ERIC TYLER BENICK / 4 POEMS
PLANNED OBSOLESCENCE
Even all of this living goes out
of style as curtailed by design.
I am less cute than I was
a year ago, five years ago. Ten years ago
I was so cute, I swear,
everyone invited me inside
their homes. In the park,
where I slept, raccoons thought
me safe and brushed my black hair
while we dined on old bread
and apple cores. I kissed so many
mouths in so many beds
under every kind of goldpink
dusk, I mistook abundance
for perpetuity. With two tabs
of LSD on Mt. Tabor, there is only abundance
and perpetuity. I threw my shoes
into the wet grass and ran screaming
my love while I painted daffodils
vermillion. And still surprised,
despite knowing the promise
of ugly futures, to awaken
untucked and bald so suddenly
in abject twilight, a dank sock
of remembrances. Now I count
the days of teeth I have left
and try not to stare at anyone
for too long lest I sour completely
into my ultimate grapefruit. I fear
the day I’ll find myself
calling my mother
from a banana, my plaid oxford
tucked into my sweatpants.
I’ll finally be avant-garde
but won’t know it,
or have any use for it,
aside from shouting
matches with the rain. I feel
like I’ve invested all of my money
into the Ford Pinto. I am learning
to make my peace with combustion.
Precious Reciprocity
“Indeed, there is a paradox in claiming that one is stronger than oneself, since this implies that one is also,
by the same token, weaker than oneself.”
–Michel Foucault
I admit self-defeat
in the same breath
as self-mastery I am
spinning gold plums
in my palms while my back
bleeds its flagellations
what good is this
discerning grey sponge
if it scrambles each synapse
pornographic I give myself
cherries for reading
a paragraph without picturing
genitals by the end of a chapter
I have tied knots
in their stems with my tongue
the stains on my pants sticky
black errant crumbs
of stale croissants
a month’s grime and growth I am becoming
my highest self I think abnegated
unwashed disciplined and sexy
as a piece of particle board
I am taking all of me back
from the waste bins water basins
library bathrooms Nissan Altimas
from the oak trees café windows
dead volcanoes and nude broken mattresses
I am threading my acquisitions
into a bedazzled diaphanous gown
so as to be distinguishable
behind my pretense I step out
into the street and quiver
with all the fear the wind brings in
Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed
shotgun brown
curtains drawn
a locked door
inexorable sleep
sepulchral
fight me you fuck
fight me
you fuck
fight me you fuck
it’s commoner than carnival
a hoof caught in the mouth
for what couldn’t carry any longer
even the weight of itself
that begins to sour and smell
talking impossible
a throat hoarse quiet
from all its braying
the recurrent strains of syntax
heart’s heretical hosannas
an invocation
of life’s sum want
as in cut here kiss
well catch all kill
all it takes
and take more
you archangel
you nettle
you black bear
you cat in the wheelbarrow
belly full of plums
be so full you’re sick
be the heavy
of the ballast
to throw the bed
to wake the wet
workhorse
from its paroxysm
as in you’re the only
thing I love more
than death’s
red sugars
the fighting and the fucking
a closed dichotomy
a heavy medallion
the only thing solvent
enough to free the weight
outstanding to say one’s favorite
name silently in a finger’s
space of breath
to put
the burden
back on
and walk
Step Into My Office
sequestered in this suitcase
is the thrumming of golden bees
so nearly gone your stale breath
would stomp them obsolete
mind the dahlias please
which I’ve grown to settle
a bet about the viability
of carpet spores
eat this orange
pear and tell me
you’ve ever felt more
pliant
here is your cord of garlic
your carafe of plum wine
your pocket book of mazes
your night vision goggles
some of these rooms
can be deceiving
you may or may not encounter
a Dionysian orgy
or a satyr with a whale
penis that’s just Carl
give them your plum
wine they are harmless
the rest is pretty bureaucratic
filing yeast cultures
feeding the bear
watering the communists
payroll
one day you could even have an office
like mine a nice view of the hurricane
an emergency guillotine
and a straw bed for your children to sleep on
Eric Tyler Benick is the author of the chapbook, The George Oppen Memorial BBQ (The Operating System, 2019), as well as co-founder and editor at Ursus Americanus Press, a publisher of chapbooks. His poems have appeared in the Vassar Review, Graviton, Reality Beach, Bad Nudes, decomP, Souvenir, Fruita Pulp, Fog Machine, and elsewhere. A current MFA candidate in poetry at Sarah Lawrence College, he lives in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.