Nothing Wavering – by C. Mehrl Bennett
In a house of silences that engage
Two pyromaniac gymnasts,
It might be hard to believe the
Secrets of this man’s work, or the life he lives
In the company of his wife.
Everything projects a
Banal shadow of absence–
Because of the presence of a way of being–
The spectrum of this man and
His wife in a litany of Both.
Wavering lines in the sun – layered by shadows
Are at first possible, but then reproach us as impossible
Do you recognize the girl that first met this man?
She came from especially nowhere, but grew up in
A Since Possessed Dialogue.
An actor claimed to bury
This couple by adopting a lost and found attitude,
For hadn’t we lost the entire collective generation decades earlier?
Mysteriously, whether we believe the story or not
All this says is that 1953 underpins a reality.
In this power play there exists
A fifties world in which was born
The first woman, C. Mehrl Bennett
Who wrote the following poem:
GOING TO MANONG
The WHOLE of St. Louis is like,
At a LOSS, like, a
LOSER, chain smoking
This year
STINK became a team with
Everyone stinking and panting thru
46 damns on the Mississippi
From Lake Itasca to
The Gulf of Mexico
Time to
STAND UP your money
&
Make-believe the LOSER is
Stinking and panting HERE
INSIDE the shop
&
IT DON’T MATTER that you’re
Stinking and panting
&
Don’t we hold hands daily?
I NEEDS to
Shine up my carcass ’cause
I sell it on eBay and
Hey, it’s my money honey!
You DO believe me?
Don’t you?
Yes you DO but . . .
Then you DON’T
Yeah its
“MAKE-BELIEVE”
We paint THOSE people white and
THOSE people black
&
Harassed Sonya at Shanghai range
Because S$S$S$S$S$S$S$
You and she spent
ALL your money
On PAINT and shit
&
We AIN’T like stinking lizards and
AIN’T like any flopping blooms on earth!
You blew ALL your money so
ALL us pyromaniac gymnists
Can now speak for ourselves
BUT . . .
MOST appalling is that
ALL that money is
IN MANONG!
I’m NOT full of baloney or
Do you keep old meat?
ALL you wanna do is be
Slayin’ the lizard
Fighting it’s fire with
Shame and spit
Now ALL THAT reminds me . . .
YOU ALL is
Pant’in and shit’in from the
Daytime shine
&
CRIKEY !
ALL your poetry’s SO FAR OUT
That
We’ll have
NO
Chili
NO
Chocolate
NO
NADA tonight!
C. Mehrl Bennett August 2013
Poem & Blog Post revised February 2015
NOTE: I read this poem at a “100,000 Poets for Change” event at Tribes gallery in NYC on October 28, 2013, after we both (JMB & me) received an invitation from Ron Kolm, notorius member of “The Unbearables” and a contributing editor to Sensitive Skin Magazine
