I read through a bedside stack
of my poems labeled The Heartfelt Architect.
They were bound with a paperclip
reshaped to accommodate their numbers.
Half the pages featured watermarks
around the edges like emotional copyrights.
I had written about friends' frustrations
with loves and losses for three years,
stressing that paperclip every day
before realizing I had written an autobiography.

I pressed my back against a cold
bench textured like vinyl records.
The teens that sit here spin
gossip like forty-fives before
the subway train stops. Their black
nails dig the city groove
of ears popping and the hopscotch
skips above. A man strums
his steel guitar to the beat
of footsteps echoing through
the tunnels. Like a tambourine,
the kids’ loose change bounces
off the concrete muffled
by his distressed Yankees cap.
They won’t miss the feeling
of Abe Lincoln’s *****, copper
beard between their fingers.
*More room to bury their fists
and dig the city groove.

Dizzied by a porch swing's varnish Chloroform,
I shared a silver hook with a knotted rope
snake for stability. Although my finger
constricted the viper against the cold metal,
it did not hiss or spit psychedelic venom.
I braced my bare foot against the truck's
wheel cover around a twisted corner
by an empty church, tolling
my heartbeat. Cardboard acted
as the bed liner, I played the liability
if the swing should slide past the flush tailgate
and take me along with it. If it did,
shifting gravel guitar solos and cherry pie blood
would swing my pain away.

3D print me into
something real, impulsive
and distinguished.

successive layers
built around a
pulse and backbone.

fused electrons hardwired
to my brain like therapy.

we are broken and
the sum of our spare parts.

©Ben Ditmars 2014

He gave me a pen and paper
and told me to write. I pressed
the pen down and watched it
bleed blue. He clutched my wrist
and drew a box no bigger
than a matchstick. Write.
I was struck up more like lightening
than an intelligent conversation.
This sliver of a sliver of tree pulp
was my canvas, but I made do.

I don’t need to act profound
to feel like a poet. I don’t have
to unnecessarily waltz around
the truth because I can’t always
fill a stanza. I don’t have to rhyme
to get my point across.
I don’t have to curse life
or write my sorrows. I don’t
have to manipulate the emotions
of others. I don’t have to manipulate
my own. I don’t have to write for anyone.
I don’t have to appease anyone because that’s
not poetry. It’s not about tailoring your mind
to meet the expectations of others. It’s not about
always speaking eloquently. ****
anyone who tries to establish rules for poetry.
Poetry has no guidelines, only the ones
we establish ourselves.

She rested her thin hands beside her keyboard
and proofread the email to her landlord.
She was adamant about getting the most
from her lease and, though wealthy,
insisted on knowing the price of everything.
Milk is almost five dollars and gas is almost milk.
Littered around her bedroom were shoeboxes
of handmade jewelry, pearls, and war correspondence,
each as fragile as a land mine. Loose soil footsteps,
shrapnel, and a Sofield soldier torn in two.