A Poem by Stefanie Bennett

Getting over myself
violets
into dust

A Poem by Stefanie Bennett

A Boobook owl joins
the chorus
of September rain

A Poem by Stefanie Bennett

The poetry of the earth
has no
bar-code

Sorrow

A Haiku by Stefanie Bennett

Why is the black rock
painting
the town red…

 

From her latest book, Hoka-Hey, and hopefully not her last!

Kinship

A Poem Stefanie Bennett

Still the lamp burns. The lights
Of the other houses
Are asleep at this hour.

We are not set apart. It\’s just
That fire
Has a job to do.

Like philanthropists, we\’re
Awake most nights
Because

We have this longing
To see
The greys and yellows mingle.

Shrapnel

A Poem by Stefanie Bennett

for Paul Celan

Take one time-lapsed
Crying boy child -.

Parents? Yes! Distressed
To death…

A trickle of tanks
Daringly

Mixed into a milk-
Toothed cavity

Along with a millennia\’s
Woebegone religiosity -, then

Come. (He will be king)
Sit down.

From the reputed
Abyss see him walk

On egg-shells.
On fire-brands.

HUSH… In Memory of Wilma Piper… July 2008

A Poem by Stefanie Bennett

She died, and the micaceous almost summer winds
Dizzily scudded across Arizona
Via the Pacific Crest
Piercing Sacramento’s side.
Neither dust
Nor blind intervention
Rattled that topaz blue.

She left, with a casket of leaves embellishing
The motorcade, her wish
Homely attuned
As it lassoed the sweet aroma
Of ponderosa
And a spotted owl’s
Digital refrain.

This, the forest’s logbook accentuates
In incised resin
The colour of rain, while
‘Days of our lives’
Winged on cable, and
CNN’s disfigurement
Abetted
The able.

THE ACTIVIST

A Poem by Stefanie Bennett

Do I abdicate? My year’s breath
Shortens, and
Sight’s less detailed.
But I can still make sense of short-wave
Variations – it’s just
The pronunciation that’s altered.

Once -, aspiration’s reverence could
Be drawn from
The immense tautology
Of the bookshelf. Here; the logos!
There; the halcyon
Cloud… and I

A wistful intermediary mouthing
Incantations
To the day-breaking moon.
Now, circuit-breakers can be found
Where molten
Brevity begins –

The reeded pool turned holograph,
Becomes a pale
Star-twinning theme:
“And age,” said Han-Shan, (off-side
Of life and time)
“Is comfortless.”

HEARTLAND-HOMECOMING

A Poem by Stefanie Bennett

–after Monsanto & Dow Chemicals

Pick them up, the raw percentages
I’ve no longer any wish to carry.
These days I wrestle with the absolute.

Much is left over. The titan
Impersonating Zeus’ loss.
The white witch who sells

Found fortunes at the half hour.
The sack-clothed singer
With the cracked voice and sad accordion.

New league missionaries. Bionic bards.
Assurance satirists. I’d bagged
The lot in some begotten springtime.

It was the evening my brother
Returned from the war.
Quarter mooned – unlike himself

But with the sameness of quaint indolence.
Quieter than
Our mother’s grave. Speech therapy

Would put a fix to that. It never did.
Years viced his silence
… Lent me mine. I learned

Communication’s a game fit to kill,
Squander, maim – or
Tell untruths when amnesia wills.

Our sanatorium Sunday walks avoid
What it is that’s left over.
In the distance I see them

Impersonating posthumously those they’ll
Not become. Raw percentages
Crying still to be
Lifted up!