Nimrod Journal - Poetry Selections by Joan Benson

Originally published in "Clap Hands and Sing, Writers of Age";
Nimrod; International Journal of Prose and Poetry
Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.A.,
Spring/Summer 1991
"Antichrist 1986"
"Aged Woman Looking At A Man"
"Barren"








Antichrist 1986
--Joan Benson
I will not be seduced by television
That Lucifer in ribald colors, dancing
Like an ostrich, like a banshee, like a peacock
Before blinkless eyes.
My lids form TV blinds
(Big cities in the 60's with shades drawn
Coal dust still visible on the sills ...)
I turn to 1986's window and see clean Oregon fields
Sweet rain jeweling the pines
Then I seal the curtains. Turn on TV
Guiltily umbilical one huge hypnotic eye
To my two: WHERE IS THE MIRACLE?
Slumber-numb, I swallow
Grandma's Potato Chips and Olympia beer; Body-Blood
Of this fake, howling, plugged-in, dog-of-a
God



Aged Woman Looking At A Man
--Joan Benson
Let me stir the fire:
Hot coals are my eyes
And yours? ... Ashes!
I breathe on them ...
They blow away ...
My own become soft smoke
Color of sunless dawn
Ghosts of geisha girls
Drifting ...
Toward ancestors ...



BARREN
--Joan Benson
This hollow womb
Yellow gourd
Rattles when I walk
Brittle-bony rhythms of the
Toten Tanz.
I tap it.
Ghost child - Guilt
My hidden Hiroshima
Howls inside.
Originally Published in "Clap Hands and Sing, Writers of Age";
Nimrod; International Journal of Prose and Poetry
Arts and Humanities Council of Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.A.,
Spring/Summer 1991