Photograph by Myles Boisen |
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BEAUTY & THE BEAST
By John Bennett Gray train freight train train of blue evolution thimble of torment & fright. Odd fellows good fellows & the jolly green giant a fistful of dollars an ungainly sight. The rolled sleeves of the righteous kiss the sweet child good night grim & determined setting everything right. A fetid corner to breed in the benefits of delight a fetid secret to stew in a new face on the blight. The long fall of ambition from a spiraling height the quick reflex of survival the departure take flight. The muffled hens in the hen house that put the red fox in orbit the farmer loading his shotgun kicking open the screen. His wife tosses in slumber his children surge thru his spleen. It's all about hunger about feed troughs & barley about tiny gnats & fat bullfrogs with retractable tongues. About bee swarms & honey pots & the attention they garner about deep aches & longing hot blood steaming entrails. Beauty is the refinement of agony. BURMA-SHAVE By John Bennett Everything bothers me more than it used to. Heat cold restless legs grinning faces with no brains behind them fat people on motorcycles. Cars vibrating with baritone boom-box radios cars driven by shriveled blue-haired old ladies cars with their mufflers dragging. The internet television radio movies brimming over with violence & gutter sex. Graduations weddings funerals & the Moose Lodge. The American Legion flag- waving Neanderthals pulpit pounders & drunk-tank judges. Politicians CEOs henchmen & suck ups. Do gooders waitresses who say are we still working on it? & drug counselors. If small children & puppy dogs ever become part of this list I'll know it's time to slit my wrists longways in a tub of warm water. CARD TRICKS By John Bennett The flip side of the rose. The betrayal of Zen. The blue thunderous sky. The click clack of the time machine the unexpected departure. The high price of solitude one step back then another. Don't go crying to mother don't lodge a complaint with blind justice. Do you expect understanding from that which you're running from? Has it slipped your mind what you opted for? Because you're right doesn't make it less painful. Even a trip to the dentist is a compromise once you've made your way past the border guard, & now your own biology has tracked you down. When it's time to play that ace up your sleeve will you have the courage to slap it down?  John Bennett is the founder of Vagabond Press and the former editor of the small press magazine Vagabond. The magazine was started in 1966, and he published Charles Bukowski, Tom Kryss, d.a. levy, Anne Menebroker, William Wantling and many other poets, new or established. John Bennett has 39 published books to is credit – novels, short story collections, journalism, poetry and shards, a form of prose poem Bennett has made his own. He now lives in Ellensburg, Washington, where he writes, publishes and sends his shards out on a regular basis to a highly-appreciative and wide-spread email list. |
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