STEFANIE BENNETT - POEMS

Stefanie Bennett has published several volumes of poetry, a novel & a libretto. Of mixed ancestry [Irish/Italian/Paugussett-Shawnee] she was born in Queensland, Australia. Stefanie’s latest poetry title (2015) “The Vanishing” is available from its publisher Walleah Press, Amazon & Fishpond Books.

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                    NETWORK NEWS – Moscow 1915 

                             “I know the truth -give up all other truths! No need for 
                              ​people anywhere on earth to struggle.” M. Tsvetayeva

I've not destroyed myself although

They said I would.

I've run my race, but never crookedly:

The diversions, on occasion, were necessary.



And, I've not measured fate. Lady Luck

Had other plans. Familiarity, fame -

It's the same forgery when

You get down on all fours to look at it.

​

As for that plasmic boy, the one who

Deals out icons and

The wearing lands of the senses:

I read him as best I could.




We lived separately. He – in his fine house

Scattered with bronze eagles, unicorns,

And fire-wheels. I, in my

Trench-coat; total. Conventionless.



Mentor aside, the path was stony. At every

Fork an ambush or reconciliation.

Through the twin births of opposites

I chose – always – what lay between.



After me comes death in her doomed chariot.

I pause long enough

To kiss the living back to life. I've learned

Destruction can be tender, the process



Ongoing. The writing of it: seemingly natural.


                                                RELIC


Picking up shells on Long Island

I'm remembering a displaced people

As the thin sea's edge draws the firmament

In streaks of pale violet.

Trade-goods would have been exchanged here.

Copper kettles for wild game,

Squash, and field fruits awaiting

The scorched Metacom's advance. *

I dig my heels into quick-silver sand

Wet with the tide's ebb

And reel at a faint earth pulse.

All around are distinctive

Indentations: moccasin shaped.

                                         *Metacom = King Phillip



                            WILLOW DREAMING


Drought's my season. Red earth

The soliloquy. Even

This creek bed's cut its losses.

Moribund crab-apple, you recognise *

My skull – your old playmate -

Gone dissonant with haze.

Churlishly, I once believed

I could douse fire up

And fan it back again

But – I am no overlord. The odd

Monsoon puts quiet to that.

Born victims, let's not forget

Our origins. Too adroitly fate's

Equated to obstinacy;

Deliverance grounded on hearsay.

Still, the moon's stark full of mystery,

And land's aging evermore.

I salute us with dust; with passion

- Watch the miraging rivers run.

                                                   *crab-apple = desert fruit, Australia