BENJAMIN NIESPODZIANY / FINAL MEAT
Note: “Unknown Cento” is best viewed on laptop or in landscape
Unknown Cento
for William Aberg
when it rains
with rats
light trickles in
eyes bright
the train is covered
too big to bury flowers
the stairwell echoes
the barber hesitates
more than the other
a dressmaker, a dancer
in the same fable
their wings open up
the mountain leans
the winter slides
tunnels flood
and rats, cracks where
a small shelter rusts
as daggers
in moss like an animal
like puffed rice
all the way down
one arm hurts
a five minute break
and a singer they dwell
they're sharing cigars
like umbrellas in flight
backward the sound stops
it's peeking over the hills
Soft Love is Leaning to How War Can Be
a poem using Kings of Convenience song titles
We heard rumors of an angel asking for help from the washing machine. We wrote a song about it. Homesick in another town and how? A rocky trail where you combed my hair. Stay away, our parents yelled. The killers gave their victims fevers. The lonely country wanted us. I misread the island coordinates and arrived at a dancehall. Someone gave us ice. We exchanged our gold for silver and installed the disco ball with extra sparkles. The rest of life was a mindful sway. A low tide, hiding a guitar, renting out eyes to strangers. War can be soft, a parallel failure, when the battle doesn't know a wall from a hill. Passengers pass and turn into kids. Love is leaning. Love is summer surprise. Summer forms a line. Quietly screaming. This is all we know for now, so we whisper it to you here.
Fasten the Metal
for Pink Siifu
This person is perfect. You, are perfect. I love how noir flows into jazz as the detective drags the cigarette against the brick wall. The smell of smoke is known but the audience left their noses back at coat check. Boom, combine the environment. Comb the envy. Mend the iron. Some flows can't stop listening. You fly like a human through hell. Vibrating until your pockets are empty. To re-broadcast is to assume a recording occurred. New gardens make past heavens feel less familiar. Keep eating your breakfast. Keep dreaming for yourself. For your life. We live in a world that would rather hurl than forgive. The best we can do is swim.
Mission Inaudible
for Daniel Borzutzky and Daniil Kharms
[1]
This is a list of innocent criminals.
This is a list of guilty saints.
This is a list of mountaintops to kiss.
This is a list of innocent criminals handcuffed on a bus.
This is a list of picnic baskets packed with rotten fruit.
[2]
I'm laughing tears, I dampen the sand.
I'm laughing tears.
I'm laughing. Tears.
I'm filling the pool.
[3]
Sources reported
he climbed a bluff and died. He woke
in Hope, Kansas to the tramples of stallions and died.
Later that night, He died choking on dried hog.
A dog dragged him out to sea. He woke
waist deep in shark-infested waters and died.
He woke again in water and died by lightning strike.
It was a week of meaning and grieving and bliss.
[4]
I’m sorry I don’t have this figured out. I’m sorry
death is a feather that never writes back, no matter
the scattered cartons of ink, no matter
the bleed we keep in our quills.
Cliff
after Jon Boisvert’s “Fall”
You jump off a cliff and get caught in a cloud. You weren't the first. There's a tricycle and a violinist and an elephant gun and a tongue. They use their tools to claw through the cloud, to fall back down to earth, but nothing seems to work. As if the smoke refills. Or the plastic reseals. Or the cloud heals. You look above for others tumbling off the cliff. You remember the line. You remember volunteering. You thought you were the first. You weren't in a hurry but everyone was cheering. You look at your watch. You don't know when it will be okay to ask for help.
Lines in “Unknown Cento” from Annelyse Gelman, Johannes Goransson, Orpaz Averbuch Yitzhak, Rodrigo Marquez Tizano, C.T. Salazar, Dalton Day, Gregory Ariail, Paul Colinet, Lucia Estrada, Jean Giono, Joanna Ruocco, Jane Yeh, John Redmond, and Karen Elizabeth Gordon.
Benjamin Niespodziany is a Chicago-based writer whose work has appeared in Fence, Peach Mag, Salt Hill, Sixth Finch, and elsewhere. A former Olive Garden waiter, his debut collection of poetry was released last year through Okay Donkey and his debut novella is out now with X-R-A-Y Books.