swifts  &  s l o w s · a quarterly of crisscrossings

ilinear circulation
John M. Bennett

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la peluca habla

into the shoe’s tread dust
speech’s acerbic hair ground  ,
archaic chairs stuffed with
suits & sleep  ,  ablaze the
woods & masks the , letter
dice spin before Librarian’s
stiff torso its lung’s shaking
wound in air’s hiss drips off
his drowned Language stage  ,
bridges dissolved in acid rain
the chevrolets are mute
the asterisks silent
the deaf lawns groan
above the churning hieroglyphics
where yr facial inhalation
reverses all yr skin

After Iván Argüelles’ “Aphasia”

sHoeless Ambiguity

Broken mirrors
lined the beach
not eh cod tree pup
brain shoe look simp
le shine shin fer
mented dim door fog
holding shoe mitosis
first suit eye We were
eating in the rain
can coif shoe dogs
knots & socks flog
juice eyelash under
goes boom comb
toenail itchy t ouch
jerk shoe’s last tense
drizzling rigor kelp
hairdo What’s your
dream ingot? culp
nos tril triple slough
books tides & knobs
shoe sneeze curved
each butt bait rect
ilinear circulation
or a flood blink

Stuttering through Jim Leftwich’s
LONGTIME AGO, TLPress

SIGNS OF ANT

signos

finger of the coal   shoot
table in floor   yr
head rolls off   it’s a
gate sneeze   gray
cheek smear   black
leaf   leaves me off
barely been an
anti-light   flares

is an ant

in the wind  ,   a snore
collapsant door signal

rent

corporiscate yr
chill split is a
swallowed neck

& billed

the blind eye

indensic floating agfterstroke
yr heaving flood

sky

brawl

even shadowed  x’ed or
looprication seethe
yr shorts

bleach

faster fence   deshored a
sunk suit   brays
)c louds(

chair

keeper net nest wind
crushed shoulder
hair   lift   left

wall

border ankle   never
slept   nor revelation

after pants

listen head   a  clue sh
ort tongue   ‘s hole

wind

at last the flaw was reached
least it   troubled
was egressed

abord

rusted foot   not mine
not yours   was spill

spent

in her mud   last snore
glass rise   hair   ,   wall

table

door clot flag bend
mute seat trash floor
his

leaf

insomniasno

Welches der Worte sprichst –
du dankst
den Verderben.
– Paul Celan

in bed yr throat combined yr
leg’s speech knees shine
in dark blankets burnt   .   was I
dream of you or you was me
forgotten was a shoe trembling
down stairs a gerund’s flopping
thigh   ,   my tongue refocused as a
stone    .   did yr hand did yr face
cliff’s dead scree under weeds   .
black fog seeps my ears yr ears 2
seas in sodden mattress   .   thicker
than your silence in the fridge

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John M. Bennett has published over 400 books and chapbooks of poetry and other materials. He has published, exhibited and performed his word art worldwide in thousands of publications and venues. He was editor and publisher of LOST AND FOUND TIMES (1975-2005), and is Founding Curator of the Avant Writing Collection at The Ohio State University Libraries. Richard Kostelanetz has called him “the seminal American poet of my generation”. His work, publications, and papers are collected in several major institutions, including Washington University (St. Louis), SUNY Buffalo, The Ohio State University, The Museum of Modern Art, and other major libraries. His PhD (UCLA 1970) is in Latin American Literature. His latest books are Select Poems, Poetry Hotel Press/Luna Bisonte Prods, 2016; The World of Burning, Luna Bisonte Prods, 2017; Poemas visuales, con movimientos con ruidos con combinaciones (with Osvaldo Cibils), Deep White Sound, 2017; Olas Cursis, Luna Bisonte Prods, 2018, Sesos Extremos, Luna Bisonte Prods, 2018; Dropped in the Dark Box, Luna Bisonte Prods, 2019; Leg Mist, Luna Bisonte Prods, 2019; and OJIJETE, Luna Bisonte Prods, 2020. He is co-editor, with Geoffrey D. Smith, of two works by William S. Burroughs: Everything Lost: The Latin American Notebook of William S. Burroughs; and William S. Burroughs’ “The Revised Boy Scout Manual”: An Electronic Revolution; both published by The Ohio State University Press.
John M. Bennett →