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.

---

 
 
 
 
                         SALVADOR DALI: MINDSCAPE 
 
 
         Feel in colour. The destruction of voice
         Is mild green – terminable.
 
         Easy on the eyes! Paint ash or lilac
         As if they could not see.
 
         Tri-timbre the body from the head's pivot
         To the realm of the crystallised toe
 
         And tread by the throats of flowers, the scents
         Of morning, the air's dominion.
 
         Feel! Feel in colour! Where the black hatband has
         Nowhere to rest and the white glove
                                                                     Claps
                                                              Farewell.
 
 
 
                                   THE 10th KAMA     
 

         It was what the cat foretold:
         Straying happens
         But once in a while.
         No homing device
         Was needed
         To shout it back:
         No rulings. No torso-snatcher.
 
         Of an accord best left be...
         Cats return to
 
             A cracked saucer,
             A sinking ship,
             If that's what
             The tenth life
             Ordered.
 
 
 
 
                             KINSMAN, FIFTH DIMENSION     
 
 
          … Trying to explain you, crazy Alfie,
          The spotted neck-tie
          Or cravat worn
          At high-noon:
          Waxed moustache, turgid
          Aroma of cigar
          And Creme de Menthe.
          Negotiations and sign language
          Outside the school yard
          Of The Sacred Heart Academy...
          You've carted
          Plump olives in a brief-case
          For the Mother Superior -,
          The children.
 
 
          Each pension day, peddling to and fro
          To nowhere on
          That 'malvern star' with *
          Its bent wheel.
          Pedantics from
          The Station Master:
                                            “Impossible!
          A return ticket to Calabria?”
          Shell-shocked, twice christened
          By both shores,
                                    World prisoner -
          One Easter I took
          The gift, the sardine can
          You said was 'full of arrows
          That flew from
          The blind palms of Saint Francis'
 
          Promising never to open it. I still haven't.
          Now – half a lifetime later
          In the nursing home, you're
          Adamantly
          Stropping the razor
          Before carving
          A jackboot
                            In the bed-sheet.
          “Yes. The orderly
          Will arrange
          Train tickets,
                                Personal
 
          Effects...
          Turn off the rifle-fire,
          And leave all the lights on.”
 
          Crazy how others are
                                              As yet
          Trying to explain
          You... Alfie.
 
 
       [*Push-bike]
 
 
 
                                                            LOVE POEM     
 
 
          Air – rings of rain.
          Electricity wires
          Line the sky.
          Northward – your
          Dark window blends
          So well
          It disappears.
 
          Southbound – I, to
          Air. Rings
          Of rain
          All about me.
          And you
          Somewhere else...