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

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

The Shirt that I Named

It has been five years since I
Dropped my eyes in a tinted vase. Every
Thing azul. The crook of your
Arm bruised blue. And the
Shirt that I named Ophelia.

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH

The Anvil

A cube was never meant to make one
Shrink. The atrophy. Made mad by
The mad. The matriarch. O medicine woman,
Why can't you lift the anvil? Under the crippled
Canopy I can hardly think. 

© 2014 BENJAMIN SMITH