May 17-23, 2004: Benjamin Vogt and Marie Lecrivain

Benjamin Vogt and Marie Lecrivain

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Bio (auto)

Benjamin Vogt has an MFA from The Ohio State University and is currently pursuing a Ph.D at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln He was a recent finalist for the Stadler Fellowship at Bucknell University, winner of the Joy Bale Boone Prize from Wind Magazine, and his work has appeared in The Alsop Review, Cream City Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, and Verse Daily Benjamin’s chapbook Indelible Marks is available from Pudding House.

The following work is Copyright © 2004, and owned by Benjamin Vogt and may not be distributed or reprinted in any form whatsoever without written permission from the author.

Homemade Itinerary Again, you’ve bought my plane ticket You arranged my visit because you fear we’re losing touch, but you call and say it’s all arranged-and doesn’t this feel like losing touch? Too often you remember and place remember down the road so there’s something to look forward to You and I leapfrog loss without touching because two objects cannot occupy the same space All of this matters when you say, the day before, how everything is perfectly prepared, the plan with so much purpose I don’t find love in it but some wary treaty, a barter for our better parts We’re becoming too human, slipping opposite like sunrise and set at the same moment, blobs of hidden divinity stumbling to orbits that meet at some calculated time Yet even scientists aren’t sure on this The plane may not land It wouldn’t be the first time. Garbage Man His body keeps low to the ground, heavy but quick, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t stop to relish where he is He only stops at ends, no, beginnings of formal black driveways which, in their vastness, keep him at a distance They present their insides, things excreted so thoughtlessly into his gloved, stain- sweating hands: broken bottles and crumb-filled toasters, burnt oven mitts with green bean casserole imbedded in synthetic fibers, brass candle-holders encased in cyan wax After every housing development he sprays Lysol on his arms and shirt, only to cover the stink of reality, of good, dutiful work He knocks twice on the metal frame of his driver’s truck and goes on, because he has to, like a river bit by bit carrying us away. Rural Kiss, Oklahoma, 1944 Because she’s saying her goodbyes your bodies writhe like clothesline shirts, the briefest touch felt deeper than her coat’s arm like the clutch of Chevy parked behind, its chrome a frieze which cools her arching back You push valise away like an airplane’s wheel block, insomuch to steady your expressions-hers in such untangled wonder and lusty indices But yours is black and white, eyes open, a search for something past her curling hair which fades the house, the drive, street sloped and glistening Today avoids you, your memory a perch From which a distant and voiceless sound invades&Mac247; Without the war all love is just routine.

Marie Lecrivain
dichotomygoddess@yahoo.com

concierge Johan is friendly, engaging and collects worry lines on his forehead He has got a lovely smile, which does much to forgive his strange penchant for wearing the same shades of mauve and lavender that accentuate his blotchy complexion He has no idea, I’ve heard him scold the cook in staccato French, witnessed him gently guide the drunken English couple back to room 204 at 5 am, or glimpsed his studies in classical composition forgotten on the computer monitor at the reception desk Johan is perfect and professional with everyone, but his smile never brightens the whites of his eyes. proposal he threw over me a shower of buttery tears smelling sweeter than the incense weaving into my hair softer than the weathered lapels of his dusty, velvet black coat brighter than the long-fingered elegance of his bony hand reaching out & casting more marigolds in my path a trail of love i follow, a bride i can’t help but be pursuing this spoor of sunshine into the shadows of the ofrenda he raises the veil of my flesh, my smile revealed for the first & last time. Pigalle In passing, the whore behind the lattice endeavors to lure me into her dark corner Desire mounts slowly under repulsed reflex from so much flash, and I ponder the implications of acquiring a replicate phallus to hasten my journey toward “the little death “ Decorum quietly introduces itself beneath the river of neon stimuli and I’m compelled by a need to give into the honest impulse of an anonymous fuck I leave quickly, armored in my solitude.