Benjamin Smith

 

 

I write poetry and sell it from my house, which is kind of embarrassing, but i don’t know what else to do. I have written most of my life and recently published a selection of my poems. I try to blend a certain style of over-the-top honesty with vain, self indulgent, satire. I think sad things should only be told in a humorous way and the butt of any good pun should be aimed at one’s self. I focus my writing on “people watching” and I squirm over the way we all interact. I have a weak bladder, which means I spend a lot of time in the bathroom. It can be a real burden on my social life, but it means I'm always experiencing life either going or leaving the toilet. I’d like to think I'm a nice person but i bet i come off as an absorbed drama queen. When writing I like to pretend i can hear the thoughts of the person reading my work and using my words as an initial platform. I then work in the meditated response. I’m 24 and I live at home with my family in Melbourne, Australia. I’m an average, day dreaming, drunk young man, who is pretending to be beat and boho. And shit, If that’s not poetry, I don’t know what is.

 

Ben's Blog: Horror, Sleaze & Trash

Ben's Email Address: Ben@alternativereel.com 

 

 

Im a world famous poet

 

Me and my girl,

Stand

At the kitchen table,

 

With a cold tin in my hand,

and in hers

a thin flute of cheap

champagne

 

A girl with massive tits

and the prettyest

curls of hair you ever seen

calls me “the poet”

And

asks to fuck the both of us,

In a orgy i couldn’t handle,

Anyway.

But we have to speak to her boy friend,

Cause he’s a little bit shy

 

And on the drive home,

With the passing red lights

A smudge to my

Drunken eyes.

 

I say

 

“You hear that baby?

they called me a poet,

Im a world famous poet...”

 

And i drink the last

warm dregs of my beer

and throw it out the window.

 

And when i get home

I fall sleep on the couch,

Watching circous de solie,

 

and dream about the end of the world.

And in my dream

every one is panicing.

Saying,

 

“we are all going to die,

some body save us

We are all going to die.”

 

But not me,

I feel relaxed

Pretending to be

a world famous poet.

 

Sleeping on the couch at my mums

with my dick clenched tighty

in my sweating palm.

 

 

---

 

The snowy road

 

She sings along

To tunes

That the radio plays

And runs her hand

Across my lap.

 

while the sun

Paints the road,

Till it looks like

We are driving on snow.

 

And the opening

Grey

Clouds

That split above me,

Are envious 

Of us all,

 

And our journey that

Will leave tracks

On the tarmac

 

That for a little while there

Believed they were snow.

 

 

---

 

 

My first book

My first book,

Went for sale at 30 bucks

A pop

At a joint that sells porn

In a semi hippy part

Of an overly yuppie town

 

They took 4 copys

And

Gave me a business card with

A few numbers that would

Get my cash back

From the eventual sales.

 

If they all sold they would take more.

The business card had

Two girls rubbing each others

pussy on the front.

 

He wrote my refrence number

In blue pen 

next to them

 

Only one copy sold. 

 

To a guy I know

Who rang me when

I was handing them in for sale.

 

30 bucks.

 

Next to paper backs

And self published 

Anti magazines.

 

There used to be a television

In the corner of the store

Than ran black and white porn flicks

 

The police raided it

a few days before 

I gave them my 30 doller book to sell.

 

They took hand cuffs.

A book about satan

 

I wish they were a few days later

 

Maybe they would have taken 

The remaining 3 books I had to sell

 

And I could

make the money

I owed the vanity press in the states

 

Who make fun of hacks like me

Who think people give a fuck

About what we have to say.

 

---

 

Half a heart

 

There is a little boy,

On television that only has half a heart

 

He says,

“ I wish I had a whole heart,

And my mum and dad.”

 

He says it with a beautiful smile

That could warm the world

 

He has a hot mother.

I remember that.

 

I open a beer after his scene

And run a bath

 

The radio plays swing.

 

I dance with my girl

She is wearing her pajamas

im naked.

 

We dance quietly.

With bare feet.

Together

On the floor boards of my home.

With the television still

Playing

In the other room

 

And she leaves me alone

 

With the swing

 

And the radio

And an a world of guilt

And the wish 

That i only had half a heart,

Too.

 

---

 

My bow legged girl

 

Bow legged.

On the floor.

 

A dress hem creeping from her thigh

and into the warmth of her,

Awning,

Blushing crotch.

 

Undressed at the height,

 

breathing white cloud of smoke,

that settle around her lips

and hang heavily

with a dissipated weight

around her nipples.

 

Glowing grey,

in the awkward neon’s,

of the porch light outside.

 

The staunch, black, outside 

 

The television hums in the other room.

Just like it always does.

 

And I yell out the wire screen door,

 

That the next few pages are for her,

 

As if they have ever been anyone else’s.