Ben Bonkoske

Poet Without a Pen

Ben Bonkoske

  • Expensive Gatorade

    Up at the crack of dawn to do my due diligence and be as healthy as humanly possible, kinda makes writing at this hour a little less compelling. Maybe it’d be best to start blogging earlier in the day. There is a dream of mine to have every minute accounted for – which I have been able to do to a certain extent for the past sixish months, but let’s just just recognize that I do (am doing) what I love, and I love to do it, and even if it is rubbish, it is time well spent.

    There are a couple of approaches for how to blog. Yes, there is the Dear Diary method, which can be very intriguing to many readers. Many people want to hear about all of the deep dark secrets a person is willing to purge on the internet. It is a kick! Although I have all kinds of realizations and revelations of my personal relationships, still to this day – but of which I have determined to try my best to just “kinda” keep private (unless asked by said persons). And my own exasperations, flaws, indiscretions, and shadows which may be explored here if I get bored enough. However, if I am to not explore my past relationships nor complaints, what the hell else is there left to write about?

    Is it love? Is it still that four letter word that is all there is to life? I think the most interesting revelation I have had as of late is that I just am not really in love with the world right now. Everything I’ve ever made or done has come from such a place of love for so long, but now, ya know, I sing a song, or write a story, but feel like stimulus without an origin or receiver. I think the Goddess exists. Oh yeah, God, the three letter word. And don’t forget the five letter word Peace. I am God, Love, Peace. 1 2 3 4 5

    I, can direct my love into a vessel, and the whole world can tell you that is wrong, but at some point, it starts to feel vague. It isn’t necessarily bland but it is detached. Maybe I am meant to just be a meaningless expression. Absurd. It doesn’t feel like the passionate overwhelming affair that it always was. I’m not empty. I’m not unhappy either. I’m not a lot of things I think I am. But for so long everything was directed to someone, something, it all had a person or God-like conversation I was trying to give my life and art and emotion to, but, today and maybe this happens to a lot of people when they are twenty-five, I’m relieved to sing for no sentiment.

  • Monday Poetry 9/25/23

    chitter chitter chatter

    away..

    sayings staying

    all the same…

    different today

    not the season

    not anything in

    particular

    a stranger

    waiting to know

    someone unknown

    please

    and thanks

    -B.B

    The grey crow

    knowing all knowlege asked

    of us young winged serpents

    no longer from spring

    some heads are cut off

    one of us is still running around

    trying to hold onto his oxygen

    while splattering paint of the pavement

    another flew the coo

    the rest nesting

    Los Angeles

    and the writer

    waiting for New York to visit

    -B.B

  • fifty-two week post notes

    I tried to love her when I was with her and I loved her after. I wanted to love her. I didn’t know how to love. Whatever may have happened, I was wrong. I was the one who was wrong. I tell myself she deserves an apology I can’t give her which is not true. I tell myself that I needed her, which is true. I associate her with my favorite painter, brokenhearted folk music, and simple language. I feel bad that I took out good memories from my playlist and blog. I’m happy to have cried for her. My laugh sounds like her’s sometimes. I learned to get up early from her father; Sometimes people are too nice. I don’t disrespect her.

  • farewell, from Algonquin

    Maybe we are waiting to die. I go to a lot more funerals than weddings. Or rather, I’ve gone to more funerals than weddings. It is a fine line of wanting to be well dressed for the person you cared about, and bordering on being the best dressed. I really try to put everything aside at a funeral (the funeral is tomorrow), but a ceremony (which, shouldn’t I have known, was the night to wear black, or a cubs jersey) and just be as human as possible. Hug the mother. Be thankful for life. Grieve. Laugh. And sometimes, it ends with just getting the hell out of there. Tipping your hat to the man, leaving the money, and saying good bye.

    And then there is the funeral tomorrow. I recall, gosh, it really must’ve been several years ago now, when I had enough cash on hand to buy a car, that I was writing something like this. I was with two Aries. And tonight I drove with a Leo and a Sagittarius. (And in the past) we listened to Billy Joel in the car, and the memory I shared with the kid who is dead was about listening to Billy Joel. Sounds pretty, um uncoincidental, but these intersections of lives, are many years apart, but are in my little sponge just waiting to be reflected on. Certainly not unique with a musician like that, but all the more meaningful.

    I also don’t find it odd, to be hopeful that this kid is lucky to be on the other side, and I really hope that I get to see him when I get there. This is this side. And maybe like life, death is better when you are young.

    I feel like a coward. I really think there have been opportune moments to exit which I couldn’t muster up the courage to do so. I don’t know if you call it a regret. You’d certainly call it getting older. And getting older isn’t all good. You see more.

    God, and writing. I’m in good shape. I just also make excuses, like people dying. Maybe we are waiting to die.

  • letters to remember

    I had some heroic explanation waiting for me. A squiggly smile. I was feeling awfully good for some reason. And I felt awfully bad today too. Really not on top of anything. You think you are past this. You walk around just a bit too wise, and then reap a nice sow of another nothing much kind of couple of years.

    I got an email from a kid I student taught today. Didn’t really have the energy to write him back. He said he was sorry the job didn’t work out but knew I’d find a good school. He thanked me for what I did. Those kids were so great and I had the time of my life. I slept under the desk though. And thought I was best-dressed. Next thing you know, you throw out your whole closet by accident.

    Here is the letter:

    Hi Ben!

    I hope you are doing well. It’s Conor, from your 8th-period English class last semester at ETHS. I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed reading your book. Your writing style made connecting with the main character, Jack, feel so natural. I’m looking forward to reading any future books you write!

    I know you weren’t able to find a continuing position at ETHS, but I hope that you were able to find another school that values your teaching just as much as I know our class did.

    Best,
    Conor

    Here is what I just wrote back:

    Hey Conor! 

    Thank you so much! This means so much to me. I am finishing a collection of short stories and I will let you know when it is finished. Keep Reading. It will open a world of thought and understanding of human emotion that is a vital component for love, and world and inner peace. I hope that you continue to search for things that interest you. Find what you are looking for, not what everyone else thinks they’ve found. 

    Be smart, prudent, and stay young at heart,

    Mr. Bon

    I just recall telling the guy who was in my corner at the ol’ castle, “Do you have any idea how many of my hopes and dreams have been crushed?” or shattered. When, you know, again, nothing works out. I don’t just sit in my pity party. I really really really really just try to figure stuff out. I just can’t always make sense of everything. It shouldn’t be my fault, and I feel blamed.

    Perhaps a macabre example, but there was a holocaust survivor, a lawyer who lived through the holocaust. And being someone who studied law, and to see it, just so violated, he couldn’t make sense of the aftermath. He didn’t recover, mentally anyways. There always is some sense to be made, but explaining some things of that nature, is actually quite evil and gruesome, and definitely not to be understood by one person, and more so, can’t always be recompensed.

    I think I bring about a certain kind of disgust. I think I bring about a certain kind of hope too. I was on the train talking with a couple of heroin addicts today. I told them they could beat this thing, even though, ya know. They were just people, on their way to the bag, and me on my way to God knows.

    I miss just typing. I just miss typing so bad. In the memoir, in my, head, I wanted to tell a story about how in third grade we played Type to Learn 3. And I cried, because every time I was just about to get to the next level, we’d have to go back from the computer lab. My mom got me Type to Learn 3 from one of those Scholastic Magazines, and I got pretty far. But I still type with about three fingers. And now I write longhand? “Some girls fall in love with bad handwriting.” I once, wrote, or told myself so.

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.