Ben Bonkoske

  • yesterday

    It is a significant undertaking of being an artist knowing that when you die your art becomes more valuable. Not necessarily if it is all bullshit and all you value is money.

    I live for art. And If I die, let it only make my art more meaningful.

    I am not here to suggest that everything I ever write is gold. In fact, a lot of it is dirt. But the best. part of becoming an artist is just the real struggle of just being so terrible for so long and having to do what everybody else does, being where everyone has been before until you finally break into something personal.

    Love is art.

  • Yell

    With the pulse made from a rhythmic heart on the crescent mooned music-filled city, this extraterrestrial rushed home to tell what he feels. Home is what you make it. You have to make your home by the time you are my age. I feel glimpses of what it meant to me take form from long intervals. No one in between. I’m not out of breath if that impresses anyone. All I want to tell, whether it is just to myself or not, is that I’m trying to write the modern love story. A tragedy I can not foresee. Maybe, because because. But, although my therapist referred to me as crazy and admits he can not help me, and the hundreds of friends I’ve made don’t seem to have any answers – nobody does – I just want to be a good man and an honest writer.

    I’m sorry to think that there aren’t people who see that this life is just an infinite test. I’m sorry to think that because I know there are people with virtues. I know my cardinal. I am not elona in this endevor. If I am to cut any cords, it only prolongs the waiting for unity. I don’t know if I see what I dream of in this life. But I will be as dedicated to my belief until my heart stops beating, I can cry no more, and my words become meaningless. but the fire has not gone out. We are made of stars, and stars burn for billions of years. In ancient Greek mythology, and Hindu stories, men could do whatever they want, and women always had to prove their loyalty. My goal is to reverse this. I can write fiction, but I won’t write lies anymore.

    I will be waiting at the green stage all day for music to my ears.

  • Year one 2

    Dear L.S.,

    One damned proactive thought-provoking overarching art scene, heart of hearing, soul-crushing, no-clothing, unprepared oversharing, inexplicably persnickety city slicker, kiss-her-on-the-lips-til’-it-hurts, Godfather of Indie, detail-unoriented, stoic misogynistic narcissistic, fretful forgetting of the hysterical moaning Myrtle origin story, agenda free weekend pass to he-said-she-said, chores galore, restorative justice filled with lustful kids staring my penis, thinning hair and dairy air, comforting bed-wetting, involuntary-celibate post-cold-war-brewed horny pick up order, am not misbehavin’ frizzle-de-dizzle my nizzle colonization, problematic manly man transqueer tragicomedy, Rainforest Café explosion, trauma-induced coma, insomniac cat-killing, Eraserhead rewatching, unignorable deplorable bulldozing over metropolitan agnostics, divorced daddys, debilitating accusations of not participating with pride, unapologetic poetic painting, orgasmic robotic erotic logic, bunny-eared electric toothbrush, year without a nasty brown-tounged, ugly, wicked, repulsive, miserable, seductive drat ol’ socio-political class determinant, racially oriented liberalist, leftist right-winged educational industrial complex, grade A, lime green rat poison, southern hospitality sweet-tea teeth, cane walking, booty, saltatory salutations to my favorite incensed cockroaches, Oreo almond-milk vegan ice cream, intoxicatingly repressed banana proportions, unchristian crime-inducing, psychosexual boring Californian early retirement, can’t wait to kill myself Cobain self-hatred, enigmatic imaginative black and white inner cry baby, internet binging, Chinatown euphoria, pretentious porn denying, edible without-a-cause, piggy screams until you dream alive, professional artistic mustached morons, green mohawked gentleman, manifesto enforcing membrane deterioration, pre-frontal cortex cunnilingus exploration, fungus selling, sugar-free pity party la croix sex icon, sensitive, sympathetically pathetic boy, crazy weary eyed, tired, misinformed lippy hippy hiding out in academia, neurotic magic, my name is Trey, go find your dad, appointment ignoring, chestnut, impatient patients, lonely morning alone again, leather satchel combover necktie with those shoes, goodie-too-shoes mocktail, taller-than-me sci-fi Parisian, Chef Boyardee Ravioli formula, renaissance woman, spiritually symbiotic synopsis, Roxy’s boobies, weep what you sow, kosher fruit basketcase, labeled stoner loser, library poser, religious reader, greedy sleeper, schmeckle lipstick, powerbottom America, sincerely insincere, good-looking deflowered inbred, one-too-many-too-many-times, unsolved Rubix cube, never-ending Neverland, Super Mario movie, friendly yet forgetful, out-to-lunch-again, meditation intermission, yoga prayer, father, son, holy mother, brother, older and younger, sister sister, please let me die, quietly listening, loving, forgiving, reliable, dependable, imaginative, red and green apple, funny, timeless, best-friend & lover of a cigarette.

  • Monday Night Poetry #26

    A dove sits idly on a river

    She listens for a swan

    To recover

    But he is long drowned

    And far deeper than six feet under

    -B.B

  • monday night poetry #24

    My first book has a very simple moral that people who are spared a traumatic childhood, though not always as sentimental or emotional, aren’t as broken, and that ripples into their lives. One doesn’t want to feel like the world has let them down or it owes them something. I try to not ask for a whole lot. It isn’t about life being easier or harder, it is just having the tools to handle when life is hard, or how to stand on your own two feet when you’re alone because you know that you aren’t. I’ve lost very sentimental things that can not be replaced.

    poem poem

    remind me I’m not alone

    -B.B