unchanged

it never really changes

that scratchy transistor
still sounds the same
to the ears of the past
hidden under the cover
of a late night wish

and you refuse to believe
that the cornstalks
are any shorter
that the dirt is drier
than it was last summer

and meanwhile the snow piles up
and regardless of month
you remember peering out the windshield
from your backseat vantage
listening to your mother swerve the wheel
cussing the march and the gravel

and all of this is the same
as yesterday
as tomorrow
when you believed the last gasp
was the ending word

but now that frozen moment
is less than a footnote
on your approaching obsolescence
or so it would seem
as you sit here
refusing to recognize the moment
for all it is

Timeline

We were told
all of this before
as we reveled in the
static existence that
permeated the pavement,
and every day
meant something,
except for the ones
left in the background;
signposts that always said:
Try Again,
and we did,
because what else
is there to do
when all you’ve got
is everything,
but all you see
is nothing?

We were told
all of this before,
but things like that
rarely matter
when today is
the only day,
and what has changed
but a dented perspective,
and you had this pocketknife,
and that was enough
in the hazy moment.

We were told
all of this before,
crunching earth that advised
walk slowly, walk steady,
so we ran,
and one day
we’ll rest.

Retrospect on the Wind

There were late night moments
of ritualistic abandon,
throwing everything to the fire;
caution being the first to go.

We’d see the twinkling darkened windows
from a vantage of impossible distance,
never knowing what was
on the other side of that black glass,
only that it had to be something grander
than the place from which we came.

Things would burn down,
ashes collecting at the bottom
of a rusted-out fifty-five-gallon drum,
and all within a radius breathed in
the noxious odour of something
that never should have been.

A single struggling streetlight
told the shadowy tale of
every other busted out arc sodium dream,
and we believed all those soundless words
with an innocent fervor never to be matched.

Sometimes in the still midnight of now,
you can hear a wind shoot through trees,
even a lone coyote calling to the gathering,
but just beneath all of that,
you might hear all the things
we never said.

At the Core

There’s a quiet spot
deep inside of nothing,
underneath everything,

hiding, waiting to be found;
a centre to be exhumed,
but only from within,

and that’s the trick, isn’t it?:
to dig out the intention
from underneath the extensions,

to explode from a
position of implosion.
There is a quiet spot,

and it’s there, breathing, waiting,
knowing that time is irrelevant,
that the wind never fails;

believing that calm will come,
and it’s only to be found
beyond the next breath.

how it is

to all extant
you see a sideways world
turning in some
unimaginable cycle
unpredictable and disturbing

you watch from your
suspiciously rounded corner
an acknowledgement of nothing
a promise of everything

and yet
the circles swirl
the world knows
and you’ll remain in the dark
seeing through pinholes
and pretending they’re stars

your perception an image
from a coffee can camera
of yesterday’s embellishment
undulating and roiling and nauseous

but that’s only what happened
yesterday
and tomorrow is less than a dream
and today’s already half in a book
that’s already begun
to smoulder in the wet flames
of anything that ever
seemed to make sense

James Benger is the author of several books of poetry and prose. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Writers Place, and on the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems in 365 Days online workshop. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.