tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2284403005747864452024-03-13T08:46:41.329+09:00Benjamin L. Belcher's Poetry and ProseUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228440300574786445.post-88662776800797348462011-02-12T00:34:00.002+09:002011-02-12T00:41:03.609+09:00wrong eyesshe's looking at me upside down<br />the wrong eyes dancing on a fluttering scarf<br />follow the cotton skull-patch on your temple<br />to black shades paper thin and wonder<br /><br />what lies beneath<br />what's yours is yours but<br />what are you hiding<br />making it seem so worthwhile<br />I want what I can't have until<br />it is mystery no more<br /><br />green on reddish raddish face<br />slide shoes no snow boots in a smooth blue swoon,<br />sailing silently along the sniggering sidewalks<br />I like this, life like a tattered clipbook.<br /><br />Come here.<br />your face is a cherry tomato<br />(give it)<br />Now I'd like to take you home with me.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228440300574786445.post-11436609032422922682010-09-02T00:13:00.000+09:002010-10-02T00:22:45.803+09:00Look at her goIt must be nice<br />center of everything<br />catching eyes like never before<br /><br />I should know<br />but I don't embrace them<br />you embrace them<br /><br />what's that all about?<br />what drives you, and what do we mean<br />in a slowdrag lowride anti-gravity moment<br />I see beauty flourish, forests wither and planets supernova<br /><br />the beauty in ambiguity<br />the craven attention<br />you're 25 years overdue and so am I.<br /><br />So drink up, soak it all in<br />hang the reservations on a hook at home<br />that once was home<br />if you ever call home again<br /><br />naa,<br />me neither.<br />Now do that special dance you do so well.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228440300574786445.post-41523623087555381352010-04-11T23:14:00.002+09:002010-04-11T23:31:45.946+09:00suburban snowglobeI crossed a barrier when I left home<br />the world looked so different from inside<br />that suburban snowglobe of a town<br /><br />I won't try and say I'm from somewhere<br />cold or hard or mean or dirty<br />I lived in nice houses and knew little else<br /><br />Now I've seen the homeless sleeping<br />on trains while I come home, nails<br />long as cockroaches and filthy rags<br />and cardboard house their lives.<br /><br />I've seen the countless families<br />with daughters held on father's shoulders<br />mothers with babies in their bicycles<br />and children with dyed hair looking to rebel<br />the elderly gaping in curious terror<br /><br />Mountainscapes and skyscrapers<br />landfall and rising tides<br />cheaper lives, rising fuel prices;<br />to live (or die) in this city is to be<br />stuck blindly in the eye of globalization's<br />viscous spinning writhing whirlpool<br /><br />I think back to the 23.7 percent of myself<br />I was 10 years ago, and I realize that<br />To leave home's naïve, happy bubble<br />was to shatter the snowglobe indubitably<br /><br />and like a futile play at reassembling<br />gummy glass and confetti water<br />it will never look the same again -<br />its best left tossed and half-forgotten<br />in ink-black oceans of memory<br />and the shouldering supports of my<br />identity<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />yet as always beneath the surface<br />the past creeps and broods<br />as if to tell me:<br />"there was a life before Tokyo"<br />though as the days go by<br />I feel less like I was<br />and more like I am.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228440300574786445.post-54402329766847521382010-02-25T12:43:00.001+09:002010-04-12T23:35:56.903+09:00An abridged listI know a girl who wears a baby doll's head on a necklace<br /><br />I know a girl who is freaked out by the oil in organic peanut butter<br /><br />I know a girl who loved star trek more than she loved me<br /><br />I know a girl whose father committed suicide when she was still a child<br /><br />I know a girl who is legitimately comparable to a Succubus (in how she treated all of us)<br /><br />I know a girl who lies about everything but people seem to like her anyway<br /><br />I know a girl who is smarmy and entertaining, but she always puts up a wall<br /><br />I know a girl who is half my size with 10 times the business sense<br /><br />I know a girl whose Mom got upset if she found her deck of Tarot cards<br /><br />I know a girl who had her face next to a lover's phallus as her cellphone wallpaper<br /><br />I know a girl who swims through books and dreams in essays<br /><br />I know a girl who doesn't take shit from anyone (talking and dressing like a tomboy)<br /><br />I know a girl who burps in public and considers macaroni and cheese her specialty<br /><br />I know a few girls with children, they seem rather happy<br /><br />I've known a lot of girls, but what I don't know about them is infinitely trumped<br />by the pieces of themselves they revealed to me. Thank you for those, they've been<br />insightful.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228440300574786445.post-4465885540993150142010-02-25T12:34:00.003+09:002010-02-25T12:42:04.748+09:00Someday you'll grow oldI can see it in your eyes<br />your skin<br />the wrinkles waiting in the wings<br />hiding beneath the fallacy of eternal youth<br />waiting to burst<br />to spring forth<br />to rupture and meld<br />you anew<br /><br />The way you talk and<br />the way I talk and<br />the way we all lose a little more each day<br />new cells every 7 years?<br />Does time really go by faster, the older you get?<br />How much do hemroids hurt, really?<br />And are all thoughts of retirement an exercise in futility?<br /><br />I felt like I've been old my whole life<br />so it's all well and good for me<br />Poe wrote of conquering worms<br />I think he was onto something<br />"Live and let die"<br />as if we had a choice in the matter<br />I say try to stay live<br />because that I'm built to do.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228440300574786445.post-4932035475307503032010-02-03T00:22:00.002+09:002010-02-03T00:36:17.900+09:00a beautiful daythe chunks of white snow melting on trees<br />never thought they could be so alluring this time of year<br />shining sun and ugly people<br />but the world keeps spinning<br />miracles keep happening and<br />babies keep popping out of holes every which way<br /><br />an inch of white froth on the flowers<br />the grandiose and the dead<br />little notes written in disappearing cement trails<br />a 2-foot snowman complete with bottlecaps and a toothbrush<br /><br />I'm only living<br />another beautiful day in paradise<br />reminding myself they aren't all out to get me<br />only most of them<br />or<br />only most of me<br /><br />brooms used in lieu of proper plastic scrapers<br />I didn't even think these people owned shovels!<br />What a world<br />What a time to be alive<br />What a waste that comes of it all<br />What the hell guys<br />Did we really sign on for this?<br /><br />But the spinning never stops<br />not until my posthumous 3 billionth birthday<br />when the sun turns into a red dwarf<br />Bitchin<br />I want to see that<br /><br />but until then I'm living it up<br />watching it fall down from the branches<br />glimmer and splash<br />and I think to myself<br />what a serendipitiously existential yet mundane lifeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228440300574786445.post-38445494900527203172010-02-03T00:17:00.003+09:002010-02-03T00:22:08.396+09:00If money is like sexand it seems more important when you don't have it<br />then I want to know it just once<br />to have both<br />world at my fingertips<br /><br />people said I have it going for me<br />everything my way<br />oysters and nirvana<br />I don't see through a miasma<br />a self-induced froth of miasma<br />a ripe ring of miasma<br />the sick pulsating miasma<br />following me since I was<br /><br />I could become the president<br />cure cancer<br />save the whales<br />save the planet<br />invent perpetual motion<br />stop time<br />travel through it<br />fly<br />eat eggs and shit gold<br />create<br /><br />and still I'd never be satisfied<br />the glowing miasma screen<br />my own goddamn humanity<br />there's no goal to achieve nothing but<br />dirt and all the time in the world<br />to decomposeUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228440300574786445.post-70875277714527430952010-01-23T18:20:00.001+09:002010-01-23T18:22:41.540+09:00"Human Accident"A human accident is what they<br />call it. 9 times out of 10,<br />a human tragedy. Secular martyrdom:<br />the 8th leading cause of death in the country.<br /><br />Shedding skins, suitcase smashed to pulp,<br />orange blossom fissure;<br />something to scarlet to stained glass. A way<br />to move on while hampering<br />countless strangers and their plans.<br />Lunch dates unmet due to train tracks<br />fused together with cartilage,<br />muscle, leather and bone.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228440300574786445.post-31866173044629888522010-01-23T18:19:00.000+09:002010-01-23T18:20:45.956+09:00ReturnWhat I felt when I<br />stepped off that plane<br />was like a wave of cold water,<br />splashing sand-encrusted cement.<br /><br />The first of many.<br /><br />Booming voice, different colors, S'barros, open spaces, different money, bigger cars fatter hips baggy clothes doordiemeandI<br /><br />Swarms of the other<br /> enveloped my belly<br />seasickness of the mind<br /> cold pang of recognition<br /><br />welcome home.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-228440300574786445.post-14368086542013857912010-01-19T13:08:00.002+09:002010-10-02T00:13:25.884+09:00I've taughtteachers and businessmen and<br />children and old men and young men<br />and beautiful young ladies and rotten old cadavers<br />and young things still looking to crawl back into the womb.<br /><br />I've taught<br />engineers and astrophysicists and<br />biotechnicians and professional runners<br />and singers and dancers and karaoke professionals<br />and artists and the artless and college students and the jobless.<br /><br />I've taught<br />haughty geniuses and kind souls<br />part-time snowboarders and full-time drinkers<br />nervous cases and anorexics and obsessives and those<br />altogether disconnected with the outside world.<br /><br />I've taught<br />the sleepless, the sleepy, and the dead asleep<br />the people bound for Brazil and Italy and Guam<br />Mothers and daughters and flower-shop owners<br />taxmen and saleswomen<br />deskclerks and flight attendants<br />housewives and gamblers<br />scientists and hostesses<br />winners and losers<br />kappa and cthulu,<br />and each one takes a chip, chip, chip.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0