Poet Wrestling with :: What Happens Now ::
Healing is not those who made me
keep peace who. Said I must. Death. Often & squander. To convalesce, to reach
a number. Called. Night. Slept. Bitter. Sweat. Swagger. Embedded. To be de. -tained
in. Flash. Backs. Calm. Catch. Muzzle. Ranged. & unspoiled. Match. Point. Wet.
Ash, no longer just. Miss. Another. Bullet. Artful. Dodge when. No more crumbs,
no more rape. No redress of fifty-fifty, one of which. Is flimsy, last. Dibs. On my
beauty. Repelling good. Standing. The kind that de-. Rails the wicked before. Proven.
Sound. Proof. Siren. Line. -up. &. Shrinking. Act. I. Must. Wipe off the red from
natural. Groove like always. Ready. To lose— you. Have no idea. I’m a total blows-
come-to, a gravitational lens with. The end— no I. Won’t. Emit for a fast omit.
Distort distant light & even feel. Are you. Cold yet. Since it’s time to strip
paint & wheels off
you, some evolutionary.
Glitch. Pitching. One.
Last. Wish. Dim.
Poet Wrestling with ≈ WonderWall ≈
—after Solaris (1972)
Shall we take turns inventing each other.
Should we perchance
:: to death
less ::
this horse
once
& for all.
Shall it be formal pleasure {a stint
in dialectics} shall I ride side-saddle
to prevent myself from coming
first— it’s not
a redress. A comfort, if you— please.
Harboring the negative
electricity :: in a silk stocking :: is identical
for every teethtorn nylon & bare
human skin & leather
restraint &
the state
of shock remains all-embracing.
How lead can lay up as much
static as flyaways fucking
into your mouth. Or mine.
Hats off
to us for taking the time :: to bang
&release— while on earth,
they are still
canting
through :: open
double :: doors &—
my love :: I’m not :: was never, keeping
{score}
the horses left behind still jostle & brisk-
by-backbeat & whine they are
the very last
thing we see in a loop :: free ::
before takeoff
(e-)stranging—
*
Lock my legs— & intenterror—
Spend a little more time
on me it’s not too late :: we are :: already staggering—
Lock my legs.
Bytecode & embed:
survive new atmosphere
& alight as virus or godhead
::
Love, you lead,
is rooted in heuristics
& will have no place
in this new sublimity where
:: true level & zero gravity :: where
{I LOVE YOU} is a single gesture for make testable predictions :: where
no vacuum catastrophes where :: tableside consommé & cold-fusion:: where
{thereal real} {thereal real} {thereal real} {thereal real} {thereal real} —you
load: “wreck”
I emit :: ark :: you
rip: slack& axion&expanding {I
split} :: annex— &mimicry & derelict :: is anyone did someone
{summon}:: crash without
ever harbor{ing} ::
*
Here, things that aren’t real in the first place
come back at you.
I am one of them. Scrimmage, both sender
& receiverunsends. Unbalance of neutrinos &
:: superheavies ::
Here my elements
won’t break down no matter
how far I text myself
off space. Or poison
my own isotopes.
I take pains
to slice a throat :: ignore :: lock
away. Don’t worry, you crack & encrypt,
don’t mind yourselves,
little equus trees. Yours.
Truly. Ibut— Finger
-length seahorses with bony
forelocks & flying
pace.
You arrange a single genetic
mutation & give
me this soar & gait.
A whole zeal of identical
I & I & I & I— you
don’t like
innovation,
only metamorphosis
of {:: disarray ::}
into something
familiar.
You ask me to call you Fathertime.
You say here you could feed seven
worlds over, but there’s only
YOU
& a joyful
{peculiar}.
There will be no revolutions.
I’ll never die.
You try to anoint fear within once upon a time
where elsewhere they blanket me with earth
& I de
-compose. Tiny things eat me & I pass on
& through & ::so:: —
Here, there’s only endless blur & billow. You say maybe one day I could
disintegrate. Break
apart &. Desiccate. But how
unlikely. Here, no rot. No natural
predatory. No hate. I wake
:: {up} ::
a woman in your arms.
I am everywhere.
Hemmed to vicious mist
over an ocean without shoreline
or skeleton.
*
You say: & we fuck like horses. Times :: passes :: we
think. You tell me each spell you complete
-ly forget about all those fucking horses
in films & stories. Ensnared on temple
walls & in soft, padded garages. Snarling. Next to us,
the last time you fucked :: around
before leaving
there.
You mean THE real earth.
Where horses cry silently over the hill
as foals lay down their heads
feeling full well
they’re next.
No one could watch you burn all the photos
because it made them :: real ::
My face as well. Not mine, but to whom
else could it belong. My known still remains inches
from the purging, the
burning: the zero-point energy
blueprints, the horsepower bootstraps
& sunday evening unease.
Near extinct: the recipe
for cherry pits, casu marzu & puffer-
fish. You left the whole fold choking on ash
& lovers’ treatise in a locked metal box once next
to hanging ivy & dappled
parakeets. Never asked. Don’t
particularly want to be feeling
a way, those days thrown back
at {me}, colliding in body & body
for what, this little else,
when I ask about :: my self :: Or
rather: who I’ve been being
there. You say it takes a different kind
of wall & well. You lie: first there must be
land,
but here,
a crime.
*
You & I are each :: locked inside :: our own :: private :: languages.
I say the future is when we get them :: to speak :: to one
another. I’d like to ride
& dismount
nature before interstellar
clouds :: cast
their final :: spells.
*
You will be wrong.
I’ll get lost
among my many renaissances
& rebellions. I’ll interference
& mutant. Rid myself of mirrors
& absence. I won’t stay
this, after all. I’ll overcome the speed of light
& all limits. Sow oats for what you have no language so
to speak other worlds outside of this— & maybe you’ll be
:: unproven ::
I’ll even bring you back from that.
Spar for every touch & isolation
:: ys & Y-us ::
{re-un-invent}
in quirk & off-
center your great
allegorical
allegations.
I would like to say for the record that I arose & sprung a little human. I am.
Like-born & it’s enough. That today that I was a real child
from the mouth of :: spacehorses & horsebabes:: that once,
something really escaped
that changed. Forever. Struck me
this music. No more chorus that I came
from your grave,
when :: really ::
this world too
:: unfolded ::
from my ungrace—
Shall I refrain from inventing another.
Shall I make plain: There is. There’s something to
:: speaking not over but through ::
That we have loved. & have loved,
greatly. Even {you} what
last :: great :: adventure
where won’t we :: have {answer} to :: with doubt or dispute :: y-s
in spacehorse there’s no wonder hidden
behind hindrance where Y-us
will begin & upend every
last looking
glass & transmission
:: every :: beast of
burden & stable
choking on bridle, bits & laurels—
So little :: cache :: so {will} engorge only distance
& slippage. So replay no more again.
So without rein & swell, so
never try ydidn’t :: & when our fire-foal dims,
the very stars they are at
:: last:: un
::
:: -hymned ::
::
From the Author: “Poet Wrestling with. :: What Happens Now :: ” is an attempt to both reflect and contain the start-stop-start terror of being unable to escape the grips of a sexual assault flashback. While being caught in the throes of this “past continuous,” the speaker can respond and take some sort of action within the poem, redirecting her assailants as “some evolutionary./Glitch.” The second poem, “Poet Wrestling with ≈ WonderWall ≈” is my love letter to the original 1972 Soviet film Solaris (not the remake); like director Andrei Tarkovsky, I too have a love for using horses in my work. Both poems were written in the pandemic, but it’s the second poem in which the speaker attempts to start over, particularly with relearning the geographical and stellar possibilities of her own body as much as the celestial bodies in the multiverse. In the end, the speaker considers that even if what we think are our progress and invention are not real at all but recycled forms of what we already know, no, she’s not giving up.
Rosebud Ben-Oni won 2019 Alice James Award for If This Is the Age We End Discovery (2021), which received a Starred Review in Booklist, and the author of turn around, BRXGHT XYXS (Get Fresh Books, 2019) and 20 Atomic Sonnets (Black Warrior Review, 2020). A recipient of the NYFA Fellowship in Poetry and a CantoMundo Fellowship, her work has been commissioned by the National September 11 Memorial in NYC.
