Pressed Poppy

You are flat, you are flat,
Fixed between two slides like
A germ, firm. Flat. I lionize.
Brother of the cry of the back door,
Brother of the bat.

Trimmed of matter, trimmed

Of fat. Witnessed only in nudged knick

Knacks, or in a touch, a paralytic pressing

Of this, of that. You seem disappointed, though.

You seem a bit detached.

Black concentrate. The same as
In your grandmother’s frames – 
You are monochrome, revolving in an
In-between state, yet to navigate to grip

The knob. There is no knob. Not yet.

A cross-stitch wheel with your thread
A bridal train. It scrapes like a butcher’s babe

And here it is, the rift. Mobile in daylight, twilight,

All light, you walk. O look at those limbs,

Slim, black legumes in a crystal suit.

Ironclad, it accommodates.

You asked. Implored. Now mother moons lend

A poor, poor excuse for a voice. A sharpened sigh

At night, an audible frieze. Flat, pressed
Poppy, the glass is not your crutch. 
It boxed you up all Christmas-like, all

Chinese.

So lustrous, so compact, scalp smoothed

By the stuff of trees.

Dry, indelible, flat. Pellucid, with an upright riddled

Facsimile rightfully cast.  The onus of a

Caryatid, holding up this crust.

It made you useful, little loaf beneath the

Garden. Glassy aftermath – you hang horizons

On your shoulders like stoles, like holes unbidden

In the matte. It heard you ask and ask and

Ask. That swindler. That savior. That ashen acrobat.

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH

Ode

Get out of there.
Siren sans the sea, you’ve stored

Yourself with kitchenware – Oui, oui, you are a 

Remnant woman, papery Miss. Swimming
In packaged smog, a gray goddess 

In a cloud contained. This cave of grays

Is no place for a deity the likes of 

You. I eat each of your moves, unrolling the 

Lines. An archive stacked on the steel 

Shelf, silver rack cooled, as if they still require time 

To cook. What a waste. Varnished, calloused, 
Scarred. For god's sake, put them back in the book.

Isn’t it uncomfortable? Huddled up
Near the back, near the back, arms
Wrapped about your voice, a choir of
Watered screams – Get out, please come out.
You can’t continue bottling my theology. Your 
Grail-head, your lap-chapel. Your hair is a prayer.

To deserve to perch in a
Tabernacle, yes you’ve that badge, that

Patch of grisly gauze. But why will you not
Budge? Look upon my back! The black
Manifesto, square and of skin.

You may take it, you may peel it off

If you come out from there.

Hold it to your breast and nurse it with

Sweet ennui like the mother you are. The ‘a’s 

Will latch fast. It is yours, stitched to 

Me at best. It crisply calls and I hear it. I

Hear it all, your turbulent way of the

Stressed, the unstressed, the pause –
The door is horizontal. 
The door swings down – Shuffle to the side, 

My opal, my gassed Godiva. If you will
Not oxidize with me then I am coming 

In. We will sit on that spindly stage

Together, both in chairs of casserole 

Pans, cookie sheets. Two levels, like
A glimmering bunk bed! You were 

Wise to retreat.

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH

The Acts

A man outside the pharmacy,
Beside the carmine crust of a
Truck, Asked me if I was okay.
Months ago. I think, I sleep and
Wake on slabs, on slabs
Like rootless rafts - I had forgotten
Him. His trim face deep with
Wise wells. And a billed hat.

There was a rap of pistons on glass,
Pallid phalanges, and the
Coiled hair, manikin fairy, eyes
Mined from a geode. She strode
In unwelcome air, placed the cleaver
In my hand. She did not know the
Hazard, rutted brain, the
Blemished land. We spoke of writing.

Why do clocks look more like Shiva,
Blades of planes chopping days
To a fog of pills. I had forgotten him.
Fire halo, the monocle. Thrashing
Through molasses that is today,
Is tomorrow. Dicing up these acts.

Fonts are fractal, jagged lines each
Stamped with the time. Where is the
Advancement in that? The calligraphy?
Common names: Connie, 

Deborah, Susan.
They are kind to me. Middle-aged
Mysteries I’ll never meet.
They are kind to me.

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH

Curriculum

Rigid; the required set, the tired

Petting of heels on Time’s carpet.

Birthed into a naiveté, dense.

A school of khakis and one single

Hall. One becomes a scab so

Immense that motility is miraculous.

A checkmark, a tally. Tightened

Skin brimming with the fat of fourth,

Of fifth, of sixth. Hand in hand with

An epiphany. 

Skip across the yawn that flanks

Each bank of a universe. Cry over

A calculator and mine, and mine,

Until the searing nougat of this earth

Is a slingshot adept at knocking

The metallic membrane from your lips.

Speak, speak cautiously. Step into

Sects and show them your teeth.

Give it a year, long enough to

Shred the gown, and then return to

Tunnels. Do not linger on “Parental.”

Bore, blind and blissful and hit the

Buried totem, the slender anti-amulet.

And permit it. Permit the whirlwind

To whisk you to cloud ceilings,

Fiery floors. Myriads of men, other

Mothers, other brothers, other

All. It will shift, like cheap plastic in

The pit. Let it twist. It will twist regardless.



© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH

Three's

Every thing must come in three’s,

In we’s, not I’s. There is a toppling with

Two’s, it is common sense. A barbed

Brace on biology, a verdant rug

Determined. This is what we find.

Then, multiply two breasts by three,

Adding gravity, squared, side by 

Side. A spaghettification of sorts. O

Estrogen, so wise, so wise. You gave them

A tool, each one, to clot the ticks in my life.

Three faces bright by a monitor. And 

Six hands preoccupied. Knuckles

Knobbed, noxious. Girls, girls, why

Must you so tactfully itch to command?

Unzip the marble coffers, you’ve been

Stiff, sedentary every time the

Pool depicts.

You are busy, with a linear 

Career. I admire it, the fastidious 

Whispers of your instruments. 

Three notes. Triple-pitch.

String, stretch, scissor. No

Collective dither, you are aplomb

In your measurement. The whoosh,

The snip, the glint off the shear.

And three serrated grins in the 

Void of a slipstream. Girls, Girls. You’ve 

Defined. You’ve awaited the last of this

Inch. Oh yes, you've clinched the deadline.  


© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH

A Second Eulogy

You've nearly done it. You look 

Almost identical. So close to the rank 

Of replica, my specter, growing solid. 

Are you a clone? Coy, ripe with fractures. 

There is something askew, though. A 

Single cell of your mosaic removed.

You are different.

Imagine, I paid you a courtesy. I interred,

And you couldn’t hold firm the form of

The split shell that sticks to

The innards of my lids. Nothing is

Sacred. No, not even six feet of funerary dirt.

I am intrigued; that two years could

Glaze you to an antique. Cracked,

Embellished with golden Africana. A wetted

Porcelain, tilting with attic attribute.

It is when I think that I link the

Line to an obtuse hook that rips

Off the false patina. There’s the proof.

Me, the necromancer.

And yet I am doubted: my alacrity to 

Spoil myself rotten, with handfuls of harms. It is

So easy; to stimulate the resurrection. There

Is no recipe; hollows jar-jammed,

Earth birth boiling, anthology. Why  

Would I require these? – A trigger? 

Please, elaborate. What do you

Mean?

I thought I had made myself clear

That I’ve capacity. 

I told them. I told them all. Now

Look at what leans adjacent, away from

Me, white and gelid as the arctic constant.

And demands the contents 

Of my peach sleeve in their entirety.

It is hardly grueling,

This perfected poignant praxis. A failing,

Fooling every pillar in me to puddles.

And that thudding, throbbing juggernaut 

That crushes my judgment so sweetly. 

God do I do it well.

It is the gelatinous texture of it, the thickened

Recollection that I probe. Do you not see

That I touched you? I should amputate.

But instead I print this second eulogy with

The glitter gone gray –

A name? What do you need of my 

Name? It was Tantalus that night, 

Steeped in a sentiment aquatic. Face 

Beat by spray I took

My own bait. I granted your dead, 

Dead eyes to dine on mine.

  

What a marvel, what a séance. Watch me,

Watch me, academia, as I defy.

Ghoulish wheat, spiking through the loam.

Feigning the martyr, you do not deserve

A prize. What am I to gain from your silvered

Scarecrow but another fissure. What repaired
Lobe are you now dying to colonize?  

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH

Medicated

Each day, near seven, I 
Crash. I plummet like a fork,
A gargantua robed in brass and
Bone. The trail is black, I do not
Know of a home. 

So I hit the plastic sea with a scowl.
My velocity, a handicap as

I sink, I sink; not a thousand but a 
Billion leagues down, to the room where
I can do nothing. Nothing but think.

I am sick to death of chemicals. 
Ovoid vectors tinkling down the 
Chimney of my throat. I can hardly 
Stand to lift my mitt to deposit - is

This my hand? No, a mechanic’s

Sweat pearls. They cause this

Diagonal landing, a

Warranty to dive deeper each time.
They hurt me when I hit. Which came
First? They hurt me but they bless.

Symbiosis in a mangled dress.

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH

Departure

for Karina Dubisky

DEPARTURE

It is light, the
Filament coined to fasten. A lithe

Wiring, fingertip to fingertip.

Wrist-wrapped, wander-worn. It is dirty,

Flung across a winter, a summer. Repeat.
Repeat, repeat.
The calendars are molding. There is
Damp wood and needles, interest

Accrued under our feet.

Around the hipbone, like a rogue
Brooch. Not a dragging, but
Floundering steps, from downtown

Lot to parking garage.
I am a telephone pole, and
The men don't sleep, they must,
They must extend the cable. Invading
The hypothesis. They must encroach.
Such a secondhand ligament.
But it is far from thinning and

Far from sagging. It often fools me.
Me fools me. The wagging water
In the desert that snaps back to
Land. A remarkable wrecking, with my
Medulla chaining me before saucer                                   

Eyes and all that's not mine, the
Procession paralyzed. Monkeys
In the middle of swing. I do not know

If my mouth is full of sand.
I cannot specify what is lounging

On my tongue. An emptiness? A
Mark of miles? But my face is salted, clearly labeled.
Heart hands wrung out every sparkle
In preparation. We are not grunting in
Gasped galleries. We are not drowned
In that yellow light yet. But, God,  we could be.
DaVinci's dinner is not for us. No, we
Chose a cardboard table instead, with
An atmosphere defined by an inch of
Glass, blocked.
Epoxy and a cat. The sweep
Above your lash.

This is a manual. This is how to end
A pinch of the whole. What number is
It for you? How lengthy is the summation

Of your type-written role?
It meets the morgue; we cry, but
Now it is renewed. A screaming signature
So the undone seconds of an
Intermission are redone. And we are
Back to number one.                                                             

O umbilicus, do not let the knot fly
Through. It is two, it is two. The cord
Will be galvanized ─ our bellies
Withdrew. Mutual permission to
Gird them in steel. A flattening
In the field. The porch, the dark parlor

Now taped off. A terminus
For pilgrimage. A million Meccas.

Shrines noisy with the
Parroting of you.

I love you, I love you.
Your flat bleats it's siren song. A
Melody of manipulation, of maturation,
And in the harmony is a promise.
A future wine-kiss. A madam, a
Tarot table. A surplus of this,

Of this, of this.

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH

Until You Marry It

When you pull the nose, the 

Cheeks, the lips ─ the rest comes with.

Perhaps a white sheet, perhaps a 

Paragraph. Eight point. Hieroglyph. 

A padlock now pried. And peeks 

At word peaks. I've tried, I was one

To excavate and sigh on 

The vacancy. I have done it, have

Hung my white flag. Fruitless 

To 'what if.'

No more. No, I lift it with intention

To lick the last pulp plate dry.

Mouth black, eyes swung back

In absorptive pollination.

It is a commitment, a vow

To bow before a seeming stack of

Syllable trash. And a contract

Sealed with neurons to last, to last.

A laugh. I needn't be so shy. It

Parts so willingly.

You find it dull. You find it’s skeletal

Sentences dripped with drool.

But leafing turns to biting. Turns to

Gnawing, rolling rapports round your

Jaw. A ravenous clang of page after

Page between fang. How wondrous ─

The simplicity in adopting the maw.

The blank screen graced with place

And face, all framed

In hazy milk. 

It is the transmutation of it, from 

Soporific to sermon. A foot of dust

On the bible ─ these ones bear

A far more spiritual shock. You view it as

Chore, until your spine snaps at the

Spin of it. Until you swallow it. The angle

Alters, trot to rocketing, and the

Climax is your climax.

Huffing, wet, wallowing in the mess.

Commas and capitals. Lap laden

With the win of it. 

It is in every tome, a seed of

Sinew. It is a mirror.

Its peels stink of your fingers

In the end. And your veins have

More than ventured, curling about

That of a vapor. You tremble, you

Can barely sit. Trauma-dropped,

It is cooing at your feet. Refusing

To blend. You think a

Book is bad until you marry it.

Until you've carried it over the

Threshold. Wood. Or plastic.

Or pile. A heap, a heap, be it

Costly or cheap. Until you bury

It. Not at the midriff, but at the zenith,

Where it banters on and on

By telegraph. You welcome it

In that anechoic grotto. It is so

Bad, until, sub-hair aware, you 

Triumph in the fail to parry it. 

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH