“Conception”
I conceive my work alone.
Giving birth in utter solitude!
To understand the feeling behind my own creation?
Impossible!
To read it better than I could?
Unfathomable!
My editor told me to write two versions and depersonalize one.
A difficult process for me.
I felt like I was leaving my baby in the hands of a stranger!
"I am the only one it knows!"
Finally I realized, it can never grow, until I let it...
By: Benz
©10-1-19
Don’t complicate LIFE.
Missing someone?? ...
then CALL.
Wanna meet up?? ...
then INVITE.
Wanna be understood??...
then EXPLAIN.
Have questions??...
then ASK.
Don’t like something??...
then SAY IT.
Like something??...
then STATE it.
Want something??...
then ASK FOR IT.
Love someone??...
then CONFESS IT.
Nobody will ever know what’s going in your mind.
It’s better to EXPRESS than to EXPECT .
You already have the NO, take the risk of getting the YES.
We only have one life.
KEEP IT SIMPLE. DON’T COMPLICATE IT.
The unknown
Was I good enough? Of course not, I mean who is? If people were in my head for more than a day, surley they would lock me away. The selfish things I have done make the time slower as I self reflect. Picking myself apart, and yet trying to build myself up. As I’m already falling it seems pointless. I don’t know what’s worse, knowing I’m going to die or having so much time for thought before I die.. Are previous actions a result of a faulty parachute? ill either never know, or I’ll find out very soon.
Bad Day
I’ve always been clumsy. It’s only fitting I would die this way. I haven’t been hiking in forever -and now, this.
Leave it to me to attempt a panoramic photo of a beautiful landscape from a high altitude and end up making the descent down the mountain head first at warp speed.
It’s prettier, this view through my corneal lens vs. my iphone lens.
Is it strange that I’m spending my time on this unplanned, untethered free fall of a death bed being thankful?
Sure, my heart is beating slightly faster than normal. But the sun is shining and the birds are chirping and it’s a bad day...
Not a bad life.
Veiled
Words with anonymity
In verse and rhymes writ lyrically
You know her ever openly
Yet never have, before, met she
A shelter to unveil her soul
Shared with kindred minds, unknown
That which some may never know
She gives to you, candid, in poem
All her words, you hear, her here
A sonnet homophone
Layered in the many lines
Her substance; flesh and bone
Under lock and key will she
Remain a mystery
Until the door is opened
Through her prose and poetry
The Book
“Today I will be happy.”
That’s how each page starts. That’s how each day starts.
“Today I will be happy.”
It’s perfect. Hanni never has to think. She could. If she wanted, she could think. But why? It’s all written so well. When you’re born you’re given your book. The story of your life. What you will decide to eat every day. How many errands you’ll run. The people you’ll meet. Who you like. Who you hate. All of it foretold for you. Your first day of school. Your wedding day. The day you get your wisdom teeth pulled. The birthdays. The sick days. The lazy days. The memorable moments. All written down. Black and white. Clean page after neat, clean page.
And, “Today I will be happy,” atop every one of them.
“Today I will be happy.”
Hanni stretches. Because that’s what her book says.
“Today I will be happy. And to start today I stretch.”
She scratches her cat, Jax, behind the ears. She showers. Eats eggs. Makes her bed. Hanni dresses for work. She grabs a bottle of water and an apple and is out the door. Because that’s what her book says. And each day is just like this.
“Today I will be happy.”
Stretch. Cat. Shower. Eggs. Clean. Dress. Water, apple. Work. Stretch. Run. Relax. Read. Bed. Sleep. Happy. Stretch. Cat. Shower. Eggs. Clean. Dress. Water, apple. Work. Stretch. Run. Relax. Read. Bed. Sleep. Happy. Stretch. Cat. Shower. Eggs. Clean. Dress. Water, apple. Work. Stretch. Run. Relax. Read. Bed. Sleep. Happy. Stretch. Cat. Shower. Eggs. Clean. Dress. Water, apple. Trip.
Wait. Trip?
Hanni trips. She glides down her front steps like every other day. Her office is 8 blocks from home. And at the third block, Hanni trips. Her arms reach out in a quick attempt to save herself, but it’s too late. She had never planned on tripping. The apple rolls to her right and her water bottle and book fly into the street. A car passes over the bottle and water explodes in every direction. And Hanni’s heart breaks. The book is drenched. She can’t remember seeing this in the book ever. She can’t remember anyone ever ruining their book. Hanni snatches up her book and returns home. No one calls to see why she’s not at work. No one has a book that says she will not be at work. Her life was simple. She had skipped ahead several times and she knew that she was happy. Her life, happy and unremarkable. She would stay happy and healthy until retirement. At which time Jax would pass. She would be happy though because he lived a long, happy life with her. And she would take her retirement money and travel. A new city to be happy and stretch and make the bed in every year until she died herself.
Unremarkable but happy. She could keep going on. She mostly knew the plan. After all, it was unremarkable...
Tomorrow Hanni would wake up and continue the way she had been.
Today I will be happy.
And Hanni’s doorbell rings. Before her eyes are even open, her doorbell rings. That has never happened before. She opens the door and finds a new book on her steps. A red ribbon tied around its leather bound pages.
This book does not say she will be happy.
This book is empty but for one page.
The words are scrawled in her own writing.
They are not neat. They are not even straight or centered. There are splotches where it looks like someone may have not only spilt coffee but also cried. And along the edges someone has inked in little roses and vines. And somewhere in the mess, in Hanni’s own script is just one message.
“Today I will live.”
Poetic Portrait
I was hidden
In a well
Cavernous
Feelings to tell
With your vessel
You draw it out
Reaching to its depths
Splashing it about
Lapping over edges
Filled up to its brim
Spilling of its contents
The chosen ones of them
I am poetry
Instrument of pen
Sifting soul’s deep waters
Silt and sediment
I will be faithful
Like few others are
Expressing joy and sorrow
My ear upon your heart
Sitting there, inside you
Silent and with patience
Reflecting ’maginations
Prompting you with questions
Until you are
There, upon a page
Sketches of your soul
Mistakes you can erase
Softening the edges
Filling shadow’s secrets
Exposed in naked form
Your self poetic portrait
The Scapegoat
Why
do we give
such power
to a year,
as if the date
on a page
suddenly yields
to us all
the strength
and will
to do
what we were
unable,
unwilling,
unmotivated
to do
just
one day
earlier?
Even
one minute
earlier,
as if
the stroke
of midnight
and
the loud gong
of the bell
wakes us
from some
hypnotic state
that we were in
and now
we are
somehow alive
and free
from the prison
of
the former year.
When
will this year become
the bars
and
the lock,
the magician
with
a clock,
the lying soothe sayer,
putting us all
back
into
the trance,
the prison,
the hoax
of a year
that again
needs
to become new
for us
to become new?
Is it March
that we complacently
slide
into the grip
of 2019,
or
is it fall
when
leaves
begin
to litter
the
dying grass
and we can see
that
the many days
we promised ourselves
would be
different,
now
lay behind us?
So,
we curse
the year
rather than ourselves.
We make her
the scapegoat
that
we lay upon
our sin
and sprinkle
with
our guilt,
and
drive out
toward a
cliff
when
we don party hats
and
the year
again flips.