Articles in Jim Benz
Coryphaeus
by Jim Benz
I. A fiery wheel or a dove
I was puzzling. Heroic.
And a barstool.
I was not a throne.
You were both tide and landfall.
A splash of brine.
We were an olive
swallowed, inarticulate
wildly mundane
and not too laconic.
You were …
Over that is over and over
by Jim Benz
Having surpassed the time for comprehending the moment of concluding,
it is the moment for concluding the time for comprehending. Otherwise,
this time would lose its meaning.
–Jacques Lacan
they are aware
made …
(B)anality
by Jim Benz
I. First Cycle
A bearded tongue.
II. Second Cycle
Accept it as it is.
A centered emptiness.
III. Third Cycle
A child was born.
A circular space.
A couple of nice outfits.
IV. Fourth Cycle
A defiled expression.
A disembodied head.
Aesthetic qualities.
A false terminology.
A …
This liquid thing
by Jim Benz
this liquid thing
from adhesion to adhesion
I made for you
feels undetermined
like the way you recline
at an autopsy
distasteful but true
not much is legal
a delicate hole
a sky made from glass
almost like tomorrow
owl cores & …
Wide ranges of correspondence
by Jim Benz
an erotic compulsion
a prolonged moistening
beautifully expressed
crawling up walls
mad, androgynous, ecstatic
musical symbolism and mathematics
the brain chemists
the familiar strutting posture
the Land rumbling
the microcosms and the macrocosms
the myth of invariance
the option of multiple …
On the Distraction of the Magic Lantern
by Jim Benz
In the midst of space
and banners is a littered waste
that yields more pointing
than parsing–so much has passed
that an account of intervals
(a promise, a perspectiveless
taste) measures meaning (a …
Joe Citizen
by jim benz
He hopes to avoid Leon on his way to the elevator. Just past the open door
of the fileroom, on the wall of the mid-office corridor, he sees a shadow
approaching. He ducks into …
Bacchanalia
by jim benz
When in heaven they said Hell. Was it hell for them.
Once they said Oyster.
We countered with Foie Gras Mousse.
Can you smile for appearance sake.
Are we dignified and merry.
Have they the proper understanding.
“Ascending pure, …
off the map
by jim benz
Except for faces and hands, there is no surface
that defines our mutual convergence.
“Your blue is clear / as on the first day.
In your presence I am a man …”
She stared at …
Buk-ku
by jim benz
one tooth missing
when she smiles –
another morning
***
naked and drunk
on a flop house bed –
happy for the bed
***
the feel of you
our bodies sloshing together
in a filthy room
***
filled with blood
and the screaming outside
my throbbing temples
***
watching …
manifesto
by jim benz
“Grammatical tautology” is the subject of this sentence.
Simultaneously, it is also the subject of the previous sentence.
The predicate of the prior sentence is also the subject of the previous sentence.
Therefore, the subject of …
What it is like to be a bat
by jim benz
Abstract:
This poem partially describes the ongoing effort to home-build a JW-03 Luxury Blender. You may read it as an illustration of the brilliant things people do …
Catalyst of the fuel-injected pinhead (on a hot summer day)
by jim benz
Wind repels
the dull knife
of my body
like gravity
gives weight
to exhaustion,
and this broken
road, half drunk
on time-wasted
asphalt, is faithless
and wicked.
Minneapolis
on a bike
at East Hennepin
and Fifth
is nothing
but a …
Schrödinger’s poem
by jim benz
A semantic meaning is crafted within a poetic structure,
along with the following device (which must be secured
against direct interference by the meaning): in the final
strophe, there is a self-referential contradiction, so
insignificant that …
The Radio Gods
by jim benz
[First Character: pissing in a kettle]
Vocation for a jug. A vocational
discourse is in pouring, and who
dreamed of drinking to enoble
this predilection for the old thing
newer. If the jug is drained, a …
scythe and a sandglass
by jim benz
Serafino has one handkerchief
which he keeps in an oak box
wrapped in linen beneath his bed.
It is as clean as the tears of a saint
and twice as holy. Prior to its …
early evening
by jim benz
After the first glass of bourbon,
sitting in the shade, smelling charcoal
turn to dust and chicken skin
to gold, the grass and weeds
don’t look so tall.
Spider web and sequence
by jim benz
1. In human terms, concrete thought is unavoidably abstract.
2. Divergent thought has convergence as its ultimate goal.
3. ‘Sequential’ is a human equation based on abstraction.
4. Interconnection is everything, but perhaps …
Falling Down
by jim benz
pull yourself together, breathe
got twisted in a lung fit, coughing
spit up bone-songs, all stripped down
all feedback snarl and knuckle skin
choking on a dream nozzle shiver, spit-grin juice
grated, lesion-mated spastic anti-fortune juice
rasped a …
Conversations with a stalled poem
by jim benz
1
If only someone strange would knock on my door. I could be inspired.
2
It’s August, an august month “marked by majestic dignity or grandeur.” I feel bland.
3
Three men are walking …
deus ex machina
by jim benz
Here are
as we see we
go here
through a slippery
crack here is ex
nihilo here
is a taste of some
parallel para-
llel here is
flesh
mortified by faith-
less oxymoron
blind eye
chord a bar
of reverb-
erant joy here
is beauty
undefined
within a …
Reading Lips on the Freeway at Five
by jim benz
Fucking asshole …
Goddamn fucking son-of-a-bitch …
Fucking goddamn son-of-a-bitching asshole …
Fucking A, you stupid cocksucking piece of shit …
Holy shit, what a motherfucking son-of-a-bitching cocksucker …
Jesus Christ, what …
Eating Billy Collins
by jim benz
As I rode my bike down Lake Street
on a warm summer day
I caught the gaze of a panhandler
holding a neatly printed sign in his hand
He was not unshaven or scowling,
there was …
In the random orifice of time (change)
by jim benz
Q: Do you believe this poem?
A: I’ll believe anything with a fluctuating rate of change.
Q: So you agree that metaphors are reversible?
A: Only when time-reversed dynamics are …
Notes on the Human Enigma
by jim benz
I. As a Forethought
In the middle of the night, a pharmacist finds himself standing in a circle of drummers. “If this is not a true brine,” he asks, “why …
Maturity
by jim benz
At twelve o’clock, revulsion / on the telephone
and a yellow blur / cutting ribbons in my head:
dissolultion / of yesterday’s joy ride, or was it
today’s? On the path / to the phone, a …
saturday morning
by jim benz
breakfast at Elsie’s -
a whole neighborhood
in three shrinking rooms
***
drawn on the face
of our elderly waitress
an imprint of scowls
***
long wait for coffee -
could this cup
be any more empty?
***
tasty menu -
beneath the side order …
Dans les vignes du Seigneur
by jim benz
Joy punches the walls of our heart,
pulls at our lips, curls our toes.
She looks out from a mirror
where she doesn’t live,
from a house of mirrors,
from the back of a …
In a Matrimonial Rut
by jim benz
A bird sang from the upper branches of an oak
Beneath that, a porcupine bristled his quills
Completely bored, I drank another beer
Despite the fact my beer supply was nearly finished
Eagle-eyed, I …
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