Paper snowflakes from dogeared pages:
Trustfall
We don’t fall in love like we used to
We edge into it
Because we’ve come to expect
Nobody will be there to catch us.
Forget Me Nots
I mistook my heart
for a wasp in amber
and made its last words
before going under
a stone’s throw
meant to shatter you.
Immortality is Death
immortality?
that’s photography
not poetrypictures exist
to prove ‘Nothing’ can be keptwords fleet
but get to live at leastas starlight singing
Repeat After Death
a dream
is a stone cast across a glass theaterlike my first kiss
on that wet park bencha fight to the death.
My Second Day Sober
Bruises as blueprints
of the art
our bodies twist from painif you break me
I’ll birth stars.
Save God
is Life
worthy
of the one
who has to lose it?
when you write we ‘become’ the characters in your poems. We have no choice you craft them in such a way that we must fall in.
Damien Kaniewski
Mentor & Friend
Sometimes loneliness talks back
that doesn’t make us crazy.
– “What is it like for you?”
“What is what like?”
– “A human experience.”
“There’s nothing human about it, I’m a flightless angel in a void. “
– “Are those not called stars?”
Ben is an
inspiration of which there is no higher compliment to be given. I have yet to
read a poem of his that has not had at least one line or stanza that makes me
say wow. He is also puzzling and makes me think. Because in almost every poem
there’s something that makes me say “man I wish I wrote that, why didn’t I
think of it?” More importantly Ben is a true human in the sense that his
consciousness is pure from the heart. The world needs more people like Ben. And
I look forward to many many years of his writings.
Daniel Dischino
Poet & Friend
Paper snowflakes from dogeared pages:
We’ll Meet Again
I let it in
only on the promise
of mutual assured destructionbecause here the floor was not lava
it was an open wound
One Last Run Around The Rainbow
only to see through aching eyes,
fixed so firmly upon nothing,
That without the need,
for it to be,
everything it’s not,
All falls into view.
Little Infinities
fingerprints
were made
to look like labyrinthsbecause Identity
is supposed to take
a lifetime to figure out
Memories Of This Little Yellow House
I started calling you ‘Magpie’
and you wore that nickname
like a set of wingsbecause it made
of every subsequent gathering
a mischief.
The Runner Up
in love or war
there are no silver medals
for the runner upjust a silent finish line.
Vanishing Points
and if I declare
that I am of myself
unwanted?would you undo
the unwelcome in your arms
and hold me until dust?Even if in the presence of your mercy
I remain unfit for love?
One day, I’ll write a book and fill the chapters with quotes from you.
Tmishael
Poet & Friend
Sometimes loneliness talks back
that doesn’t make us crazy.
Where do you think the stars go during the day?
– Probably trading places, waiting for someone to notice.
Do you think they know us?
– I think we’re beating them at their own game.
Ben’s poetry pierces me. The grit of authenticity stays in my wounds, impossible to forget. Reading his words aloud flows naturally and transports me into his perspective. I am honored to have him frequently write in my contests and allow me to read his poems on a radio show that I host.
Aphasiana
Poet & Friend
Paper snowflakes from dogeared pages:
Bruises We Let Scar
the vacuum
between our two nudesthat breathless dream
with its cruel division of beautyI’m pretty sure it killed me.
(and I could have sworn,
I heard you laughing.)
Goodbye Old Friend
I wonder if he laughed when his aunt asked if they could turn the music up
if he noted the way the sunlight fell through the curtains
whenever someone needed the strength to speakand if he applauded them,
or just sat there in silence alongside us
The Night We Only Spoke Morse Code
there,
nightfall
was a valkyrie of flame
shattering glass skiesand we were just three men in our twenties
stone tongued wanderers
undressing opposite ends of the same silence
Adam
he’s an absent lover
and some days
he looks like
someone’s favorite childbut most of the time
he is just a boya rotten womb’s forgotten prisoner of war
Angels
do not believe them
when they say
I am the last Son of Death
the last star in her darkthat was only the past talking
just a stone bird’s song of lonely
cast across a theater of dreams.
Time To Go
maybe fear always belonged
in the eyes of the destroyer
“I am glad Art found you.”
Micaela
Poet & Friend