Celebrity Tetris


1. Salvador Dali

Each conglomeration of cubes
melts into the rising floor
that somehow remains
just as far from the top of the screen
as when those ants rolled
the cracked egg of the world
into view to start the game.
The clock is curled up and purring
at the feet of the score.


2. Walt Whitman

There is one cube only, and it contains everything. It is
............a short game.


3. Herman Melville

Rows of blocks rise and fall
like waves, but for any points at all
you must completely bury
the massive white rectangle
which only appears once per game,
turning blood red under pressure
strong enough to crush
even the harpoon-shaped
bonus items, tattooed
with the hieroglyphics
of the unattainable
high score.


4. Tom Cruise

The object is to become the screen,
to become clear. The only way
is to pay someone enough
to reprogram the game
and never tell anyone.


5. Orson Welles

The game begins in black and white
with surprising angles keeping things interesting.
The elegance of the early rounds
gives way to less subtlety
with the introduction of color
and the gradual increase
in the sizes of pieces. The screen
remains the same dimension
which makes it very hard to fit everything in
especially as wine bottles
begin crashing down, although
the mariachi music is a nice touch.


6. Jean-Paul Sarte

The object is to place the nothingness
carefully, so that being descends
directly into it. The primary challenge,
of course, is swiveling invisible space
so it faces the right way, and keeping
existence from wandering off
in search of food. There is only one level
and the game never ends.


7. John Cage

Game? What game?


8. Pablo Picasso

Nothing fits. Elbows jut awkwardly
left and right burying spaces
as they crash down. Right angles shiver
scaling the white mountain of the screen.
Each shade of blue apologizes to the others.


9. David Lynch

It is just bright enough
to reveal the naked woman
smoking in the background.
Instead of blocks, severed ears,
blue keys, saxophones
and the head of Angelo Badalamenti
(wrapped in red velvet)
drop slowly toward
the open mouth
at the bottom of the screen.
It is amazing how well
they all fit together.
The score is wrapped in plastic.
On a small television in the corner
there is a rabbit singing
into a trouble light.


10. Samuel Beckett

Two pieces mirror each other perfectly
at opposite sides of the screen.

Wait for it…

Letter to Brendan Constantine from
an 1808 Harper’s Ferry Blunderbuss
on the Lewis & Clark Expedition


I’ve been taking aim at etymology
and I wanted to ask you about thunder,
the way lead shot echoes its names
through my barrel following the spark
I never see, but which always wakes me.
I’ve been dreaming I have a spirit –
I can’t decide if that’s a good thing.
Yesterday, I felled another deer. Pocahontas
won’t look at me, won’t come near enough
to smell the remnants of each tiny fire
scouring this land in preparation
for what you’ll come to call history.
The Dutch confused me with a pipe,
playing Adam for their loud new toy
because even a gun must be called
by its name. Just like you,
Magritte would’ve known
I am no pipe, nor can it rain businessmen
when the sky is shaken empty
of everything but lightning’s past
reverberating the memory of sound
long after silence is all that’s left
to comfort the rain.

Why I Write

Any fresh ink will tell you
Not enough people understand
The way letters linger
Indigo in the mouth, like
Ornithology dancing through the air:
Charlie Parker’s horn humming words long after
His tongue has fallen asleep.

previously published in The Enigmatist