Ben Bonkoske

Poet Without a Pen

Ben Bonkoske

  • Monday Night Poetry 11/6/23

  • I ran through the first snow of the year and thought beautifully

    It is possible for two truths to be right. For example, I’ve been tying my shoe one way since the fifth grade. I am aware that other people tie their shoes differently. Both can work. It sometimes is good to know both ways, but if my way of tying my shoe has worked for the past fifteen years, perhaps I don’t need to know the other way.

    It’s been one of those months of filling up my cup. Halloween weekend was fun I hadn’t had in too long. I might just write the story for my paid only readers…xoxoxo

    The way I explained it is, I had a lump of coal up my ass for the last two years hoping that it’d turn into a diamond. I do have a little diamond today. It is smaller than I expected, but hey, diamonds last forever. You would be proud.

    I like who I’ve become, even at my worst, which can still be pretty ugly. To quote Winston, “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” For a while now, it has been a daily jigsaw puzzle I’ve been working out and improving here and there, whether that be meals, workouts, emotional conceptions, social crap, literacy, you know, most of the good stuff. It is not all the big things I always wanted, it’s essentially efficiency, which is rewarding by itself.

    I remember at my high school graduation, that some guy who was giving our graduation commencement said, “I want you to take this time to be really proud of yourself.” I wasn’t feeling it. I also remember a drive home tonight with a girl who was talking about how this co-worker of her’s is “a little bitch.” And then she literally described every quality I think I have about myself.

    -makes jokes at other people’s expense

    -doesn’t work well in groups

    -is a teacher’s pet

    -is extremely insecure whether he knows it or not

    So that was nice.

    My whole life (here comes the insecurity) I’ve never felt like enough. But, even though my life’s work isn’t finished, I’m just glad I got here. I’m taking my moment. I’m glad that it’s gotten easier to the extent that I can accept myself. I think we are all proud of ourselves for different reasons, in different seasons.

    I believe a lot of people liked me when I was younger for a while, but I didn’t like myself. And now, I’ll just say, it’s better to have nobody like you, but at least like yourself. A girl was talking about how she felt so lucky that she was a coward at 22. Life got a lot better. You don’t need to dig very deep in my archives to know, I think I actually do struggle with depression. It is sad. But, even as I write this in a closet I call my office, with no job, my two best friends on the spectrum, and whatever else isn’t good enough, I’m just so happy I am here. Again, not in like a life is wonderful! I’m just saying it is beautiful enough, with or without everything I think I know I want.

  • Monday Night Poetry 10/30/23

  • the five people you meet in heaven – Book Review

    This book, like many on my bookshelf, was overdue to be read. The book looks like a quick read, but just because a book look easy, short, and simple, doesn’t mean that its message isn’t profound. It might take you longer than you think to read its message.

    The story follows Eddie, a maintenance man at an amusement park called Ruby Pier. He dies trying to save a little girl from a ride malfunction, and goes through five stages of heaven, in which he meets five people who impacted his life.

    Sometimes it isn’t important to analyze sentimental pieces of art. I think this story is one that speaks for itself more than I could do it justice. There is a lot of heart, and moments that evoke emotion. It has a similar message to It’s a Wonderful Life, mixed with another significant moral, that we can also hurt people in our lives too.

    Eddie is not a bad man. He is too hard on himself, and expected better of himself. I think that he recognizes how much he was loved on earth in hindsight. As well as the importance of all the details which make up the significance of his life. The lives of those he loved, known and unknown, find acceptance in the afterlife. It is a beautiful concept that we get to reflect on life after death. I wonder who I would meet.

  • Light as the weather

    We are in my kitchen. Both of us have just jumped into the lake for what we thought was to be our last hurrah of the year, but, men like us with balls, decide we’ll aim for once a month year round.

    I’m boiling a pot of tea, and my friend Sam has some schmutz on his lip, so I tell him about the scene from There’s Something About Mary, when Cameron Diaz puts some splooge in her hair. He says he likes Ben Stiller, whose in the movie. I mention I like Tom Cruise, another 5’7” gentleman.

    “Whose 5’7”?” My considerably tall friend Sam asks.

    “You’re looking at him,” I say.

    It’s a funny feeling to hear that your friend of over ten years thought you were three inches taller than you actually are. “You just have such big energy.” He continues. And I say, “I just don’t make a big deal about it.” (Any more)

    This post will probably damn me once my name is googlable and people want to see what my size is an all that. I’ve always hoped I’d just be writer who would transcend my physical size. I know how tall a few of the greats are. You just wanna know sometimes.

    But on the subject of looking people up on the internet. I may be asking myself what are my thoughts on returning to the internet, whether it be to write, to post pictures, and to progress my career. And I’d like to say I think it is terrible. However, I’m sure there were people when the television was invented that said they’d never watch a minute of tv in their lifetime. And those people are awesome. However, However, just because you don’t engage with a certain phenomenon doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. That is, unless you live in a pretty self-centered visionary philosophical mind-frame. And furthermore, you are actually missing a lot of potential information and experiences which may shape the world around us if you are closed off from that side of reality – being the fake one.

    I think change is important, but isn’t it just so hypocritical to delete everything for a good two years only to come crawling back? I don’t live in a world where, “I dunno” is a suitable answer. My best explanation is that I tend to shift with the tides. I am not necessarily first dimensional individual.

    I will also mention that I can tend to scare myself out of my own unfathomable ego which is not a great attribute. So the likleyhood of me going AWOL again, is probable. And what is the point? Self centeredness.

    I was riveting my therapist today about how this attribute about me – consistency – or rather – inconsistency is a characteristic which makes it very difficult to live with myself – much less have another human being to have a prolonged relationship with me. But I am who I’ve got.

    I mentioned on Tuesday that I was reading another person’s poetry. And it was just a nice reminder that there is other tempos that people beat to. And we are like music that makes new songs with ourselves.

    We all listen to our own music, but it is good to listen to others.

Ben Bonkoske is the author of two novels, Spoon in the Road, and Carolina, Colorado, California. He is also the author of two collections of short stories, Ten Zen by Ben, and Eleven Stories for 11:11. He lives in Chicago, where he likes to take walks.

B. A, M.A.T.