POEM: “BODIES”

GOSSIP. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]

I’m back in town again, and everyone knows it.
I feel one hundred eyes on me.
I feel signs going up, shutters, doors closing.

I pull the rope knot tight round the wood, horse kicks.
Dogs bark in the distance. The wind picks up.
I’m surrounded. Voices, whispers, old lips.
Eyes I’ve seen before, faces I’ve lit up.

Mud drips black off my coattail like spit from the mouth.
It snakes through the dirt.
I’ve got dead bodies hidden all over this town,
Under floorboards, behind barns, in the walls of homes on First.

Ghosts follow me to the Town Hotel,
follow me up the creaking stairs to my room with no lights.
I get into the bed. They follow me into my sheets.

Twitter: @BenBenCaro

TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER.

EARNED LEADERSHIP. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]

—-

her lips spread wide across her face

as she smiled at my joke,

—-

                 and whispered

     “take me

                  to your leader.”

—-

I followed her out of the bar,

I introduced her to herself.

—-

LEISURE. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]

the middle aged man
loses slowly
the use of his knees

the middle aged man
finds difficulty
sitting in seats

while his friends continue
with their usual cricket game.

i have begun to sit at cricket games
so to speak.

i’ve gotten up to play
made eyes at you twice
sat back down.
i betrayed both teams
by making love to all sides
sat back down.

he keeps playing
he keeps running
and i don’t relate to sports analogies,
but i’m trying.

this man is sitting in a wheelchair
and someone is pushing him in.
broken arms
mosquito-thin legs,
and finally when he goes home
his eyes and skin reel, tingle
he cannot anymore
he cannot anymore

he listens to the radio
the crack loud, bam, cheer run.
he can no longer play
he can no longer compete.

and perhaps i need to say
i’m finding difficulty
sitting in seats.

————

www.twitter.com/benbencaro

PRETEND BUILD. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]

She told me she would build me

a castle high up in the air

filled with everything I ever needed

and I could sit up there with her

and we could love each other forever.

SIKE

she said.

But I didn’t see what was so funny.

Because what she didn’t know

is that the castle was filled with dungeons

for those who disappointed me.

SCARE. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]

have you ever
made a sex tape
no
i have not
have you?
no
would you mind
if we tried
no

i don’t
know what to do
yes
you do
just don’t think
about it
but it’s there
it’s not there

i feel it
i feel it
it’s not there
i feel it
where will you put it?
as long as it
doesn’t go on the internet

ha ha
no
it stays between us
you can even keep it
no
i trust you

i trust you
i trust you
no

SCHEDULING. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]

Nothing brings me so much joy
as a pot of half-filled coffee
waiting for me in the morning
leftover from yesterday
The work’s been done

My phone lurches at me through a horrible caw
like a scythe wrapping around my ribs, and yet
my memories hold the same melody
in the same manner pleasantly
It’s not too much to believe

The light becomes a solid wall of dust
lighting up golden the roads, the air between
my eyes and the cars sliding down the street
A pollution that gives for this one sun passing
beauty in five minutes
the work’s all been done to it

A shadow is cast from a yellow box building
and juts down an alley like a line dividing wars
It shoots over grass darkening one side and keeping the other light
It strikes through a fence where there is a hole
glides over stone floors, creating cracks upon cracks
and places of no cracks alike
Then it hits me running over my elbow
over my belly, up my shoulder
I can let it run over me if I can enjoy both sides

SHOWER. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]

Without doing much
All the grit is lifted off
And again you’re free

PUNCTURE. [GMT-7 LOS ANGELES]

I’ll CCCcccccc-ccc-see

if EYE [strikemark_<del>proc = if I

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Puncture [GMT+2 PORTUGAL]

Os meus raciocínios chocarão por vezes contra os guizos da loucura e contra a aparência séria do que não passa de grotesco (embora, segundo alguns filósofos, seja bastante difícil distinguir o bobo do melancólico, visto que a própria vida é um drama cómico ou uma comédia dramática).

“Cantos de Maldoror”

SALARY. [GMT-8 LOS ANGELES]

Sharp edge of paper
Opening the envelope
Will never pay well

RUSH. [GMT-4 WASH DC]

ODE TO LIMBAUGH

Thoust love of thine
by but another younger name
of Rusty Sharpe
none more sweet my rhyme
for Republican revolution-ize.

My darling need not college credentials
Southeast Missouri State
only took a year
until my love knew his standard
was too great a potential
for conventional national grading.

My darling need not be in the party
to honorarily belong to the party
knownst amongst as
Majority Maker
his membership eternal as his lore.

My darling need not vote for Reagan
(his hero paramount)
for Rush cannot but wait
until ripe at 35
to vote for a candidate.

My darling need not hear my voice
nor callers and hagglers
and Democratic mongers
for his stenographer recites
and types
real-time transcripts of on-air conversations.

RESET. [GMT-8 LOS ANGELES]

Moving back into my girlfriend’s house

After living on my own, three months

New cereal sits on the top of fridge

I lie down next to her in bed

My trash bin stuffed with books back into my car

Like a bone, reset, waiting

For the next blow.

BLONDE. [GMT-8 LOS ANGELES]

Standing tall over Chicago
don’t despair
the windy city won’t blow you down
your skirt is already up
what more could you ask for
frozen at your most powerful moment

Let them lean on your heels
pretend to lick your feet
keep your eyes pointed
toward St. Louis
maybe follow the flight
of a bird landing below

Your smile in the face
of all the critics
I wish I was up there with you
wish I could stay with you
when they take you from Michigan Ave
but can’t take you down

JUVENILE. [GMT-8 LOS ANGELES]

 Lines From Poems I Wrote In Elementary School

Some people think school is fun
I think they’ve just had too much sun
-from “School”

Cause they were hitting my head,
the back of my head.
-from “Fresh Cuts”

resident of modern life.
-from “Self Poem,” in which I was supposed to write “resident of [where I lived at the time]”

DIET. [GMT-8 LOS ANGELES]

The First

She had a secret or
something I wasn’t supposed to understand.
I laughed to hear she was on a diet,
something I thought only grown-ups
had a hand in. But her downcast eyes,
sitting on cheeks like two stuffed pies
seemed different now as she swayed her arms
standing in the cafeteria line like any other day.
I didn’t know what to make of her.
Had it taken her? We all svelte small bodies,
her pear-like shape.That’s all it was,
but here she was thinking beyond that,
feeling something else entirely, and now
those eyes watched the floor differently
than the other kids’, to me, cogs turning,
thunder and darkness flashing behind them.
I noticed her rolls as she squeezed and rotated
into a chair, ate quietly like a bird, saying few words.
I went home and looked down
at my smooth white belly for the first time.
At the button caving in, a ring of flab surrounded it,
like swelling round a bee sting. But
I still craved Cookies and Cream
so I put on my shirt went to bed and had a dream
with Nicole in it. I could see her body fine,
but her face was gone, and
after talking with her body I was supposed to find it.

DUTY. [GMT-8 LOS ANGELES]

What I bring back to my home is mine.
I do not need to pay you for what I’ve moved
from one space on the earth to another.

Next time you’d like to take something from me,
step into my home instead
and take what you wish from the cupboard.

It’s already soaked in my trappings. It’s
had a chance to absorb oils from the air,
and probably gives the same scent as my hands do.

You must have plans to
create something of your own one day with
these stolen little additions, but

I think you’ve got it wrong.
Let the item in for awhile. Let
the piece pick up speed.

Then when you take your tax
you can take a little bit of that smell, that
shine and flavor with it.

Make a profit beyond what you got it
for originally, and move the memories
just as we move the things.

APPRECIATION. [GMT-8 LOS ANGELES]

No Contact

The phone rings and my heart drops in my gut
and I feel like I’m dead or about to die.
But each time I thank God it’s you when I pick up
and I feel so much better without even trying.

And we talked
no small talk.

On December 24th you had not eaten dinner
after driving for three days
through soggy hills and grass.
You called me crying, it felt like days.

And we talked
no small talk.

I had a gift to give a friend
though you didn’t want me seeing him,
so I left it at his front door, 604,
though his could’ve been 610.

And I couldn’t knock on the door,
I couldn’t use my phone,
and you would’ve called me stupid for just leaving it there
if you could’ve even known.

And so I went home.
Are you sure that you’re alone?
Heard static coming from the corner,
switched on the two-way radio.

Got my orders to hold my position
as long as I possibly could.
Man turns his back on his family,
that man just ain’t no good.

And we talked
no small talk.

ILLITERATE. [GMT+1 LONDON]

There the propensity and maturity for manner
there worst part indulthood.
There he truth once deathing for life,
of growth by poison,
the couldn’t virtuous one who did not have to man
succumbs which he means of growth indulgence.

Life of others masked in a stagnant:
Time Truth.

Once death by poison,
there there that the confidence.
That he the propensity and malevolentries due
behave malevolent indecentries thus confidence,
the perceived was jovial to who it did not:
He Reviewed.

TRAIL. [GMT-8 LOS ANGELES]

A MEANS TO AN END

I just…

I sometimes just…

I don’t know, I sometimes…

You know, I can’t…

I haven’t quite figured out how to…

I don’t quite know how to…

I’m not really sure I…

Listen, there’s something…

There’s something I need to ask you, but…

Well, spit it out then.

How do I end this sentence?

MOON. [GMT-4 NEW YORK]

silver glow at night

shadows shrink back in the brush

a chill in the air