The Innisfree Poetry Journal
www.innisfreepoetry.org
by Bruce Bennett
FROM SURPRISE TO DELIGHT
You start a poem. You don't know where it's going; it could go anywhere. It makes a choice. A course is set. You follow in its flowing, content to trust its vision and its voice. Pattern emerges. This will be a sonnet. It ambles with a clean and easy gait. You're easy too, though much is riding on it; you sense significance, a touch of fate. You start a love affair. Your heart's uncertain. You don't know where it's leading; nothing's sure. The stage is set, and life has raised the curtain. A drama's just beginning. What it's for is still unclear; the future lies in doubt. But you sense joy, content to ride it out.
HOW THINGS ARE NOW
It kills me not to see you, though what would I say⎯What would I do⎯ Sometimes it's better not to know
What's going on. Like where you go with him. Are things okay with you? It kills me not to see you, though
To see you now would be to throw light on a horror! Better view our past together than to know
Truths I couldn't bear. Best watch a show that's known and features nothing new. It kills me not to see you, though
I'm learning that will help me grow away from you, and, since that's true, I've finally chosen not to know
What only would destroy me. So I tell myself⎯to make it through⎯ it kills me not to see you, though I know it's better not to know!
ADVICE TO THE LOVELORN
They seek me out; I know their stories well. The desperate plea. The paralyzing woe. Deaf ears. Stone hearts. The strategies they know will get them nowhere; how, and where, they fell, but never why, that why that could reveal why they are in distress; why they must show themselves to be so helpless. Then they go back to repeat it all again, to tell these same tales over. Yes, I hear them. Yes, their pain is real, their suffering stark and true. Yes, it is true it helps them to confess; to see clear for that moment; to renew their faith that somehow, somewhere, there's a way. I hear them out. I don't know what to say.
TALK ABOUT LUCK
I was sad because I had no shoes, until I meta man who had no feet. So I said, Got any shoes you're not using?
⎯Steven Wright
He hands them over.
They're pretty scuzzy, but they'll do, you know, in a pinch.
So then I wonder.
"How'd you get here anyway?"
He's sprawled in the dirt under this scabby tree.
He smiles a huge smile.
The guy's practically toothless too. I mean, talk about luck.
So then he pulls out these crutches he's got tucked away under him.
Handmade; good wood. A neat job.
Whoa! I'm thinkin'. I know what they'll go for.
My throat's startin' to feel awful parched.
So I says, real-nice-like, I says to him:
"What's a guy like you wanna leave a spot like this for? Where would you go, anyway?
Why don'cha give me them too?"
SPECTATORS
There is a wiser self below the actor we and others know performing in our daily show;
The fool who takes the falls; the clown who lets himself and others down; the personage who sports a gown;
That crowd of them the actor plays. They fool us as they fill our days with acts and antics that amaze,
Until it's easy to forget how we are camped out on a set; how there are folks we've never met
Who yet may come to play a role. We have illusions of control. At times we think we see our whole
Production clear, and what it means. Meanwhile, below, behind the scenes, that one, unknown, bemused, remains.
Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication
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