And you can't answer.

You can't even remember your name.

So you put your arm around the kid

and reach your other hand

to the woman across the aisle.

And she takes it.

And you hold on.

Leaving Them Ho-Humming

OK, well, maybe not, but I still think it's a good idea. One that could fly. How could it not, given the enticement? It's not every day that you get a break like that. And just think, in no time, you'll have that look which many find comforting as well as encompassing. I know I could have shopped around but, really, to what end? Even Cicero's third oration against Catiline drooped, leaving the crowd ho-humming. Don't play dumb. You know exactly what I mean. The taxing our endurance bit. Over the top? Yeah, so? And as for quantum computing? Listen, you take this cab, and I'll take that one, and we'll count down the difference, then apply the algorithm. Are you in or out? Or in and out? Not unlike Schrödinger's kitty, yes? You'll see. You keep telling me All Gaul is divided into three parts. OK, everything's connected. Entangled. I'll pinch that. You're not the only one with a Many Worlds bumper sticker, you know. Forget the downtime. Insignificant. Tell me, Does he ever leave the house? Does he ever come out? Have you ever seen him except on Skype? I'm not talking Lovecraft, here. Go ahead, ping it.

The Weather Outside

But then the tide turned and we were caught in the middle without the flicker. We sat there unconvinced stuffing ourselves like olives until the light changed and the cabs resumed their squabbling. It was good to see green. Later at Joe's Tavern we continued our dissection of Part One which I felt was the least compelling of all three especially in Blu-ray. I was in the minority so I decided to try one of the highly recommended reds from Argentina. We had a good time despite the candles and cranky plumbing.

Christopher Jacrot

Segue to the Autodidact

You don't know about that
and you don't want to know about that
so you hit Delete
and the carny ride begins
slowly at first
the barleycorned crowd cheering
up close and personal
snow falling in sheets
reminding you of the last time
and the time before that.
Smitten with interiors - a metaphor
according to the catalog
for unfulfilled longing -
you, wide-eyed, slack-jawed,
decide to re-shoot the final scene
without backup
the ponderous critiques
sclerotic and sepia'd.
Time now to plow out.
Time to take to the highway.
Recharge the mise-en-scène.
All eyes on the skies.
The clock's ticking sticking.
The beats beating the juicer
to the punch bowl
crop dusting taking on new meaning.
Informed by cable, several jig
speak of the good ol' days
iPhones and iPads and iWhatnots
stuck in traffic.
The debate continues
over what whomsoever's words mean.
I did this. I did that.
You however want to to do this
insisting on a raincheck
searching your pockets for the stub.
Sans fanfare.
Sans battlecry.
You want to just do it.
The cineplex spilling into the street.
Talking heads demanding
seconds, thirds, fourths.
You will know them when you see them.
And you will let them know
when you know.
Trust in the text (there is no other).

Your Answering Machine Is Asking Questions

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words
mean so many different things."
          - Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

You're not sure it's a question,
and you're trying to convince yourself
that you couldn't care less.
But you know that you do.
You know that lately it's been a rabbit hole.
So you put aside the question
in question, and think again
about Alice, in disguise, in your dream,
carrying a Louis Vuitton bag,
and wearing one of his huge hats
in the manner of the Red Queen.

Sincerely Yours

Excuse me. Excuse me. The meter's running.

Can we get going?

With what? Setting, plot, character?

No! No! No!

Oh, you mean point of view and voice?

No! No! Just jump in.

Just jump in?

Yeah, just jump in. Begin anywhere. Write anything.
Impatience is key.

Are you one of those single-entendre types?

What? Could you please speak intelligibly?

I'll have you know just the other day I had a meter maid
check my intelligibility.

A meter maid? Really? Stick that in.

What? Stick in a meter maid?

Yes, stick in a meter maid. Just keep writing,
and keep your hands on the keyboard.

OK. OK.

Play >> Pause >> Stop >>

Play >>

You keep fiddling with the equation.

Fine. Fine. No hay problema.

You're better off with non-sequiturs (and you know it).

Sympatico, yes?

Tell me again about resonance,

and how it makes for a better life.

With someone?

Pause >> Play >>

The moment stalled

and you tried to retrace your steps

and those of your other.

The forecast is snow; I want to make the most of it.

Meaning?

Life in the margin holds promise.

Pause >> Play >>

Keep rearranging the furniture,

it helps clear out the cobwebs

and, who knows, maybe Kierkegaard will come in handy?

Late Night with Ledbetter.

Who?

Either/Or.

You're pontificating again. I thought you were over that.

Digital aphorisms help with the rough spots.

The ups and downs of trigger-happy Luddites?

Another Late Night with Ledbetter.

Enough, already!

Pause >> Play >>

Not enough time to play with it.

To get what we all hope for.

Pop goes the easel.

Reading that line felt strange.

Do it again. You'll get used to it.

Stop >>

Tao Lin

Wrongful Appropriation

Your hesitation speaks volumes which few if any will read.
It smacks of plagiarism, but don't we all?
I could thumb through a few pages, if you like.
A votive candle, perhaps.
Sparks have been known to fly.
A past life here, a passed life there.
You yourself told many it was a superlative time:
a time of innocence, a time of confidences.
Turn that thing down, will you please?
It's interfering with my tram of thought.
And you thought what?
That we would forego the preface?
Jump up behind me.
I've decided to pay up front, and make-do with whatever.
Tell the others to meet us at the restaurant-in-the-round.
. . . they're all that's left you.

Roberto Kusterle

Repeat After Me

He has left nothing to say about nothing or any thing.
          - John Keats

You are a different person in a different world in a different time.

Your Secret Santa has been exposed to the elements.

He has forgotten his password, abandoned his sleigh and reindeer,
and left the museum with a redheaded docent.

Images of your former self fill the air with commiserations.

Made-for-TV Movies spiral into collages of departure.

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

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

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

Imagine the confusion?

The code bombs. Startups fail.

You have tried to set the record straight.

There will be no setting the record straight.

The record is gone.

You have tried to pick up where we left off.

Just where did we leave off?

Too much information, yes?

You have submitted the paperwork, and rejoined your age-mates
who pump iron with good form, and will continue into silence.

It's as if we were glued to YouTube.

It's as if we knew all along.

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

Roberto Kusterle

Woman XXXIII

Seeing her in a trailer
for the prequel to
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
I capture a still
and save it . . . somewhere?

Paying It Forward

It's OK to fabricate memorials to footwear
that engage you in wee-hour albeit interesting conversations.
You never know, she said.
Waahl, if I were Ezra, but I'm not so I guess I'll continue
ambling along under cover and without a mean streak.
Again, the exhibits.
I haven't a clue as to the wherewithal necessary
to make a good impression, but so what?
There are far more important items under glass.
You do know that, yes?
Let's move on then.
I'm trying to adjust the curvature to make the transition
as painless as possible given that the Grammar Cops
have arrested Loman again for one of her I feel badly(s).

Nils Strindberg

Playing the Critic

Looping back, we realized it was there all along,
hidden under a mediocre sheet of parchment.

The directions were fairly easy to follow -
no need to googlemap it.

Evidently, someone expected more.
You could feel it in the breeze which had begun to pick up.

Instead of retracing the notes on the staff,
we made our way to a museum

to see what the buzz was all about.
The bronzes held us as did the splatters on aluminum plates.

We did the tour without audiofiles
critiquing the exhibits as media moguls

who had underwritten such things.
It was a close encounter. One for the archives.

Nils Strindberg

Ampersands

Something about a porcelain figurine
followed by an intimate encounter

time shape-shifting, catching you mid-stride,
losses lost in the day-to-day.

Don't waste your time trying to make sense of it,
the step-by-steps were tossed out with the trash

along with the Revell Zeppelin
from the cracks of your childhood.

Your membership has been cancelled.
(The updates were worthless anyway.)

Go ahead. Enjoy Miles's linking of the then
to the sanctity of the conundrum

far from the madding boring shit
as he called it.

The year will soon flip.
Leftovers announced.

Time to break out the resolve
to sort things out and take on Sheila Heti's

How Should A Person Be?
despite the comfort of entanglements new and old.

Engage the throttle.
Not sure to where, but that's part of it - the good part.

By morning, old everything.
Your head channel-surfing for ornaments.

'Tis the season, yes?
Cassandra Wilson whispering Time After Time.

Concession to a Paraphrase

And quieting dreams in the sleepers in darkness. . . .

          - Wallace Stevens

Without the enjambment at the weary end of November,
you'd be lost forever to the moon and its quieting dreams.
The cat mrkgnaoing, Move on! Move on!
Your pacing solves nothing.

Funny, you know this as well as I.
Yes, the scholarship is evident, but misplaced.
Your announcement with the shades drawn against the traffic light
opens a door and your eyes to the darkness

and back to an earlier season of silence -
the linguistic equivalent of hammering nails into flesh.
When was this, anyway?
Yesterday? Last year? Five years ago?
I don't remember. Do you?
The tureen quivers with nonsense syllables.
The evidentiary moment remains.
Your car idling.
The snow, too, advancing.
Of course, the video shows that there's more in the final paragraph
than referenced in your text.
The Art of Omission, yes?
So little time left out of tempo with footnotes no less.

Francesca Woodman

Gastronomy 101

The charcuterie-loaded menu piqued your interest. You took the lift to the loft where it was all about to happen - a tough reservation, but well worth the wait staff who had been trained in various mid-Atlantic states of service. A carousel stood in for the usual round-robin. You lost yourself in the cutlery but then repaired to the foyer where a well-seasoned foodie held forth with tales of tails from exotic eateries. Your esteemed colleague failed to show . . . again.

Wolvesmouth's Craig Thornton

The Dream of Ringlets . . . Again

You fail to anticipate the superfluousness
of the run-through

and run home to check your notes,
channel-surfing for answers to the 20 questions

hanging around the stoop.
Your dog uses a Kindle to calibrate loneliness

then texts the stationmaster
who reassures all that there are still only three colors

and a partridge in the pear tree.
Someone arrives on the 11:05

and begins dismantling the prose
cluttering the entryway.

Who was that masked man/woman?
Have you checked in with your sponsors?

Perhaps they can spare the change
although it's unlikely that the 12-tone mini-u-et

will carry the burden of absence.
The viewers are sure to expect more.

You know this despite the fatigue
pestering your keyboard.

It's time to come clean.
Not a big deal. Never was. Never will be.

Vally Nomidou

Lately, the Bottlenecking

Your GPS is working overtime trying to avoid a turn for the worse as if a solitary moment will wrap its arms around you and guide you to the reference desk where tentacles of connections await your gentle probing. How often have you channel-surfed only to find that the best buys are unwilling to participate in your Glass Bead Game? Your hair was longer then, wasn't it? Everyone's was. I can't say that I remember The Elements of Style but I do remember that it was a long, strange trip, one we failed to duplicate though we tried several times with a collection of cosmopolitan cocktails. We even contacted the Watermelon Sugar Man who was nice enough to direct us to a pickle patch. With mixed results, I continue.

Satantango (1994)

Woman XXXII

Standing next to her
in the elevator
I am enveloped by her scent
and miss my floor.

Charlotte Gainsbourg

That's Not Going To Happen

Especially now, with the cat out of the bag
the holiday season ready to pounce
and your latest tête-à-tête simmering in the atelier.
Listening to covers while journaling
will buy you the anonymity
you've convinced yourself you need
and enable you to resume your place in line.
The Persian rug in the room is gone
as are the white beaches
with the beached iMacs.
You've been fortunate enough
to live the life of make-believe,
and get away with it, for the most part.
I'm surprised you were never called
to the front office, that strange transfer station
populated with mannequins
of questionable character.
If only you had described the beauty
of the algorithm you wrote that tied it all together,
you could have redeemed the coupons
downloaded in anticipation.
That would have been quite a coup.
Too late now. Too late for most things.
Enter your username and password
then click the box for Remember Me.

The Turin Horse (2011)

He Said She Said I Said You Said

Even adultery has morality to it.
          - Laura Dern, We Don't Live Here Anymore (2004)

You lose yourself - or try to lose yourself - in things,
in music, in ideas, in people
but the aesthetics keep poking through -
The aesthetics?
Yes, the aesthetics. -
keeping you up at night calibrating the angularities
the curvatures
mining the immense vocabulary of the body,
the immense vocabulary of the other.
Something about jettisoning the detritus.
The 12 steps out the window.
And, what, you thought that was it?
Oh yeah, repainting the entryway was a great idea.
A therapeutic tour-de-force.
Revisit the scenes, this time in 3D -
the added dimension is sure to make a difference.

Francesca Woodman

Woman XXXI

She takes in the exhibits
with Modigliani's eyes
unslinging her SLR
to capture the intimacies
in the maze of back galleries.

Running the Changes

You skim the dog-eared blue-lined notebooks
lying next to your bed
for new words, different words
to ease the ache of repetition,
the ache of the old.
The hour arrives at the wrong address,
laughs, lingers, and you forget the difference
between high and low drama
the loss surfacing after closing
as if it mattered to the rent-a-magician
left waiting in the Green Room,
wand in hand, as generators,
prepped to weather the nor'easter,
exit through the gift shop.
Again, the rehearsals proved futile,
frustrating, the French horn player
running the changes
through his backward-facing bell
making it new, until, in an eyeblink,
it was old, boredom seeping in, abracadabra! -
the furniture, the cat, and you, gone.

Alice's Last Last Ouija Game by Paul Grand

Spoiler

You see her in a mirror, in a wedding gown.
That scene from Seven Minutes in Heaven
with the trains running late
but they're going ahead with the auditions anyway
and ordering takeout.
When you least expect it, she calls
for a costume change
and it turns out to be good.
Tweaking the scene, too. Yes, this could be it.
And then you hear her begin: Evidently, . . .
Regarding the ending?
Let me get through my fish and chips first.

The Pluperfect Storm

You have your heaven, it said, go to it.
          - William Carlos Williams, The Hurricane

The White Rabbit is late, and Snow White is yellow. There's enough time on the meter for one checkmate and enough water under the bridge for one week. The Ghosts of Christmases Past are here, conferencing with the Three Bears. Goldilocks has had her roots painted for a photo op as Shepherdress of the Moment. The Energizer Bunny has snuffed out the Green Lantern and squirreled away fresh batteries and doughnuts. The books to be read are nestled all snug in their Kindle.

The Turin Horse (2011)

Insert Audiodisc 3

Begin anywhere.
          - John Cage

You seek solace in idioms and run smack into a blank stare.

The exigencies of Helvetica provide little comfort

as you consider the caveats of typographers

and the roadworthiness of long distance truckers

who are here for the free ride.

A typeface with élan will spring you from ubiquity

and into the world of graphic comics

where a curve is a curve at your beck and call

and the moon ready willing and able to deliver the latest

in fashionable footwear.

And you thought perhaps this was make-believe?

A pretend-pudding if you will?

Buying into that sort of thing could spell onomatopoeia 

and a trip to the mall rivaling Rimbaud's A Season in Hell.

The Shoes on the Models of Eastern Europe

. . . when [a person] is capable of being in uncertainties,
mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact
and reason.
          - John Keats

You're lying in the grass
studying the azure map of the sky

comparing it to the veins
on the back of your hand

which lately have been speaking to you - in tongues -
to-and-fro, to-and-fro.

Perhaps you've arrived with someone else?
Or, better, as someone else?

The tingling ebb and flow.
The trials and trails?

The excitement of then, yes?
Aha! You mean I'm excused?

No one's excused.
A few bucks. Just a few bucks,

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

What brings you here?
An election year?

Filled with unspoken conversations? And negative space?
Let us not forget the place of negative space.

And negative capability, for that matter,
which, for your edification, offers an alternative.

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

Be nimble. Be quick. Jump over the dowsing stick.
Yes. Yes. And yes.

Woman XXX

She reads Rilke before counting sheep
splits wood in the afternoon
can change the oil in her pickup faster than Jiffy Lube.
I open an account at Carhartt.

Into the Arbitrary

Blender's render pipeline supports rendering to UV
texturemaps ambient occlusion, normals, displacement,
color, shadows, and full render can be baked.
          - blender.org

And you're swept into the arbitrary.
Those moments when the rational kicks in
creating the illusion of symbiosis
and you feel the connection, and think, This is good.
Walking fast. Texting. You know the deal.
Your world filling with texturemaps, . . .
and normals and shadowy displacements
fully rendered and baked.
I'm not convinced about that last part
especially now with things heating up:
He said. She said. I said. You said.
It calls for robustness with a narrow margin of error.
Tarjay had a special on those not too long ago.
We could all use a break.
From the ins and outs, the ups and downs.
You mean trancelike?
Yeah, that'll work, as well as anything, I guess.

Madame Tutli-Putli (2007)

Missing

You find sentences with missing words,
words with missing letters.
Someone texts you about a field
of orphaned puppets.
A chamber group plays the same piece
over and over
overlaying the day
with misty undertones.
Extras appear at opportune times
knowing this too is simply a run-through
for the real deal
which you've heard is being touted
at local landfills.
Instead you decide to fill in the blanks
fill in the gaps
with what you think they meant
with what you think they want to hear.

Madame Tutli-Putli (2007)

Restorative

You drag your old apartment through abandonment

imagining the surplus of activities segmenting the days

reaching back to capture the elements of then

fragmented into painful shards.

The players at the foot of your bed await direction

again overwhelmed by the onlookers

brought in to witness your de-accessioning.

The wood stove crackles with befuddlement.

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

This has happened as predicted

choreographed by backers as a concession

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

The Grateful Dead

Trillium

It's as if you've entered a dormitory of disbelief

the tunnel of days welling-up

you thumbing through images of yesterday

looking for the waterfall

impregnated with silence. This will be my escape,

you've emailed friends,

certain that this time some sort of resolution

will occur. The last time was a bust,

neither here nor there,

and you without the foggiest notion.

Not to worry, they've told you. This is quite common.

You laughed, but knew the moment

was careening toward you. The make-believe moment,

the pretend moment, the moment that most of us

have to face, even with the deck stacked.

Francesca Woodman

The Street of Crocodiles

Chet Baker's My Funny Valentine fills this day of rain. You wander through Elegy, based on Philip Roth's The Dying Animal, turn away during certain scenes, your casualness shaken. There is nothing casual about death. Someone says something about the inability to string a narrative. The inability to do what? Whatever. Call in the Script Doctor, yes? There's havoc in your bullpen, and in your playpen, and in your world. Again, you have walked out during the crucial scene. Wait, you're telling me how screwed-up Chet was? At least he had what Ray Carver had. And you, too.

The Street of Crocodiles (1986)

Woman XXIX

Silk blouse askew
hair wilding
she is Everywoman
moving
with the ease of a danseuse
along the row where I sit,
mummified.

Marcus Ohlsson

Available Upon Request

The time is past for going back.
          - A. E. Stallings

You've test-driven the tops and bottoms
weighed the pros and cons

put in for a hiatus from drifting aimlessly,
a far cry from the old days

when you were a pronoun-in-training, and
domesticity was a bargain-basement forget-me-not.

The boatman awaits.
Let's talk about your future

and the hellish commute to motherhood,
fatherhood, sisterhood, brotherhood.

Mourning inconclusively is a no-no.

Learn the lines of your face. Learn them well.

As resident cartographer of your double life,
you are within (X years of) your element.

Roberto Kusterle

The Beauty of the Null

Everything I know is from a book.
          - Joshua Mehigan

You're juggling impressions, trying to make it home
before someone asks you a question.
Even the guy in the 7-Eleven looked ready.
And where were you when you caved?
You resolve to study epistemology,
especially now with the neighborhood Velcro'd
to detractions. Ladies and gentlemen,
boys and girls, children of all ages.
Yes? Was there a message in that?
Something we could latch onto perhaps?
Parlay into a vacaciones during the null center
of the holiday stream when most wade in
and are carried along by current events?
I suppose we could take the alternative out for a spin.

Roberto Kusterle