Four Poems

by Tantra Bensko

 

 

Biography:

See for yourself!

Snow Turned to Fire

Snow remakes the land into petals
Of wind blown into form,
Where thoughts skim their surface,
Curving down the slopes
And canyons. Snow over iced gougings
From others walking on these edges,
These curling windings around
The mountains, keeps me present
To keep from falling, that I may
Not die. That I may not die,
I walk on snow.
Only being present to the moment
Keeps the dream from floating off
Away from pain.
From taking on bright feathers,
Gold and orange, fleeing upward,
Glinting.
Snow blows in ambush-winds,
In front of the sun,
Which makes it look like fire,
Huge in the sky, flames
Wavering out sideways, orange
And gold.
Flowers for the snow, my gifts,
Dropped with eerie songs
Into the curved ice prints
Along the trail, into the cat
Pawprints, along the edges
Most life threatening.
They take off flying, plunging
Into dreampatterns, when the wind
Receives them into it.
Some fly up in the sunfire,
Adding red and coral, green.
They take on wings. They sing.
They are the moment that makes
Me forget. I sing, though the wind
Blows away my song, and I hear
Only the fading colors of some
Self that once had words and meaning,
Love and reason.
I stick more flowers in my white dress
Of mesh, the stems undulating
Between thin white strings,
And flowers in my hair. I shiver,
Offering myself to the snow and wind
To take, adding feathers to the mesh,
I wonder if it’s strong enough
To make me painless, forgetting
All but cold and snow that drifts
And blows and melts and I no more.

Cochise Stronghold Priests

The two priests are priests for each other,
Are gold exchanging angles
Beautiful in symmetry and hushed
Abandon. Solemn, these two priests
Abide, circle, spin, make amends
To countrysides for men who fought
Here, chased and hid peace here,
And ascended here, right here
In separate spots upon the wheels
And turns, thrones and jester caps
Of ascencion. Vortex high,
Stay high, be alone
With the raccoon-monkeys
In the Arizona desert
As you spin, priests, a vortex
In the stone throne.
Love, priests, will you love!
Let it spiral from your heart
Across the old Apache land
Where wars were yours once.
Yours for everyone. The land
Is rumbling, rising, drifting
From normality. The nothingness
Has begun its dance.
Dance, priest, dance!
Which priest are you, really?
Both priests’ movements join like large
Magnetic waves
That form deep purple,
Magenta curves of self
That form winged patterns
Mysterious in trees
And dry beds, stones and cliffs.
In spirals, tunnels, joining of,
They light the globe and globes
Beyond and then beyond all globes
Is Home.

 

Madison Court House

Ceiling dome high bewilders
Violet behind stairs
Whirring falls
The corners crossing
Voices lengthened
Contact echoes
Hard to touch

In the center an animal
Strains forward
A toad a wolverine
A porcupine perhaps
A combination
Cloth savage skin

Hair succumbs to corners
Angles frenzied slant of eyes
Lines converge
A composition crazy from
The viewpoint of eyes
That do not change it
To be the postcard’s
Logic from some inhuman
View, official photographs
Too close up to show
The scattering of angles
Which lets the future
Pull you too it
Pleasure of the moment
Shape of future pleasure

Echoes high happen low
Low happen high
Domes repeat but different
Times of one time drunk myth

I call beauty to me
With the architecture
Of this place
Beauty that has no doubt
Been pulled to me
All its life
And is walking to me
Now
I am ready

Guards don’t know
The future eats us
Like a hungry animal

Where When the Tidal Hunger Hooked Me Home

Where when the tidal hunger
Hung me under
I swept through, I recovered unto you and found
The answer to all hunger
As if hunger were a question,
Weren’t it though. I am returning.

Where when the hunger found me
Under water,
Wet clean through,
I remembered back to you and knew
The reason for all desperation
As if separation were a fault,
Not done from love, I am returning.

For we are separated from the ocean
To be oceans on our own
Our tides in sync, in waves
And I’ll ride yours
That travel the unraveler,
Retraveling the traveler

Who is always going home.