Stefanie Bennett

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Syrian Resistance

In the basement the scent of cloves
Rivalled rising tear-damp
Along a torn curtain.
“Subversion,” he said, “must be
The down payment of war”...
And fingered the stone crucifix
Above the lice-plagued mattress.
 
Later, famine bruised the soil, and
An embryonic Junta
Came calling.
A pencil stub
Was found
              Deftly piercing
The vast
Interior sky.
​

Legacy

The bones are tired,
Lie down,
Become a quarry

Of bones...
Non-heedful
          Of what
Marching orders

Could expect to
Circumvent
A quarry

Of tired bones
... Bleached
Not ivory white

But ebony – like
The offering
Placing them there.
​

Plexus

Winter’s glass canopy – and
Stalagmites as big
As a Jesuit’s fist
Grip the Antarctic Circle.
A mammoth’s skull
Lies pinnacled
To a glacier.

I pause. Too belated in this
Vast waste
Of mime impoverishment
To mourn
Ice-floes nudging
Gondwana Land’s
Prototypes

Equator bound – I wait
On an assembly
Of epigrams
With leaden wings
                 And hope’s
Refracted ethos
                        Pre-
                 Disposed.
​

Perfidiousness

Someone’s perfected an Odyssey.
Someone’s thrown the ball in the court.
Someone’s lauded the catch;
Watch him trembling.
Someone’s imagining there’ll be ‘no pass’.

Someone’s bodily coveting the ground.
Someone’s got a hooter she can’t blow
... It’s not half-time!
Someone’s dreaming... I’m dreaming...
Someone’s convinced this is traitorous.

Someone’s taking off an expensive suit.
Someone’s emptying their pockets.
Someone’s writing IOUs – and
                          Someone’s shell-shocked
By ovation as the bald planet
Ticks on over into the grandstand.
​

Shine, the Gulf
               ~for Tim

Because happenstance
Likes
To play truant,

The colour
Of the smoke-house
Is indigo

... Twirling much
As a prayer-wheel
Does before

The river wild
Sucks it on
Back up

A full throated
February
Gullet

Quieting the Sandpiper.

Discourse, Pascal Style

Just because the postman
Careers by
Empty handed -,
And the Linden Tree
Bears no fruit -,
And friends travel
On a mistaken
Devil-may-care tide
Doesn't mean
That the inconspicuous one
'In waiting'
Won't attend
The Chekov soiree's
Defining principle

- Of
The first singer -.
- Of
The last song...

Thrift

Anna Maria, let’s pretend
The years haven’t
Bridged the steps untaken;
The calendar turned
Without one twinge
Of pitying.

If memory serves truly, we played
Blind-man’s-bluff
In that
Very same refuge; there

Beside the wood-pile, where
White rosemary
Dazzled
The bronze hill – and
The grave wept
Shy atonement.

Anna Maria! The Matriarch
Died three
Decades ago.
Only

Providence knows why.
Let’s say
Our farewell...
Mothers
Depart because
Daughters don’t.
​

Temperance: Osip Mandelstam

Most gracious is 
Your head-standing
In Heaven
- Leaf of the outer limits.

Grave is the perpetual
Rhythm cup
That drips 
"Tristia's" black resin.

Ever near is
The pilgrim
Undulating
The Arcanum lore...

And tender is
This Earth
Learning 
To weep

Without you.

​
​Stefanie Bennet's profile

​

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​Jeunesse Dorée - 1969 

Today, or sometime in the near future,
You will be gone. Winter is already
Drawing her cauldron in.
 
You lie beneath the bed cover
Of fur – of love – assailed
By your dream spirit.
 
I know, you’ll rise... and... but it is
Enough that we have shared
Those tidy sins and word pronouncements.
 
On days colder than this I will have
Your resources to draw upon.
Also, you will take what you need of mine.
 
The jewel of caring, my petulant one,
Cannot be fixed – not at any price,
For, if at a moment’s notice, I should
 
See you displayed in some other window,
I will not be sad or displaced.
Once, you entered my chamber. Because of that
                                      It is – far brighter. 
​

Leap-Frog, 21st Century

You get the Kafka look-alikes -.
You get the word eating strays -.
You get
Desire's streetcar
Immobilised
In funeral grey.
Well, then?
There's
The Godhead
And an 'a' plus 'x'
Nuclear quest
Confronting
The Luddite theorem
That won't
Give or get
The mythic handshake

Of The Ferryman.

Composure

When he whispers incantations
Across the ceremonial-pit
In late Winter
The last snow-drift
Orbits the tree tops
Like smoke
On a morning stroll
Headed towards
Infinity’s skylight.

Praise abounds. The sun soars.
Raven gives a jocular
Caw matched by
The smiling Elder
                       Who has
My father’s eyes
                       And more.

With hands wide open
We spread the wealth.

Poste Restante

... Where did you learn to fill
Your heart with sand?
To turn the midnight-blue
Of your eyes
Into circles of steel?

Whatever possessed you to
Hold love's bullet
Between your teeth... !
All misdemeanours
Cut just so deep.

And - whose portrait
Was it you carried...
What loss, what loss
Tossed your vision
To the vanishing edge...

Through Prague's bleak winter
You howled, Tsvetayeva;
Your child-husband
Reported
'Missing in action'...
Your son near dead of natural causes.

So—with the snowdrift upon you,
Snow as crimson
As the totem
Of that one rose
Used as a fountain-pen

... You wrote the world a letter.

Such high ideals. Blown away
In bits.
You chanted --
Assassins! Assassins! Fed
Ashes to pain's
Unlit page.

It is all... ghost-craft; ghost-craft.

... And still 'they' ask,
Rag doll of the histories
— Why did you... ?
— Whatever possessed... ?
— Whose portrait... ?

The Care Giver 
          ~for Czeslaw Milosz

It was justice you saw that day, the tin
Whistle and toy drum
Left near the windowsill.
On side, the candelabra
Wrestled with decay

As you'd done through many
A forgotten year
Composed
Of mild stupor And Warsaw's tilled servitude.

If I could draw a sun-scape margin
Around the hospice hour,
Add a peal
Of Winter bells
Consoling to the ear... call

"Come! All you unseen freedom
Revellers! Come
Play in this
Forensic nursery
                       Of before
                       And after."

Seen From Above

I take it, the crust
Of the moment,
One word
At a time:

... Move it
Cross country
Past the livery
Stable, the train's

Box-cars —, all
'A-hoot'
On the half hour
Siding

Where —, just like
Great-Grandma,
I put it in
A pipe

And smoke it.

Ice and Old Souls (Ukraine)

I note how the cabbage-soup overseer
Is strangely mute —,

Lives in a hash-key world, unbright —,
Doesn't trust

Rubbernecks, or oratory artful
'Facts' of War...'

Sights death's dire chaperone
Along Pitt Street — and

Delivers carbonised casualty lists
At Hell's Kitchen, resurged.

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