without proper air conditioning

the ceiling fan spins.

we sleep, we sweat--down

on the comforter below.

art nouveau

How grand is this frame

around our bodies gilded

with dragonfly mint!

Log on to Computer

Mind the gap.
     but first press [Alt-Ctrl-Delete]
Mend the crack.
Monday nap
     [system currently loading data]
     to flee this
Mundane rack.

Cracked

this is an old one, but I'm going to go ahead and give it some fresh air:

stepped foot out onto
the ice and slipped. head tilts back
so the ground can breathe.

Pottery 2

he places the clay mold
on a tray to glaze and bake.
can't mend that crack now

Pottery

muses, he groans, then 

the clay molder morphs the brim

of his vase with spit

while wheeling the base

around. the slightest pressure

his finger applies

against the body

brings vulgar alterations

he fingers with finesse.

love is a crude mold,

lubricated and made from

the most base of things. 

Monsters

(Eggs and Biscuits. There is one mug halfway filled with warm coffee. Another, of water.)

M2 (Laughs while combing her hair with her fingers):
--So I have to be in this skit this next week in our bible camp. This is what I have to say. Well it starts--the two boys are named Lewis and Clark--Clark has just invited Lewis over to play his new football game he got for his Xbox. The game gets really close, there's a big build up. Finally, Lewis makes the winning point and he acts like a major douchebag about the whole thing. He starts yelling. And then the other one throws the controller and breaks the Xbox. I'm not sure how exactly. So then they start yelling at each other and Clark yells out ,"I hate you! You should just leave." Mrs. Smith (Now this is her queue) yells out, "Boys!" Gets their attention. She asks, "What is going on in here?" They start talking at once. Clark goes, "Lewis was acting like a big jerk when he got the final touchdown. Lewis is just jealous." Mrs Smith (Oh yes, I play Mrs. Smith) says, "Everyone relax! It's just an Xbox--it probably would have broken eventually anyway. You know (She Puts her hands on her hips. She's actually smiling now) there really is only one thing in life that can last forever and anyone and everyone can have it." Lewis says, "What's that, Mrs. smith.?" Mrs. Smith says, "It's called the Bible. and it contains all the plans and promises that God has for us. If we follow the bible, we will have eternal life!" And then one of the boys says, "Gosh, eternal life, it sounds expensive." She says, "Actually, it doesn't cost anything! All you have to do is love God and love everyone you come in contact with. It's that simple." The boys apologize to each other and then go play outside.

M1 (Laughs as his head drops backward into the couch cushion):
--WHAT!?

M2 (Giggles):
Oh, I know! Ahhh! This is not for the cat! The eggs and biscuits are not for the cat!

(The cat is sniffing the food on her plate. She pushes him away. Not actually touching the cat. It's more of a shooing away.)

M1 (To whom the eggs and cheddar biscuits look unaggressive, reticently pale and yellow):
--So weak. Cat wants his eggs. Give him his eggs!

M2 (Sillily and warped):
--Poor Puss looks Nonplussed.

M1 (Now takes on the persona of Catherine Deneuve as Carol Ledoux):
--Poor puss nonpluss-a-le-doo?

M2, an aside (French gibberish):
--Oui-a-le-doo-ahn-le-doux?

The cat licks his fiberglass sticker all over the eggs on the plate. He takes breaks and looks up at the siblings out of dubious appreciation. The apartment of the siblings is the setting for most of the play. Except for maybe the scene at the awards ceremony which will take place at Cannes film festival. Brother will read his script to his sister on the balcony of the master bedroom in the morning. What play should he be reading from? Perhaps a new play that the author will make up. The remaining eggs in the skillet on top of the stove are cold. There should be different mosaics around the apartment.

Mrs. Smith (While her appearance is Frazzled and crackly, she still exalts herself in her radiance):
--I've only got five lines. It's not like there's so much that any actress can do with this script!

M2:
--I never asked to be given the role. My boss said it might a good idea, however; so I obliged him.

Clark:
--And I'm some sort of monster!

(M1 has a clumsy hold of his mug. The kids are upset. M2 is the character charged with calumnies. Clearly, with Lewis and Clark, it's just a case of the "boys will be boys." Clark is not the monster. The writer does give away who she thinks is a monster. It's so obvious. Mrs. Smith must therefore be the recipient of this butterfingers-type of didactic mind work. The eggs look colder and more fragmented with each passing minute. Mrs. Smith is the one who takes blows and is made to be the fool, but she cannot be a monster when she has such nice hands and innocuous handling of the camp kids. Her arms flap about and know not what they do. It's all from the writer, anyway. She's the one writing in scores of scary organ work at every one of her stage entrances.)

M2 (Defensive):
--Don't put this on me! I didn't write this script.

Everyone (Together. Not exactly together, though, that would be cheap):
--If not you, then who did?

(Of course everyone knows)

(The plate on the floor is empty. And everyone is pleased to say that when they start the editing of the script, "there will be no discernible traces left of the recent occurrence of the eggs and biscuits." That dull business is to blame. Brother wants to kick Cat. Mrs. Smith tells the young boys that it is time for their bed. The siblings grow overly mettlesome, not yet decided on who will be their next monster. Mrs. Smith asks to be excused and is picked up by another camp counselor from another time. She will tell young audiences that is not okay to doze off in church or to turn your thoughts toward Sunday lunch while the preacher talks to you about reclaiming that infantile giddiness with the LORD or to think about Xboxes or girls or going to the bathroom. But she is not a monster.

Untitled Project on Sibling Actors, Part Two

Laurent rolls over on his belly to tan his back. Brother opens his eyes and gets a glimpse of the mosaic that is rigidly frontal. Space, especially the space of the mosaic's sky, is replaced here with golden square cuts of glass imbedded into the cement. The image of __________ is thus intentionally distanced from any correspondence with reality, almost more Byzantine in its transcendent qualities than Roman. Sister speaks again:
 --Oh, don't act so helplessly dejected.   
  Martha comes back to Sister with a folded white towel. Sister thanks their dutiful maid for all her hard work and tells her that she can take off early. She will not be needed anymore today. Sister gives up on trying to persuade her Brother to come claim his gin and tonic, so she brings it over and sets it down two feet away from his left hip at an easy arm's length.
 Laurent studies this afternoon scene in the backyard with his natural gift of rare attention to detail. He thumbs the bronzy-green abdomen of a dying Orange-spotted Emerald Dragonfly. He imagines that its large and bright, multifaceted eyes take in the image of himself, blown up into a gargantuan viewing angle. He wonders if the dragonfly dies in fear of Laurent the large and clumsy predator. Laurent fragments time and splices into the flow of what most would agree are trifling incidents his own discursive reflections and reconstructs a mise-en-scène that he can claim as his own.
 At a distance, Sister talks about dinner plans. She will tell the cook to pan-sear a fish and sauté some sea scallops. There is the tapenade from yesterday that surely has only gotten better overnight as the olive oil has had more time to allow the flavors of the olives, capers, and anchovies to blend more smoothly with the olive oil and garlic. Bread, do we have bread? Their friends, the Cornishes, are traveling from London and will be staying the night in one of the vacant suites at the siblings' mansion. Sister tells Laurent also to forget about the script. She probably will decline the offer. Brother takes a sip of his drink and hopes that he has not mistaken the day. 

Untitled Project on Sibling Actors

        After another dip in the pool, Laurent gets out and lies down across the Romanesque mosaic that Father designed and shaped into the patio last summer. His skin is now beginning to turn pink from all the laying about outside that he does during the summer. Laurent gingerly dips his fingers into the pool water. His fingers lightly tread among the slender, laurel green leaves of neighboring Picholine olive trees that were carried over by the wind into their backyard. He lifts his fingers up from the water as if absolving the pool of its daily transgressions and proceeds to run his fingers through his espresso-colored hair, pressing it back from the top of his forehead and continuing until it is all slicked back.
Nearby, Sister lies back in a wicker patio chaise lounge chair next to a smaller olive-green tea table. She twirls her pen back and forth with her fingers. Her eyes lazily register the words on the pages in her lap that their maid, Martha, handed her thirty minutes ago. A new part for her. She clicks the end of her pen in and out several times as Martha walks back to her with a tray of cocktail glasses filled with ice cubes. The maid sets the tray down upon the table next to the Tanqueray bottle. Neither one of the siblings are able to physically acknowledge the maids returns, they are too preoccupied with their own thoughts. Martha pours both of the siblings a stout gin and tonic and selects two lime wedges from a small silver container with her tongs:
--Avec or sans?
Sister keeps her eyes on the stapled packet and daintily points to the glasses:
--With, of course.
Laurent turns over and looks at his sister:
--What time is it?
--Just now five o'clock. Do you not want a towel?
She says to their maid:
--Could you bring a towel over to Laurent, s'il te plaît?
Martha nods her head and walks back inside. Brother asks Sister what it is she is reading. Sister sets the papers down onto the tea table next to the silver tray, picks up one of the glasses, and then takes a long sip of her drink with marvelous aplomb. She holds the glass under her nose and melts in its aromatic element.
--A new script.