Monday, July 27, 2020

Screen Dump 515

Masked essentials shepherd IV Trees
along yellow brick roads
into medicated corridors
where everything is amuck
and playing it as it lays is out to lunch . . .
Cats hawk BOGOs for home-schoolers
embarking on a journey
into the heart of darkness
and disorientation . . .
the body . . . at six degrees of separation
retreats . . . curbside . . .
as tailors expand waistlines in wastelands
where fat is a conspiracy theory
disguised as a friend . . .
The last person you socially distanced
slipped out of town
with a new face
and was later spotted
on a gurney
crusted in salt
accessing redactions with a smartphone . . .
Can you imagine? . . . Yes, you can . . .

Mia Wasikowska


Saturday, July 25, 2020

HE, SHE, IT, IT, THEY, THEM

by Nancy Dyer

HE, SHE, IT, IT, THEY, THEM,  I, YOU

Once I learned THESE, THEM, THOSE, HE, SHE, IT, IT, Mommy, Daddy, THEY, THEM -

Didn’t my humanity leave me?

Yes, perhaps we need a lexicon to not point and grunt . . .

To let our friends and neighbors know: “The lion is near.”
And “Pick up your children and RUN . . .”

But now I point: “YOU, YOU, HE, SHE , IT IT, THEY, THEM” and blame
Or deflect
And see YOU as SEPARATE, loved or hated
Applauded or reviled

That YOU means YOU, not your actions, not your words

How PROUD I must be
that I can point and see what is right and wrong,
good and bad about YOU, YOU, HE, SHE, IT IT, THEY, THEM.

About humanity, my city, your city, my family, my universe.

HE, SHE, IT IT, THEY, THEM

Don’t these words just give me
LICENSE to be some POMPOUS, judgmental,
You know what . . .

WHAT am I CREATING?
Really . . .

Really, just for now PLEASE think about it.

Because, really, it is more like what am I destroying?

Pompeii




Thursday, July 23, 2020

Screen Dump 514

In the parking lot the socially distanced
pine for anything-other-than
grappling with returnables while practicing etudes
assigned years ago by an unknown . . .
You are given an assignment
directing you into unread chapters
which makes it desirable to a host of others . . .
You struggle to keep up with notetaking . . .
balancing your notebook on your knees
while maintaining a social distance
from inquisitors which takes you back
to Friday, July 23, 2010
though you don't remember why . . .
It seems everyone wants a piece of something . . .
You opt for obscurity . . .
Someone begins distributing broadsides
showcasing pick-me-ups from the four corners . . .
Pick-me-ups are always a treat . . .
They make the trip worthwhile . . .
navigating the bumper-to-bumper real estate
with boulevards thrown in . . . whenever
no one is looking . . .
a way to prune the edginess from the then-and-now
which seems to be gaining speed . . .

Jan Scholz

Wednesday, July 15, 2020

Screen Dump 513

The scene opens . . . the dance commences . . . you and not you . . .
the happenstance of eroticism driving the bus . . . with you
pin-spotting lexicons from the used bookstore around the corner
where the owner's calico eyes you from atop the rolltop
as you page volume after volume
trying to recapture something important that maybe got lost . . .
Did you find it? . . .
Did you find what you came for? . . .
The tell-tale euphoria . . . or paranoia . . . whichever . . . guiding you
through past's portals to that mid-summer afternoon
long ago . . . at your favorite kettle hole on the Cape . . .
the water warm clear inviting . . .
Later . . . someone editing memories . . .

Monika Ekiert Jezusek

Thursday, July 9, 2020

Screen Dump 512

Someone says the time is not right . . .
Indeed, it is not the right time
but why then are you plotting options? . . .
OK, the other day after texting masked,
socially distant experts in erasure,
you said you had had enough
with up close and personals . . .
That the end point had disappeared . . .
that there was no end point . . .
no convergence so to speak . . .
Wait, you saw it in which film? . . .
I don't think so . . . besides
you have just handed in your grades . . .
There will be no after-hours anything . . .
Being dragged to the surface? . . .

Isabel Toledo

Thursday, July 2, 2020

Today on Mike Maggio's blog showcasing COVID-19 poems:

Screen Dump 499

You are masked and gloved . . . and socially distant . . .
orbiting the silent film Orphans of the Storm . . . gingerly
navigating the crapshoot of grocery-shopping . . .
An essential to the soundless
you eat the loss of the future tense
with its enigmatic typescript captioning
It's a Wonderful Life . . .
Someone somewhere is about to pull a ripcord
to float shamelessly and selflessly into the enveloping ether . . .
There will be others . . .

Jarek Kubicki

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Screen Dump 511

The irregular dance of false starts
with its preoccupation of place that engulfs the blue moment . . .
the moment examined . . . incomplete . . .
The doors shut . . .
Was there a romantic link . . . perhaps temporarily? . . .
The ears . . . unblinking . . .
as if a thrill to cease . . . and desist . . .
You're wondering about the aftermath . . .
Not sure what you're talking about . . .
You know . . . it's kind of like when you're expecting delivery
and the scene shifts with players rolling their eyes
over costume changes that for some reason
seem ill-advised . . . ill-fitting . . .

Jan Scholz

Tuesday, June 30, 2020

Screen Dump 510

Tomorrow is now that day . . . choked with mutations . . .
monochromatic landscapes soundtracked
by those who have missed the unfollowing underway gradually . . .
This too smacks of spam . . . drawn slowly and all that is new . . .
The numbers climb . . .
Wrapped uncontrollably in festive cloth no more . . .
Did you think essentials would move like languages
through the outer regions . . . missing from the latest tally? . . .
You bought into that too, yes? . . .
Introspection is a no-no in those skimpy moments
when all you can think about is the way it was . . .
Someone hit the override button suspiciously
sending trailers to editors prior to
an ever-increasing awareness that gravity will do us in . . .
You too were thrust into the mirror . . .
What business of chastisement stands aloof? . . .
Can you imagine beaches without knowing anything . . . really? . . .
Unrecognized priors dictate the future
with little happenstance in their arsenal of apps . . .
Notions based on fluff . . . what now? . . .
OK, dissect the speculation put forth sans disclaimer . . .
With the drum and bugle corps abandoned midstream
the kickstart was left flopping around on the shore . . .
Nothing of these toppled times but conjecture 
and far be it from anyone to suggest a workable alternative
though that might be a tad harsh . . .
You have the right to an attorney . . . as if that would make a difference . . .

Nora Attal and Elfie Reigate

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Screen Dump 509

Begging the rhetorical question is a joke you carry
in your hip pocket to pull out in the wake of an auditionee
soundtracked by silence in the streets . . . 
The humor is lost . . . or so it seems . . .
No one wants to cross over . . .
The line is drawn in the white sand . . .
The problem launched . . . Can nothing be done? . . .
Eye-glitter duped . . . and so it remains to be seen . . .
Can you adjust the spectrum . . .
or are we locked as well into that pattern of denial? . . .
Far too many . . . uncatalogued . . .
Why now the cups and saucers? . . .
The sit-down drags on amid the fluster of angles
spun by major leaguers . . . or is that too my imagination? . . .

Mario Sorrenti

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Screen Dump 508

Margins of error plague your daydreams . . .
You count to five slowly after a flash of lightening . . .
welcoming the dissonance of thunder
and you're inside an upright bass
walking the notes . . . someone somewhere running the changes . . .
Under the right . . . or, maybe wrong . . . circumstances, yes? . . .
The supermarket - masked - barks out specials
in concert with coydogs
who roam the woods at night
searching for orphans . . .
cataloging drops vis-à-vis correlations
between down time
and the uptick in shootings
over what some are calling the new normal . . .
But he's not reading the reports! . . .
The debriefings anachronistic . . .
You wanted to pick it up from there
but the bus stops have been decompressed
and stuffed into clichés with little afterthought . . .
And this is someone's finest hour? . . .

Germaine Dulac, The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923)

Sunday, June 21, 2020

SUN SET

by Nancy Dyer

What does it take to let a sunset into your heart?

To NEVER FORGET the colors?

Why is it we only keep the bad memories?

We crave the “bad news.” And then we share it.

Why do we let “them” put the big “Corona Virus” picture on the screen all day long
impervious to what it is imprinting in our minds?

What it is creating?

Will we never think to replace it all with sunsets and rainbows?

It’s just a decision, isn’t it?

Saturday, June 20, 2020

Screen Dump 507

Ramifications? . . . What ramifications? . . .
A show of hands . . . palms open . . .
continuing the conversation across lockdown months . . .
This requires a reset . . .
The script qua floorplan enough to carry you through
until whatever phase includes feeding the flame . . .
You immerse yourself in hospital beds
tallying sheets, pillowcases, blankets . . .
What happens next? . . .
As if the Questioner of the Sphinx had opened
the gates of hell . . .
Remind me when the time comes . . .
Cold water will be such a treat . . . followed by no idea . . .
The sound of your voice ups the ante . . .
fading in and out . . . people checking in . . . and all that . . .
I've lost count . . .
Look . . . a cat approaches . . . head bowed . . .

Germaine Dulac, The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928)

Thursday, June 18, 2020

Screen Dump 506

The streets fill with consequences . . . and eBikes . . .
and soundscapes for tomorrow's ticket-holders
enamored of dissonance . . .
Of course the hard damage of pianos
when in a false moment
you reach out to blindsided razor scooters
hoping for the next best thing . . .
Inasmuch would be too much
so we drop back . . . as the water level
creeps upward . . . threats the size of the third factory . . .
You recall burned-out players
sequestered in abandoned fallout shelters . . .
strings attached . . . fretless necks . . .
rehearsing what-was-then . . .
feeling free to take whatever . . .
The cost is about to weigh in . . . with yet more
incidental information disguised as nothing of late . . .
You too should have been there in the crowded atelier . . .
the underpinnings . . . substantial by any stretch . . .
The streets . . . back to the streets . . . yes? . . .

Germaine Dulac

Tuesday, June 9, 2020

Screen Dump 505

A warm breeze off the water
thinks twice
after being t-boned by the smell of the city . . .
You are tempted to retreat
to the chapter on white sand
and blue surf
where you have been told
many have fled . . .
There is no escape . . .
Your style . . . like so many others . . .
has been retired . . .
your script redacted . . .
The alleged perps last seen
after shredding the wheels of a moving violation
circling a roundabout . . . hot on the trail
of knockoff designer face masks . . .
Identities are cloned . . .
The plague is with us . . . within us . . .

The 1918 Great Influenza

Thursday, June 4, 2020

Screen Dump 504

The world fills with Eleanor Rigbys
buried without funeral . . . without music . . .
with fossilized smiles
while looters . . . making off with paper weights
disguised as MacBook Pros
demand compensation . . .
Barricades seethe with anger . . .
Your favorite things lie smashed curbside . . .
The healing grows incredibly slow
as if cells object to expending energy on a jalopy
en route to the scrap heap . . .
Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son? . . .



Saturday, May 23, 2020

Screen Dump 503

This mail-order thing is distracting . . .
Take the other night for example
facing blank pages . . .
Rehashing the reinvestment
when your vanities took hold and ran wild . . .
You had time, yes? . . .
So why worry the dictates of taste? . . .
You were inclined to have no idea
how to redistribute the silence
that seemed to grow exponentially as you jotted down
what you took to be future options . . .

Eugenio Recuenco

Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Screen Dump 502

Instead never happened . . . it was cancelled
along with ghosts
of those awaiting word in six-foot bursts . . .
Shout-outs are shouted-down
the universe upended
even metaphors . . . bobbing along
with the flotsam
as confused as the rest of us . . .
struggle for how-tos . . .
And you? . . . You insist on photo-montages
scrambling for the high ground
as floods wash away
hopes and dreams and memories . . .
Why concern yourself now
over oxygen levels
while players instagram the remains of the day? . . .

Alina Lebedeva

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

AT the KITCHEN WINDOW, now

by Nancy Dyer

At the kitchen window, now,
eating breakfast.
Sliver of the river off in the        distance
Butterfly flutters past on the background of eternity.

Friday, May 8, 2020

Screen Dump 501

You pick up breakfast curbside . . . at your favorite diner
clock the high drama of lockdown
the air . . . filtered . . .
the reunion on hold
mom and pop's shuttered
memorializing . . . a day in the life of . . .
no intermission . . . no meet and greet . . .
From now on you will be responsible for carrying out
what you carry in . . .
When . . . to begin again? . . .
Didn't I tell you? . . . Sorry, I've forgotten . . .
It's always this . . . not unlike a magical addendum paraphrasing
the story line for first responders
who by choice or chance
enter the arena . . .
the wherewithals having left with spotters of notions
costumed for one last turn through the roundabout . . .

Irma Haselberger

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Screen Dump 500

The room you are in fills with words . . . big words small words
color-coded . . . but the colors change as you collect the words
in your bucket for delivery to the empty marketplace . . .
The mooring of starting out . . . as good as any
while crossing Brooklyn ferry
with other swingers of birches . . . no more . . .
A line of people stretches out of view . . .
you recognize some . . . past players . . . here . . . not here . . .
fabricators of the now old New Next . . .
as well as extras for roles in a future film
that may open someday at the Bijou
in Wherevertown . . . its frayed seats having hosted
your journal entries . . .
and several of your play-by-plays . . . Becket's Krapp
listened to tapes recorded over the years . . .
mining his life . . . excavating his life . . .
with big words small words color-coded words
that became earworms . . .
mental Post-its for how a person should be . . .
Indeed, not wanting for things, yes? . . .

Monday, April 27, 2020

Screen Dump 499

You are masked and gloved . . . and socially distant . . .
orbiting the silent film Orphans of the Storm . . . gingerly
navigating the crapshoot of grocery-shopping . . .
An essential to the soundless
you eat the loss of the future tense
with its enigmatic typescript captioning
It's a Wonderful Life
for those in search of closure . . .
Someone somewhere is about to pull a ripcord
to float shamelessly and selflessly into the enveloping ether . . .
There will be others . . .

Jarek Kubicki

Saturday, April 25, 2020

Screen Dump 498

There was nothing you could do
about it . . . then or now . . . as if
the back door had become unhinged over
its inability to understand . . .
The comfort of connections . . .
the connections we seek . . . and need . . .
the wet, heavy snow igniting
cardiac episodes . . .
Grocery carts roam empty parking lots . . .
Spring unsprung . . .
everyone - well, most everyone -
masked, gloved, giving
wide berth . . . not unlike
ships at sea . . . Michael Moore's
Planet of the Humans shakes you awake
at 3 AM . . . big-shouldered
extraction companies overharvesting
resources . . . to page through
yellowing notebooks . . .
for Hawking's uninhabitable . . .
This was done . . . then, nothing . . .

Jarek Kubicki

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

In April's Chronogram:

A Piece of Nothing

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.


Friday, March 27, 2020

Screen Dump 497

You're messing with the script
trying to dodge it
short-circuit the craziness . . . life out of balance
but the ruts are deep
and you keep sliding back in . . .
An instruction manual offers suggestions
but we'll have to wait for the next installment . . .
A lapse in the rain graying-out
the morning's options
fills your pockets with seeds . . .
Is it time to turn the soil? . . .
to add fertilizer? . . .
Last year was a bust . . . nothing . . .
Maybe this year, yes? . . .
As if elephants appear out of a nightmare . . .
downsized . . . Aren't we all . . . downsizing? . . .
Isn't everything downsizing? . . .
You decide to make matters worse by tagging the elephants
that have joined us to break bread
around an empty table . . .
You opt - quite heroically I should add -
to include boulevards in the lockdown . . .

Kate Moss


Tuesday, March 24, 2020

The Albany Poets, in the spirit of community, is encouraging local poets to post a video of themselves reading one of their poems. Here's mine:

One Could Do Worse Than Be A Dumper Of Screens

I dream myself a spotter of weight-bearing fantasies
of half-whispered promises laced with nonsense syllables
my dialogue a monologue of graphic comics . . .
I am on top of things . . . deluded . . .
imagining the world as mirror-image . . .
as far-fetched deadline . . . indifferent, colorless . . .
improprieties squeezing through the holes in my story . . .
paper cuts and hypotheticals
a collage of weak passwords
legacied for shadowers of REM sleep . . .
Counting to the tenth power . . . within which . . .
if that's what you want . . .
the whole truth . . . and nothing but . . .
tap dancing . . . whistling while I work . . .
taking the long way home . . .
My notebook fills with snow . . .
Four score and something . . . and something else . . .
Off-days the string quartet in my back pocket
is all but played out . . . in three-quarter time . . .
Odysseyites . . . mark the spot . . . steal second . . .
and more . . . transposing the theme of Lassie
chock-full of unclaimed funds . . .
sitting there . . . festering . . . in the laptop of jargon
with no one worth emailing
about the sinister rise . . . in temperature . . .
A pound of something . . .
Tragedians backed-up at the roundabout
conjure audience implants
with places to go . . . people to be . . .
reworking the boundaries of ancient Greek mythos
with aspiring telecommuters . . .
I brood Bacon's comment about the violence of paint . . .
the unbearable heaviness of isolation . . .
Is there no other way? . . .
Indeed, one could do worse than be a dumper of screens . . .


Sunday, March 15, 2020

Screen Dump 496

So by half exist you mean what? . . .
The head boards have control of your head
and they're using it to illustrate
the ebb and flow of counterintelligence . . .
Someone intuitively selects a circle
to contain the argument which is making
its way along the rutted road
that runs alongside your dream house . . .
There's a run on everything I suppose
if you assume the unpopular stance
that there's no significant difference
at the .01 level . . . at any level
for that matter . . . but even then
hyperventilation cannot redeem
the world . . . and AI is out to lunch . . .
at least until 1:30 . . . Rewiring skin tags
begs fluctuation . . . wouldn't you agree? . . .

Anatoly Gladkov

Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Screen Dump 495

Humpty Dumptyites insist survival is predicated
on accepting disappointment . . .
Even health care workers are buying into it . . .
balding boldfaced burnt-out self-quarantined
in face mask and sandwich boards
pushing a fractal approach . . . while walking on
the frozen surface of a body of water . . .
billions and billions
on a tiny pale blue speck of dust . . .
wait to be loosed into the cosmic boondocks
of the late Cornell astrophysicist Carl Sagan
who shared the secrets of the Cosmos
with insomniacs while appearing
more than two dozen times
on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson . . .
Price gouging spikes . . .
for toilet paper, paper towels, hand sanitizers, hand wipes,
cleansers, detergent, disinfectant sprays . . .
Doomsayers wander empty supermarket aisles
plugging black holes with emptiness . . .
A conspiracy of cats contacts you . . .
Aquifers bloat watersheds . . . spark confusion . . .
Why does why invite seepage? . . . something unexpected . . .
Window-shopping for answers you encounter
an urgency with no recognizable context . . . and so it goes . . .

Humpty Dumpty circa 1873

Friday, March 6, 2020

Screen Dump 494

But then in the middle of the Alfredo you break it off
running tabs aerobically . . .
effortlessly . . . on one of your cardio days . . .
The morning coffee . . . altered
the plants sprayed
the cats fed . . . and watered . . .
It wasn't on the list, was it? . . . I mean
this offset color . . .
arranged I suppose in a rainbow of personals . . .
The language . . . inside and out . . .
suppositions . . . (with addenda) . . .
There's little here for watchers
if you discount them over there doing planks . . .
breaking through the fourth wall
with Cream of Wheat oversold, yes? . . .
elevating obscurity
at least in the red white blue states
somewhere here buried in the regs . . .
You alas as such . . . no, more, yes, more . . .
cultivating an avatar with rapidographic seizure . . .
the morning after . . . and then . . .

Wendy Bevan

Thursday, February 27, 2020

Screen Dump 493

It's all about degrees of freedom . . . costumes, angularities,
shadings . . . navigating an intersection . . .
midday . . . odysseyites treading water . . . again . . .
people spinning . . . accoutered with options . . . nothing makeshift . . .
private messaging their own doom . . .
highlighting with regret the ones that got away . . .
the clanging metaphor . . . laughable . . .
The colors of the day trot out . . . elsewhere
tendings accumulate . . . recalling morning breaks
and the rigmarole of the starting line. . .
iPhones punching in . . . around water coolers
with recaps of news items
that come and go . . . come and go . . .
Eking out a cover as if line-a-plenty were key to the labyrinth . . .
A practical guide . . .  at least according to some passersby . . .

Jan Scholz

Saturday, February 15, 2020

Screen Dump 492

You wake to a migraine of skates, draw a rink . . .
Your brain clots false binaries . . .
worrying the next of seven levels
knowing gropings and reversals have their own weird logic . . .
iPhones snap up your moves . . . exquisitely . . .
escaping overcooked Facebook chatter with elasticized joy . . .
Someone somewhere is about to walk into a room . . .
Again, the past . . .
Odysseyites make house calls with action figures
resurfacing February's frozen pond . . .
Schools of fish swim a snow day . . .
The understanding is white coral
interspersed with coffee breaks and fine china
and magicians - yes, magicians - with brown paper bags
brimmed with magic dust . . .
You continue to finetune your moves . . .
fueling the excitement of masked goalies with ulterior motifs . . .
Your mother kept the piece, downsizing a dream come true
for those dissecting the afternoon's fallout . . .
Transfixed, you enjoy bus stops that jolt you into journaling
your life partying with snow angels more often . . .

Irma Haselberger

Sunday, February 9, 2020

Screen Dump 491

The day reeks of snow . . . and lines from Gatsby . . .
borne back ceaselessly into the past . . .
The Stutz Bearcats . . . unsuspecting . . . put upon . . .
dabble chatty bangs . . .
runners up . . . misinterpreted . . . and late . . .
Daisy's white roadster appears . . .
as players are benched . . .
harvesting evidence for review . . . with a smile . . .
decades hence . . .
You arrive with Crayolas . . . the walls of your room rearranged
to better escort the inexperienced . . . drifting into invisibility . . .
into the land of prematures . . .

Mario Sorrenti

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Screen Dump 490

You're paging through . . . spelling redemption . . .
sinking a bunch from the free throw line . . .
eyes on the key . . . the steroids in the back room pushing big iron . . .
amused . . . you miss a spot . . . go back . . . and back . . .
back to your OCD . . . in fuchsia high-tops . . .
receptionists-a-go-go filling in the gaps
with furniture music from a hilltop factory spewing polyethylene . . .
shout-outs to the hyperventilating . . .
You propose a scavenger hunt with nanoseconds
the door ajar to a room festooned with period costumes . . .
The length enticing . . . the game continues . . .


Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Screen Dump 489

You miss the exit . . . and begin transcription
the backseat drama unfolding . . .
an overabundance of footnotes . . . trolls following the dotted line
into backroom bookshelves . . .
but this is what you wanted, yes? . . .
Thinking salutations . . . sulkily, you become a minion
searching the trash for disclaimers . . .
mapping the terrain of the argument . . .
If only odysseyites had proofed the pudding . . .
nosebleed sections deconstructed, labeled, reassembled . . .
Guiding the hands of players . . .
this from your notebook jottings
embellished with promises from would-be martyrs . . .
Removing transitionals from how-tos made it seem almost real
with more than enough space for everyone . . .

Wendy Bevan

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Screen Dump 488

Those least suspected moments are real page turners . . .
A blank space appears. . . teasingly . . .
Each night grayed-out . . . the same . . . the same . . .
I could be wrong but for all intents and purposes . . . frozen solid . . .
The unreliability quotient . . . quite obvious
in the face of things . . . as laid out . . .
Stopped and patted-down . . . you no longer matter . . .
as if one road rage led to another . . . and another . . .
with letters of introduction missing . . . from the alphabet . . .
Some debaters bail, decked out in madras thigh-highs . . .
no doubt to spark controversy . . .
Insignificant patter fills the aquifer . . .
adding insult to injury . . . just for the heck of it I'm sure . . .
After Dear Johning entry-level supplicants
pedaling backstory emails, you wallow . . . encrypted . . .
It's the kind of thing some would translate
but certainly not anyone from our neck of the woods . . .
Twelve stone four something . . .
The takeaway piss-poor . . . perma-grinned . . .
Allegations of usurpation shadow you . . . making it into the finals . . .
The square root of a chessboard? . . . If only . . .
Whoa! . . . That was . . .


Friday, January 17, 2020

Screen Dump 487

The hem of your story is enough
to color the afternoon . . .
but then you run . . . out of the blue . . .
eliminating the need
which becomes a metaphor
for days that pass
like false starts
on cold winter mornings . . .
You mumble cardio . . . and leave for the gym . . .

Anne Carson's Antigonick

Thursday, January 16, 2020

Screen Dump 486

Your words hurry past auditioners at the gate
sidestepping bus stops bottlenecked
by Academy Award Winners Emeriti
facebooking once-upon-a-long-time-ago performances . . .
A dress-down Friday with garbled voicemails . . .
Lifespans rarely exceeding Jack Benny's 39 . . .
Unlikely sex disguised as unlucky sex . . .
Of course those who acclaim the best is yet to come
are hit with a pie in the sky . . .
You commence yet another together-once-again meal . . .
community bowls brimmed with re-stuffed fortune cookies
a train chuffing at a station
a clock running with scissors
scriptwriters blocked
keyboards smoldering
insinuators banging on the back door
demanding revisions for lapsed best sellers
whose monochrome covers speak to the mundane
and want nothing to do with blurbers
from some sideshow that blew through town
when most were out to lunch . . .
Did anything resonate with the party of the first part
whose fuel filter seems to have been clogged from Day One? . . .
Talk about backseat deadbeats
with one-way tickets to Whereverland . . .
Beginning again . . . and again . . . and again . . .
Forget about reading the palm . . . as scripted . . .
There are rhymes-a-plenty waiting for you
somewhere over the rainbow . . .
A recapitulation of the ins and outs of Eurydice
might work . . . might be just enough to jettison the one-tricks
cluttering your walk-up and maybe help you pick up
where you bailed in the opening scene of tomorrow . . .

Sarah Ruhl's Eurydice

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Screen Dump 485

To ritualize the moment . . . possibly code it
for a performance piece that includes excerpts
from poems by Anne Carson
the Canadian poet who teaches
Ancient Greek for a living . . .
Silence is important . . .
In her translation of Antigone, Carson
took inspiration from Cage's 4' 33"
who said he built it gradually
out of many small pieces of silence . . .

An insinuation backburners
the whole thing . . .
When you return to it months later
you begin to obsess over line breaks . . .
An old friend calls
and you meet for drinks
at a small neighborhood bistro
filled with actors who have just finished
a dress rehearsal . . . Can you imagine? . . .
A dress rehearsal? . . .

Lilian Oben in Anne Carson's Antigonick

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Screen Dump 484

Drive-by do-it-yourselfers BOGO alternate lifestyles
harking back 40, 50 years to the Age of Remotes
when you would hang with bipolars and pay homage
to the big-haired . . . Did you feel intimidated? . . .
articulated? . . . Today is not . . . it never was! . . .
Return to the eight-day grandfather clock . . .
I mean the line has been crossed . . . many times . . .
so many times in fact that the queue has begged to differ
from costume mavens nitroglycerined with dreams of Fulbright's . . .
I Want To Hold Your Hand? . . . Seriously? . . .
Making do with the cunning psycholinguist
whose foot was caught in a sidelong glance . . .

Paolo Roversi

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

Moments

We do not remember days, we remember moments.
          - Cesare Pavese

In Room 401, a woman takes her last breath.

Elsewhere a surgeon positions a square of mesh to repair
a patient's hernia.

A maintenance man in a supermarket scrubs the walls
of a restroom.

Cows' breaths fill the air as a farmer brushes snow
off a trough . . .

and fills it with feed.

A young girl inserts a DVD of Wuthering Heights
into a Blu-Ray player, puzzling over the author's
pen name, Ellis Bell.

A tiger cat scratches litter in a litter box.

Kittens squeeze into a cardboard box that contained
12 bottles of Pinot Noir.

A homeless person arranges a cardboard box over a
heating grate.

Snow continues to fill the gray morning as cars
chance slick roadways.

In a dream a pinstriped mannequin enters a fun house.

A short-order cook whisks two dozen eggs.

A cellist works through Bach's Prelude.

Construction workers seated at a counter remove
their winter headgear.

A waitress refills cups of coffee, mentally reviewing
the material for tonight's mid term.

A children's book author enters rehab.

A shooter racks his handgun . . .

and fires into a crowd of shoppers at a mall.

At 4 AM a snowplow driver gets behind the wheel
of a snowplow.

A politician delivers a speech written by his staffer.

An actor rehearses lines.

An addict snorts lines.

An ER nurse worries her son's DWI.

A pregnant woman brews tea.

A pregnant woman is hurried into an emergency room.

A college president applies Anbesol to a painful tooth.

A nursing home resident cleans his dentures.

A platoon leader opens a Kindle.

A painter sits in front of a blank canvas.

A personal trainer leads a group of elderly trainees
through several aerobic exercises.

Hikers pitch a tent in a heavily wooded area.

The sun sets.

The sun rises.

A crash slows traffic to a crawl.

Someone dies.

Someone else dies.

A pediatrician delivers a baby.

Kids take turns sliding down a slide.

A couple enters a restaurant.

A man and a woman play chess.

A skier begins a descent.

An elderly person thinks back.

A potter throws a pot.

A pitcher throws a slider.

A batter swings.

A line cook preps vegetables.

A vegan orders off the menu.

A conductor raises her baton.

A drum majorette twirls her baton.

A motorist falls asleep at the wheel.

transit by Korner

Wednesday, December 18, 2019

Screen Dump 483

The barking that began four years ago has moved
into supportive housing . . .

declaiming the Fine Art of the Tin Can which came
and went and is back again

at your back door in leotard and pointe shoes . . .
The Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in

a French Foreign Legion film has gone missing . . .
along with Teshigahara's Woman in the Dunes

reshot on the moors of Ellis Bell's Wuthering Heights
with Roger Ebert's 4/4 rating . . .

European River Cruises are again flooded with
escapees . . . and deservedly so, yes? . . .

the day-to-day has gotten crazier . . . and crazier
and everyone's packing . . .

Did I say that or are you quoting the cereal box's
morning diatribe on fiber optics? . . .

YouTube'd beyond the glacial evergreens of your latest
inscrutable ruminations . . .

Give it a shot . . . nothing to lose . . .
How did the audition go? . . .

Trying to finish the book
before the culvert gets your goat . . .

We both saw that in the cards
last summer on Commercial Street . . .

Kyoko Kishida in Woman in the Dunes (1964)

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Screen Dump 482

This morning's bowl of Instant Quaker Oats
tried to warn you but you were busy Photoshopping
the crepey-skinned blue-penciled up-close-
and-personals shadowing you in the mirror . . .
You continue to pine for present participles . . .
the -i-n-g forms . . . the phantom-limbed future
participle . . . parsing the past . . . reviewing
rejected scripts submitted for your approval
by lesser-known wannabes from your old
neighborhood . . . To reject out of hand is a ploy
you use at last calls . . . trying to retrace your steps
to Utopia . . . pinned with a Rolodex of past players
who want to be friended - and more - on Facebook . . .
their arthritic lines as out-of-sync
as their costumes . . . You thought you'd enjoy
a respite but interlopers have begun bullying
noodles with chopsticks . . . demanding
takeaways . . . imagining the seven levels
of Golden Books . . . as if eating spaghetti
with a spoon . . . Ring Around the Rosie
soundtracks this latest craziness . . . boardwalk
castaways . . . nailing lines . . . adjusting camera
angles to entice the forgotten . . .

Paolo Roversi

Saturday, November 30, 2019

Screen Dump 481

You paraphrase delusions on street corners
for pocket change . . . The eyes of beholders
diagram the angles of seduction . . .
A steam locomotive stalls mid-steam . . .
sizzling something fierce in concert
with a pig roast where locals unravel
their histories of . . . Hooliganism,
I suppose . . . in throwaways . . . Is it? . . .
channeling Stevie Nicks's Gypsy . . .
outtakes left as gratuities by troubadours
passing through backwaters . . .
Bookbinding . . . the art of chance
for personal trainers with perfect form
qua function . . . The plot agape
as she leans in with a tearjerker
about her deadbeat dad . . .
a concert violinist from Siberia
who knew the score only too well . . .
mapping the lonely corridor along
cholesterol clogged arteries festering
coronaries . . . The monologue . . .
soliloquy? . . . speaks nonsense to partners
in loco parentis as they appear . . . trailing
incomplete sentences . . .
A show of hands indeed would . . .

Stevie Nicks

Friday, November 22, 2019

Screen Dump 480

You raise the stakes . . . then flee to CVS for ibuprofen . . .
ignoring tabled warnings . . .
emergency room regulars triaged . . . color-coded . . .
A big-shouldered cybertruck roams rotaries . . .
and the rules of the game are about to change
as the pizza arrives . . . and Act 2 begins . . .
You know you're trying to dress the part
with insignificance . . . but the clock shouts-out
circumstantial evidence from the inquiry . . .
and we're out of the gate, stuttering and stumbling . . .
retracing our steps to Utopia . . .
Inner ear hair cell damage from gangster flicks
with pals De Niro and Pacino and Pesci
and another epic conversation . . . conversion . . .
on the streets of Everytown . . .
shrink-wrapped and UPS'd to an offshore laundromat . . .

Deborah Turbeville

Thursday, November 7, 2019

Screen Dump 479

You worry Wonderland . . . and free shipping . . .
beta testing mantras on moonless nights
when peeling windows in SROs
look out onto playgrounds of orphans . . .
Boulevards drip off the edge of the canvas
for odysseyites tricked-out as centenarians from empty malls . . .
You surf YouTube for blue ribbon grilled cheese sandwiches
and think a field drill of sorts might help flip
the double-wides popping up in your lower 40
where answers in search of questions pester pensioners
who pine for the palisades of their entry exam
when they arrived late with bags of bags
sporting the endgame into the second
of five openings culled from a dog-eared how-to manual . . .

Anka Zhuravleva
















Thursday, October 31, 2019

Screen Dump 478

In nomine Patris mixes with pinot
the whole thing out of whack
sadly phenomenal with
Frankie (Relax) Goes to Hollywood
as if opening a door
and you wish for a silver bangle
to dispel the ennui so reminiscent
of comedown mornings
at archaeological digs
before being earwormed back
to the present with scenes
from Body Double tweeting
your climb up a silk rope
in some club du jour . . .
Hostile (eye)witness accounts
blur the truth . . . but it's there . . .
it always was . . .
in invisible ink . . .
under yellowing legal pads . . .
diagramming disclaimers
from headstone rubbings . . .
letters of the alphabet randomly
regrouping into images
of your odyssey
as your selfie pouts,
loses footing, tumbles headlong . . .
he said . . . she said . . . they said . . .

Body Double (1984)

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Screen Dump 477

Your costume walks out in the middle
its voice climbing to falsetto
as the mechanisms of relationships reach that point
where yesterdays audition for tomorrows
and you begin to lose track . . .
pining for buybacks
reposting blank pages
leaving everything to the imagination
while outside an Uber driver lays on the horn . . .
The table of contents grows silent
despite the book's shortlisting . . .
its labyrinth gutted . . . replaced by a dayglo condo . . .
Sideshow castrati are again using . . .
can you blame them? . . .
You know all the 3x5" index cards by name
and are smug in the commonplace
but not sure about the mapping
or where the choral group left the planchette
for the ouija board . . .
You agree to become a Ticonderoga #2
to have a go at drafting an intro
for the next installment . . . of your life . . .
Meanwhile you lose yourself in cascades
of coloratura . . . Who are we to deprive
the outer limits where players stationed elsewhere
engage overheated proofs
meant to placate the giddy? . . .
This too as if the body were a deliberate portion
charged with finalizing the recorded remarks
of those with magic lanterns
tattooed on their triceps . . .
The momentary arrives and will be with us shortly
its voice not unlike the cathedrals
of childhood where every nuance was bronzed
as a piece of the puzzle . . .

Wendy Bevan





Friday, October 11, 2019

Screen Dump 476

The inability of all the king's horses and all the king's men
to stay within the lines of code . . .
the lines . . . encrypted . . . taunted . . . tainted
by a rainbow of Crayolas . . .
Insensitivity defaults inept players . . .
and landscapes . . . and peoplescapes . . .
as frontal lobectomies mix dread with inconsequentials . . .
Bezos's Are you lazy or just incompetent? . . .
continues with It's really nothing . . . refusing
to be taken down to the sea
with the Ahabs . . . of Coney Island . . .
as if the shoe has yet to drop . . .
laboring . . . again . . .
under the conundrum . . . 8 / 2 (2 + 2) = ? . . .
Procrustean? . . . Daniel Day-Lewis's My Left Foot . . .
The lines as written . . . are drawn . . . delivered . . .

Mathematician Emmy Noether (1882-1935)

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Here's my winning entry in the Hudson Valley Writers Guild Dear Herman Contest, celebrating Herman Melville's 200th birthday. The four winners - Susan Carroll Jewel, Mark W. O'Brien, Dianne Sefcik, & I - will read our winning entries Saturday, October 12th, from noon to 2 PM, at the Melville House in Troy, NY:

Melville's Sister

I'm talking with Melville's kid sister
a scrappy towhead
with eyes like deep water
who signed on for a tour of the high seas
with her brother
but ended up here
in New Bedford
pierced, inked, in mauve coveralls,
slathering mustard and meat sauce
on footlongs for hard hats
from a shiny aluminum vending cart.

She communicates with great whites in trees
tends a small garden of hooded flowers
whose petals hold charts of whale migrations
collects harpoons she uses as pokers.

She talks about her brother
writing a novel about a mad hunt
for a fearsome whale
in a room on the second floor
overlooking distant mountains
in a farmhouse
on 160 acres in the Berkshires
that he named Arrowhead
after the relics he dug up
with his plow.

Her eyes darken as she mentions his demons
the locks on his writing-room
his pacing to escape the mind’s maelstrom
the ungodly boredom
his endless digressions
his obsession with privacy
that led him to destroy nearly all his letters
his dislike of photographers
(“to the devil with you and your Daguerreotype!”)
the so-called “failed” scribbling –
“The Whale” . . . too ambitious, too long, a leviathan –
despite its marks of “unquestionable genius”
the accusation of madness
prompting his postscript “I ain’t crazy.”

She chuckles as she tells me
how much her brother likes to watch
the farm animals eat,
especially taken by what he calls the “sanctity”
of the way the cow moves her jaws.

I too am taken, with this strange woman
whose costumes mimic the South Seas,
whose toenails match the color of noctilucent clouds
whose hands are music.

Off hours, she fulfills fantasies

her voice like billowing sails
guiding Ishmaels through narrow canals
spellbinding them
with the sounds of humpbacks
note for note
measure upon measure
before releasing them
drained yet sated
into the morning commute.

Herman Melville





Monday, September 23, 2019

Screen Dump 475

A kid on a red Stingray pops indifferent wheelies . . .
hits the ground with a three-point
far back enough . . . bulges the slot . . .
Did she say 40 percent . . . uniformed domestic violence?. . .
Netflix? . . . Unbelievable is unbelievable . . .
Milton scribbles in Will's margins . . .
in a Lost and Found Department . . . in Philadelphia . . .
Let the guy in booth #4 finish his two eggs over easy
while the monkeys of impeachment
get juice . . . for the miles to go before we sleep . . .
and you can forget about targeting the streets
with pinch hitters . . .
The count . . . three and one . . .
and the lopsided scales step up to the plate . . .
A memorial service . . . a wedding . . .
a bus making a left turn . . . stopped . . .
at an intersection . . .
a car speeding through . . .
and the scene shifts . . . precipitously . . .
The color of the year? . . .
Naval (blue) . . . Sherwin-Williams . . .
First light (pink) . . . Benjamin Moore . . .
Didn't they intimate as much
while you were locked on
Carson's The Beauty of the Husband:
So why did I love him from early girlhood to late middle age?. . .
Beauty. No great secret. . . . Beauty convinces. . . .
But what of late middle age . . . and beyond . . .
The falling leaves drift by my window?. . .
Let's open to Chapter 19 . . .
You'll smell land where there'll be no land . . .
And on that day . . .
Elijah?. . . Moby Dick?. . .
The movie . . . in the movie . . . not the book . . .
YouTube it . . .

Merritt Wever and Toni Collette in Unbelievable (2019)

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Screen Dump 474

Your oversized straw hat smirks innuendo
as it tunnels through an off-key dream sequence . . .
Hard work . . . when you can get it . . .
Can you imagine the mixup
highlighted for future reference chomping along? . . .
The rest was nothing much despite the normative inflation
which of late seems to have become your thing . . .
as if strengthening your core
curriculum with tacky math problems
and anti-static sheets
will translate into an anaerobic Dean's List . . .
The placeholder . . . confrontationally aloof . . .
pontificating in a faint, hippy-ish voice
that makes it hard to tell if he/she is joking . . .
It's kind of like repeat after me
as the concrete gargoyles refuse to dry
and this after the rigmarole of YouTube . . .
Time and again . . . something or other . . . Which is it? . . .
You have become adept at reconfiguring passwords
into anagrams for the keto set . . .
Here's that mountain of prejudicial evidence . . .
At one time funeral parlors, yes?. . .
Driving through a downpour, pinging . . .
Again . . . what's your IP address? . . .
Just checking to see if you have incorporated the go-betweens
into your bid for bluebook collectibles . . .
Ribbons and bows . . . of course . . .
and pedal-to-the-metal instances
when playing Spin the Kiosk with neighborhood pranksters
who know enough to wait in the wings . . .