Tag: poet

Right to rewrite

Pocket poets have no good stories,

but what is a good story

anyway?

We are none else more than fantasies

in some stranger’s fairy

to say.

So I’m happened no one sees

nay me, writing this story;

I’m just history.

Benyamin Bensalah

28.03.2021

Pocket sonnet

Pockets. What a goddamn godsend is it to possess!
The temporary holding of everything
that stacks the more and has the less –
all the things sent to abandoning,
all the things spent no how just as a waste,
all the things meant to be lost,
all the things temporarily displaced
pass-cross by while being tossed.
There’s no more meaning in the holder either,
so just keep your hands in those pockets
just as it has been done by the wicked creator
of the things possessed as maquettes.
   What else the hands in the pockets would signify
   than being and being ready to die?

Benyamin Bensalah

14.01.2021

A poet’s block fallacy

As in villages as in big cities,
As in classrooms as in societies,
I’m alone with my strange personalities.

The eyes, the smiles, the frowns, the clowns,
The hardships and their ups and downs
Have no affect on my daily rounds.

Even the precious words are empty,
No mean defenses, no more acting gently;
No more need to fake my misery intelligently.

Benyamin Bensalah

28.08.2019

The Great Game

I am the young deer that has got out of the game –
Changing a lot after’, yet being all the same;
Might I have been lucky, not getting that shot,
Might my trophy on that wall had been my lost jackpot.

I had a young antler of a thousand great promise’ –
Brown eyes aglow and muscles of Adonis;
Might my eyes held the curse, within it a burning forest,
Might my quick moves bespoke I was an amorist.

I played the game in sage pose, looking through the forest –
Though, the wood deceived me, playing divine, modest;
Might the bait was too honest, letting run the game,
Might the wolfish hunter missed it, swallowing the shame.

I’ve become a shameful legend, a silent rumour –
At the table, the spice of some tasteless humour;
Saying: might we have been lucky, not getting that weak shot,
Might his trophy would be cursed, costing us a lot.

By the truth, he owns a noble, but wild venison –
Venomous while still vital, without comparison;
For sure, his antler’s mocking behind every tree you try to ignore,
While the forest itself is whispering his legendary lore.

Benyamin Bensalah

20.09.2018

A to Z, looking for happiness

Absurd thoughts coming from a spotless mind;
Burning bridges and looking sadly behind,
Crying out tissues without real issues,
Dying in seconds thinking of a muse,
Entering her life so that to leave,
Finding myself newly naive,
G spots for her pleasure,
Hiding as a treasure,
Inviting homeless,
Joking hopeless,
Killing time,
Loving by,
Mind,
Never mind,
Ol’ possibilities,
Poet communities,
Questioning taboos,
Returning to the muse,
Seeking that happiness,
Turning back cuz I’m a mess,
Unwanting to go outside of this hell,
Venting in poems there’s no one to tell,
Why I am here, I don’t know nor I do care,
X-Ray shaming clouds smoked in my despair,
You could help on me, so it will be all your fault,
Zero meaning or happiness I found just as Mersault.

Benyamin Bensalah

27.01.2020

Almost dead poets

If there’s a poet you know, and still alive;
Please, tell him your appreciation,
Tell her how she does matter,
Tell him he means a lot
Because
We, poets, don’t see behind the dot;
We feel a lot, write some out,
Then, we think, sometimes,
That we’ve done nothing.
That’s why,
Please, if there’s a poet… you know…
Tell him, tell her your appreciation
Because… it does matter,
You know…

Benyamin Bensalah

07.01.2020

János Áfra: Listening

Each other’s distorted mirror images
we are, two facing
X-ray images. On one side
bigger skull and less
emotion. Still the same way,
a shade is in our chest,
a hidden pump, the heart.

Two fluoroscoped torsos,
wrapped with tempers,
in golden yellow frames. Between us
like the back of a book, are shading
the edges of the papers, our common borders.
Sketched on the margin, there are blurred
Eastern calligraphies, jealousy-made
trace system. The will’s
hereditary prehistoric images
to break up mortals.

The earthly cold of freedom would allow
to let you go, but I can’t
distinguish yet, the thoracic cavity’s
and the skull’s night’s warm.
I’m rather listening through your breast
how your heart is beating.

Translated from the Hungarian poem of János Áfra, “Hallgatás” (2014)

Benyamin Bensalah

02.01.2020

The Blue 009 (Two Zero One Nine)

Trying to describe this year is so foolish
As describing the sky as bluish:

What is a color? What is the sky?
What is happening up in the high?
It is not blue – maybe just partly;
The white light up there is having a colorful party.

So as, no clear thing can be stated
As “This year I’ve got devastated.”;
What is devastation? Being said tartly?
While the might Guy up there is having a scornful party.

I’ve got Diagnosed as Personally Borderlined,
But it’s still me and my Ol’ demented mind;
I’m not looking for a political asylum like “Sorry. It’s Bee Pee Dee.”
While I know my place is in an Asylum or under a Tee Gee Vee.

I just cannot say it out like : “The sky is blue.”,
Even if I have a clue like the prism the light goes through;
So as, I cannot say it out like : “This year was my fault.”
While I’ve been just being me like The Stranger‘s Meursault.

So as, I’ve got proofs that I’ve been good;
Pictures in which I cause happiness despite of my mood –
While burning inside and preparing an attempt for suicide,
I was doing my best staying cheerful by others’ side.

This is why it is so hard to tell
While the prism has six colors, why the other five fell,
This is why it is so hard to believe
While I am just being me, people ignorantly leave.

But this is what we always do;
Just saying out things like that: “The sky is blue”,
Then, we don’t care about people’s understanding
That changes nothing on the ending.

So I – for last in this year, being a little bit foolish –
Describe this year as it was totally and very, very bluish.

Benyamin Bensalah

31.12.2019