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Gatekeeper
by Wayne Benson Jr.
When my grandmother asks
when you gonna start making money
from your poetry
I want to say don’t worry
I’m just keeping the gate warm
I didn’t mention I’ve stopped
submitting to the bipoc issues
All I have are issues
and words that don’t understand themselves
Past the gate there is no middle
gound no room for thought—
either this or that but I might
just end up the guy with a Kangol hat
hair slicked back at your local reading
saying everything meaning nothing
Archive: II
by Wayne Benson Jr.
My lineage goes back as far as Edward Lear’s
The Owl and the Pussy Cat—
My great grandfather's favorite poem—
my grandmother told me
he could recite it on command.
O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
And this told me everything and nothing
about the man. I can only assume he loved
the idea of an owl and a cat swindling a ring
off a pig and eloping out to sea
I can only tell you, and my children’s children
how much he loved his wife
because that is what my grandmother told me
Archive: XI
by Wayne Benson Jr.
let’s admit it, we can only name
but so many plants, and honestly,
we’ve named them all to a grave, a metaphor,
a casket made with orchids and peonies
and lilacs and tulips even white mangroves
(Yes, I’ve looked these up)
They are laid atop an empty body. These words
that, even now, want to remind you
there are flowers in a bed at your local Giant
waiting to be bought by someone who hates them
or an MFA graduate (me) next door, sitting
in their yard, coming up with nothing. Nothing coming up
Yes, I can only tell a rose from an Ivy cause I’ve been
poisoned by both, and if that’s not enough, so be it
In My Late 20s
by Wayne Benson Jr.
“it’s all downhill from here”
I used to say this as if
I’d reached the top
of something
and there was always someone
to say there is life and death
in the tongue!
but coming out now, maybe
on the other side
of disillusion
downhill seems
such a lighter walk.
It was worse before
trying to know the difference
between pain that is
growing and that which grows
from standing still—and still
at times I am
the wrong side
my life is forced
to wake on—
The problem has always been
assuming
light was only
at the end of the tunnel
Wayne Benson Jr.
Wayne Benson is a poet and editor from Pennsylvania. He earned his MFA with the Maslow Family Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University. Wayne runs his own podcast, Basement Poetry Podcast, where he talks about poetry in his basement. Wayne currently has poems published in CP Quarterly, perhappened magazine, Stick Figure Poetry, and The Elevation Review. Find Wayne @Wayney_Gang on both Twitter and Instagram.
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