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  May 2019 Benjamin
Carl Velasco
after Ansel Elkins

Carabao **** isn't permafrost,
temperature, disdain — climates
stirring into a tornado soup
of force, melting, seclusion.
In the heartbeat of gulls,
the waves gargled froth and
spat on charred limestone.
Then the grass beneath our
wet feet writhed in the
slice of wind atop the hills
of Hiyop, in Catanduanes
where roads go unmoored from
their skiffs like violin
strings curling under sharp
slide. You can invent a new
word to describe transformations,
but these will never catch it
in the act — the moment
vibration somersaults into
howl, when swinging grass
is louder than jetplanes
then suddenly quieter than
prayer. I like to dig my thumb
into the soft marsh, dirt
occupying the folds, creases;
labyrinthine pathways of skin
blanketed with Earth.
At this point the mountain
knows me;
and I dare to know the
mountain but come short, reaching
only its narrow berms,
pockmarks,
and ****-ridden sheath of
dry flowers cooking the
words to a song of its
people.
November 2018
  Apr 2019 Benjamin
r
It’s a short walk from here
to Sneads Ferry Cemetery where
the bored to death are buried -
I go there every now and then
and read to them a poem by Lorca
the fortunate who died so young -
bled beneath an olive tree, a fascist
bullet to the head, no pain, I envy that
his fast demise, no boredom -
or surgeon’s knife to try to slice
away the little flowers of the grave
I would take his bullet any day -
before I’m bored, before the blade
before I claim a plot, or take up space
here in this ******* boring place.
Benjamin Apr 2019
in deep tissue
I remember things
that must have happened when
I was someone else
in another life

a cause irritant
entrenched because
it flows out from me,
or my mouth, at least,
at certain times

I couldn’t say
if I knew the story
from staring at these
Kodachromes
I’d kept in storage

or if I’d really
died before
and been reborn,
to bleach the cancer
so I could sleep better.
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