4 Hour Hard On

Untitled Villanelle

2009-07-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

Thoughts turn to words, and it gets on my nerves,
like gossip, guessed at, through hotel air vents:
"From what I heard, he got what he deserved."

Oh, I've whistled past bone yards, and blind man curves,
with rhymes of reckoning I've spat on many pavements;
but thoughts turn to words, and it gets on my nerves.

Got lost in meditation, a Transcendental reserve,
but a drunk landlord arrived, demanding his rent:
"Bodhisattva," he slurred, "gets what he deserves."

Shall I confess my every fetish? Get shunned, as a Perv?
Those leggy Jongian stewardi, only they know what I meant:
When thoughts turn to words; it gets on my last nerve.

Dictaphones and schizos, a terrifying preserve.
Deadlines, gang signs, solemn commitments;
Eulogists inevitably ... get what they deserve.

Like an overflowing bladder, snatches, overheard,
I've pissed away my every prayerful sacrament ...
Thoughts turn to verbs, and it gets on my nerves;
The poet has wrought what he thought he deserved.

I Told Tarantino This Poem Was Stolen From Jim Harrison, So He Promised To Recite It ( Very Soon? ) On Jimmy Kimmel Live...Errr * n o t *

2009-07-02T08:55:00.000-07:00

NEUROTIC GHAZAL

Those crenelated sidewalk cracks of west Coeur D'Alene
oozed dark thoughts, which I skirted, with rope skip lines.

Half-empty tea pots, self-fulfilling, go off like throttles;
I check my burners, every ninety seconds...9 times.

Call that pawn shop. Ask nicely to speak about a Grace
Periods. See if your ensuing dread matches up to mine.

Online, I've made some enemies for no damned reason, answering
earnest e mails with " WTF? " It all goes up the Down Grapevine.

Dunno ... about you; but my Deja Vu's gone plum specious,
like hearing sex in the tennis matches, & pity for the blind.

Alter Ego with coon skin muffs, mumbles like Eddie Vedder
in a Starbucks, heart of dark,, ever thing gone be jess fine

Can’t get off that Sellwood bus? Circling the city, an agoraphobic
with wanderlust? Reach out, blue tooth. Use my freaking dime.

Little Dip, phalanx of crickets, drowned by Rainbirds @ sundown.
Far, far faraway dogs, whose barking I've controlled, with my mind.

Bennett Diction

2009-06-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

A SHARD & FOUR POEMS
(c) 2009 by John Bennett

A Million Words

There are a million words in the English language. A third of them have to do with losing weight and coveting your neighbor's wife. Another third have to do with exorcism and circumcised goats. The rest are divided evenly between science, art and codependency.

Compare this with Spanish where 60% of the words have to do with spicy food and male supremacy. Or Russian where each and every word is in some way tied in with tanks, executions and potato famine. Or Gaelic where the whole language is drunk on whiskey. Or an obscure Amazonian jungle dialect consisting of nothing but tongue clicks.

There've been studies made, but the whole world still waits for some tongue-tied anthropologist with the aid of six chimps and a coral snake to sum up just what it is we've been trying so long to say.

A Japanese Gardener

There's this
Japanese gardener
who looks 40
but is
probably 60.

He's less than
five feet tall &
looks so
Japanese he's like
the essence of
Japanese.

He drives a
rusted 50s pickup
loaded with
tools &
garden trimmings.

I clean windows
for a customer who
last time
I was out there
asked
if I knew a
good gardener.
Then yesterday
I saw the
Japanese gardener
in my
rear-view mirror,
loading his
tools on the
far side of a
grass divide.
I got out of
my van &
walked over,
told him about
the people
in need of
a gardener.

"I don't take
new customers,"
he said in a
soft refined voice.
"I have
regular customers,
and if I were to
take on more,
it would
detract from
the quality of
my work.
But thanks
for asking."

He smiled.
"You're the
window cleaner,"
he said.

"Yes," I said.

"The window
cleaner & the
gardener,"
he said, &
still smiling,
climbed into
his truck &
drove away.

Timing

There's no way
to know if
your timing's good
until it's
too late.

What's Going On

The complexity
of the universe
is beginning to
come to full blossom
in the
human brain,
& it's
more than
we can handle.

The Perfect Exit

Three years ago
death left her
calling card &
somehow I
spun away &
kept dancing.
But the
handwriting's
on the wall.

Sitting up on
this hill
with my
coffee &
cigarettes &
my yellow pad
would be a
perfect way
to go,
my head
down on the
steering wheel,
the horn
blowing non-stop,
agitating
the hell
out of
kids on
skateboards &
young lovers
in their
air-bag cars
dreaming sex &
graduation.

Until now
they had
no idea
I existed.

Something I've Squirreled Away, Just For You

2009-06-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

EXPERIMENTAL GREETING CARD

Oh, the arbitrage of Hallmark! Memorial Days, running
head on w/ Breathalyzer, wrong way on the interstate,
and a poor camper van family can’t get out of the way.

Ever wonder why the undertakers
get no Holiday? Chew on that one, with the Valentines
for thrice bitten, and Father’s Days for our boys in
Iraq. For the chip off the old block selling corona
in lieu of immortal soul, in the bowels of a
Passaic shooting gallery. High time

we made a day
for the goners shot by L.A.
cops with no provocation,
24 hour Honor Guards for
schizophrenics w/ rickets
and wanderlust, listless
scriveners with cyanotic
cuticles and arrhythmic hearts
can’t ever be satisfied, or young Bob
Marley at Yuletide past,
letting cancer eat him fast
as Yellow # Five snack crackers
from the inside, as good a day
to die, as look alive ...

Let's just
quit all the fiddle-fucking around,
and choose one of these long ones,
like they previously named for Dogs in
August, and christen it, SOPORIFIC,
for Christ's sake call it
rage, call it:

Payback’s Abyss,

on this special day, there will be no
work, of course (okay, are you getting
all this?) but
neither any
leisure, nor play. Instead,
everybody sits around,
in uncomfortably tight semi-
circles, fanning themselves
silly w/ silk cravats
on the hot seat,
like the worst 12 Step
Intervention ever, and we'll
shake with helpless tremor, tell
our kids grandiose lies, sever
ties, deny, buckets
of sweat.

It will be
a day to suffer.

It will be a day to forget.

Poem @ TJ

2009-06-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

Kreskin In Azure

Tobias Wolff Reads A Denis Johnson Story

2009-06-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

worth a bookmark / use a scabbard...

Corso On Kerouac

2009-05-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah there's three STAGES...

klipschutz takes no prisoners on the you tube

2009-05-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

BASHING BILLY COLLINS

A Bennett Hat Trick

2009-04-28T16:31:00.000-07:00

3 by John Bennett
(c) 2009; all rights reserved

A MAN CROSSING THE STREET

He's middle-aged and standing on the corner at 6 a.m., Bermuda shorts and a yacht shirt with a pseudo coat-of-arms stitched over the chest pocket, deck shoes and a 400-page paperback clutched in one hand.

He's got that anxious, unmoored look in his eyes that comes from too many books. The streets are empty and the light is green, but he seems to need more assurance before he'll venture off the curb.

I'm at right angles to him in my car, and my light is red. We're both waiting for a signal to start the day.

FULL OF LOVE

Some people are so full of love it's enough to make your skin crawl.

They come bounding across the room with outstretched arms and maniacal smiles on their faces, their eyes empty, zero recognition.

"We love you!" they cry out, and when you don't respond, their arms fall slowly to their sides and their smiles scale down into disappointment.

Their eyes fill with something then, and it's hate.

WHAT WE KNOW

All we know is
what we make up
about ourselves or
anyone or anything.
It's why we
feel uneasy when
we start in
telling how things are.
Or people start in
telling us.
The more certainty
there is in it
the more
uneasy we become.

To not know
this feeling
is to be
out of touch
with reality

Producer.... disclaims liability relating to or resulting from such vestigial appendices which may or may not be inoculated as per transfer... Swap

2009-04-20T09:34:00.000-07:00

J.G's DT's

Who’s that banging
on my cellar door?

Why, it’s J.G. Wentworth!

With 'Alms for the Poor?'

His beady brown eyes,
swolleen and bloodshot.

His ear holes sprout damp fur
like hot potato rot.

I say:

Stranger, what’s them a thought
you'd bring me papers and such
what all there'm ya got?

It’s Stimulus, says J.G.

I watch him perspire.

I say:

Fucking four flourishing
whore of a liar.

But like Poe’s Crow, that
Wentworth

won’t quit my cellar door.

I say:

What um rube you
thar took me for?

Wentworth’s Prospectus
rustles. His hands shake
and shake: He says:

Fuck, kid. This here’s
sure fire hustle. Easiest
cake you’ll ever make!

I say:

If I sign, on the line,
will you go
Away?

Okay okay okay okay.

*

I shouldn’t have done it.

I’ve made Wentworth well.

He’s force-feeding my 1st born
Monopoly Hotels.

The young un’s face
is all ice blue!

Wentworth be gone

Now he’s coming

for you.

Best Shark Poem Ever

2009-02-28T09:57:00.000-08:00

From the book, Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry
published by Seven Stories Press
(c) 2001 ; by Alan Dugan; All Rights Reserved

PLAGUE OF DEAD SHARKS

Who knows whether the sea heals or corrodes?
The wading, wintered pack-beasts of the feet
slough off, in spring, the dead rind of the shoes’
leather detention, the big toe’s yellow horn
shines with a natural polish, and the whole
person seems to profit. The opposite appears
when dead sharks wash up along the beach
for no known reason. What is more built
for winning than the swept-back teeth,
water-finished fins, and pure bad eyes
these old, efficient forms of appetite
are dressed in? Yet it looks as if the sea
digested what it wished of them with viral ease
and threw up what was left to stink and dry.
If this shows how the sea approaches life
in its propensity to feed as animal entire,
then sharks are comforts, feet are terrified,
but they vacation in the mystery and why not?
Who knows whether the sea heals or corrodes?:
what the sun burns up of it, the moon puts back.

John Bennett Makes His Return, Fleet-Footed , Chock Full 0' Love And Strapped W/ Packing Tape

2009-02-13T19:59:00.000-08:00

VALENTINE'S DAY
(c) '09; by John Bennett
All Rights Reserved

Sometimes I think I'm Mose Allison until I sit down to play the piano and all hell breaks loose. The neighbors below bang on the ceiling as I smash out a cacophonous rendition of notes that were never meant to meet face to face. You'd think I'd stop then, having shown my hand to great disadvantage, but I don't. I begin working the foot pedals instead and moan like Keith Jarrett up on stage in Cologne.

The whole thing boils down to panic and longing. I couldn't stop now if I wanted to. I think of the monkey who they say could write Shakespeare given pen and paper and time enough; the alarm clock that if you throw its parts into the air over and over will eventually land assembled and set for midnight.

Midnight--such dark promise. I'll play until then. The banging on the ceiling will stop, and there'll be a soft knock on my door. I'll open it, and there she'll be.

New Work In Frigg Magazine

2009-01-28T14:24:00.000-08:00

Watch that River Card fall, y'all!

New Fiction At Storyglossia

2008-12-20T21:09:00.000-08:00

Casablanca Or Something Like It

Pushcart Nomination

2008-12-20T15:20:00.000-08:00

Recently I was notified that my poem,
"Layers and Layers of Meaning" was
nominated for a Pushcart Prize
by the magazine called

13 miles from cleveland

--DM

Miles V. Trane: A Multifarious Musical Altercation

2008-12-18T11:13:00.000-08:00

Llllll.... let's get
rrrrrr... ready to

RUMMMMMBLE!

Did Ya Miss Me?

2008-12-14T15:15:00.000-08:00

Gregory the Herald came
to my dream last night,
in the beatific guise
of a beagle pup.

He said:

"Christ whatsa
matta withchou?

Get it back up!"

Bow Wow Wow.

So what
do we do now?

Pinsky Channels Riffs In A Lift

2008-06-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

One can only wonder,
if the laureate got off

on the proper floor

Keyhole Magazine

2008-06-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

A new print publication,
direct from Music City,
U.S.A. i.e. Nashville,
Tennessee...

3 new poems of mine are in there.

note:

If I mis-spellled Tenessee,
I would expect a corressponding
"correction comment." ;)

Or not.

But please purchase this fine magazine!

Here is the Buy Link:

KEYHOLE

Here's a bonus song:

Nashville Cats

Seek Immediate Medical Attention, Should You Experience An Election Lasting More Than Four...

2008-06-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

ELECTION YEAR
shard by John Bennett
(c) '08; All Rights Reserved

They say it's an election year. Black men and white women, Mormons and Mafia-connected Italians, a midget from Cleveland and more, all clambering for the chance to lead the nation to glory.

I say it's still Halloween,the holiday season never ended, we need to take off the masks. It's all macrocosm and microcosm, the big fish eat the little ones.

For every Mitt Romney there's a Leonard Cohen.

For every Barack Obama a Ray Charles.

For every George Bush a Bukowski.

For every Hillary Clinton a Billie Holiday.

For every computer-art whiz kid a Van Gogh.

And so on & etc.

Big fish, little fish, dark matter and light. How can anyone take politics seriously?

Back in the early 80s when Henry Miller died, I put together a tribute called Black Messiah. In it I promised a free lunch to anyone who would send me a picture of them destroying their TV. I got a mailbox full of photographs, mostly Polaroids--people smashing their TV to bits with sledgehammers, shooting them in the back yard with rifles, dropping them off cliffs and running them over with bulldozers.

Back then I saw these events as acts of liberation. Today it's called terrorism.

The mad houses are filled with people who have felt the breath of God on the back of their neck.

These Two Tow Heads Will Take You To Their TWITTER

2008-05-09T13:16:00.001-07:00

Scruffy One Twenty Three...

A Very Cool Blue Website For Your Wavelength

2008-05-06T16:47:00.000-07:00

Popping open the hermetically-sealed
blinds, and what did the surfers find?

A Susurrus of Cruzio Daddy-O Finger Snaps

Note:

If I mispelled "sussurrus" you oughta
let me know with a damned comment. ;)

If it ain't too much trouble, i.e.

;)

Blues In The Key Of Kim A

2008-04-23T12:05:00.000-07:00

From the book
What Is This Thing Called Love
Published by Norton
© 2004, by Kim Addonizio
All Rights Reserved

BLUES FOR ROBERT JOHNSON

Give me a pint of whiskey with a broken seal
Give me one more hour with a broken feel
I can’t sleep again and a black dog’s on my trail

You’re singing hell hound, crossroad, love in vain
You’re singing, and the black sky is playing rain
You’re stomping your feet, shaking the windowpane

I put my palm to the glass to get the cold
I drink the memories that scald
Drink to the loves that failed and failed

Look down into the river, I can see you there
Looking down into the blue light of a woman’s hair
Saying to her Baby dark gon’ catch me here

You’re buried in Mississippi under a stone
You’re buried and still singing under the ground
And the blues fell mama’s child, tore me all upside down

Kim Addonizio's latest novel:
"My Dreams Out In the Street"

Blues Week Continued

2008-04-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

This is one of my favorite Rory Gallagher clips.
I get those chiller-dillers, up and down my spine.

My boy Rory can really do that to ya!

This video is definitely worth watching
all the way through, especially when Rory
makes a very slick move to whip out that
cold steel slide from his back pocket,
about halfway in. And also at the end,
when the legendary guitarist regales us
with a trip-shot of his signature
Mississippi S h r i e k s

And Now... The Mystical Harmonic Convergence Portal Takes Jack & Ginger Back... Back

2008-04-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

The Graham Bond Organisation is notable in popular music history for jump-starting the careers of two future Cream members, bassist/singer Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker. One song Bruce and Baker originally recorded with Bond, "Train Time," later wound up in the repertoire of Cream.

Later when blues and R&B scenes erupted on the British gig circuit, the Graham Bond Organisation became known for playing the most evil-sounding and dirty R&B heard in the UK. Other notable personnel included Jon Hiseman, John McLaughlin and Dick Heckstall-Smith. In a sense, Bond was a catalyst in the formation of British groups Cream and Colosseum, as members of those groups came from Bond's group.

Although highly influential within UK music circles, the GBO never experienced the popular chart success of their peers. One factor for this could have been Bond's rough, growling singing voice, which was an acquired taste. Another was the decided lack of conventional star appeal of the four members: Bond, Bruce, Baker, and saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith.

Awwww,

Where's that freaking Remote?

there... thank God, I found it!

ZZZZZZZT!