Ben Bonkoske

Just a poet without a pen

Ben Bonkoske

  • the caterpillar continues

    My nervous system is a beautiful thing, but I don’t think about dancing the way I used to.

    I thought of my step-brother a few days ago, but it was really just thinking about myself and how I used to be like. I’d tell him, “I liked who I was. Remember who I was?” And he knew me long before anyone else I know. I was always crazy, and fun, and wild. I was. Maybe even somebody reading thing knew me when I was like that. But then I’d tell him, “You know, I know I changed. Something happened. I remember when. And I changed. And I just want you to know, I know I changed, and I’m not exactly happy about who I became either. I am who I am, and this is who I became, and what a fun little know-it-all asshole I was. I wish I was still him too, but this is who I am now.”

    I’m not in the mood lately to whimper about not being liked. I’m nice to all the people nobody else likes, that’s why I’m not liked I tell myself. Maybe I am a good person. I feel terrible. I’m still just a runner, among other derogatory terms for a man. I recall a week before another bad thing happened, I wanted to tell one of the few men I know who I have some respect for that “I’m not going to make it.” I knew that I was not strong enough, God aside. I am not weak, but I can’t fight everything, and always win. Some feelings hurt worse when you can’t give up. But because the man was a part of something bigger than myself, I knew the truth.

  • Nick Offerman is to be nominated for awards for his portrayal of dystopian Ernest Hemingway

    Silent September was almost a success. My initial goal was to just not listen to Spotify. I’m listening to it now on the other side of a month of quietude. One of my worst issues is just making bigger and better expectations of myself. I keep running past the endzone. I only mention that character trait, because on September 29th, I looked up, “jake paul song that was sad.” I found it, and that night I listened to the first minute of it on Youtube. The moral is, no matter how stoic we centennials try to be, there is always some soft-hearted cyber trash in us all. October 1st was beautiful, and there is a sadness to beauty.

    Is there a beauty to sadness? I sure thought there was. And maybe there is a beauty to silence. Certainly. Music makes life beautiful too. Music can be beautiful because it feels understood and felt together. Music can also be beautiful because it understands us without asking us any questions. It is felt. Sometimes together. Sometimes in solitude, but even then, there is someone else we are feeling. (ROBOTIC GENERATED MUSIC ASIDE. POWER TO THE MACHINES. SPONSORED BY ALEXA) But sadness is beautiful perhaps because we think we feel it alone, and the worst part is, we usually feel it for someone else. Strange how funny you can be, and within less than a second a versatility of emotions.

    A couple of last minute things. I realized I haven’t gone on a vacation, as in left Chicago, for more than three days in just under two years (Christmas doesn’t count). 600ish days. I was starting The Master program last time I went to Asheville. I’m Up In Michigan tonight on business. Look at my Big World. Apart from having a lot of conversations with those cityfolk animals – verbal exchanges usually for food, but still, pretty interesting. What a headache. I am a relatively modest city mouse. It really confuses people. Being intriguing is an innuendo. But as much as I like to pretend to say I’m all humble, I really do wish I could just live in a nice forest. I scared the hell out of more than just the animals when I arrived. Not a minute to waste. My dads and I watched Episode 3 of The Last of Us. They happened to be on it. I happened to be here for it. 120 minutes. Two hours. That’s a long time.

  • Just lust; And the circumventing of my childhood

    Something notable about Charles – and I kinda try not to be too much of a cliché, but am – is that he gave his chapter’s good titles. So I will add an addition onto my first-thought-title (a rhyme and exhale, rather than a notion of judicious lust); I have done what I set out to do just now.

    “I will start” (after nibbling on my lemon cake, and taking a gulp of some stinky milk) to say that I underwent a purge of grief recently. It is my job to find the right, or best words to convey what occurs, and is imagined. It took the form of wailing while reading poetry. It felt like someone reaching down my throat and pulling out a fish. Then cooking the fish, but not eating it, out of mercy.

    I let go of a lot of pain I’d been holding onto for too long to know how long. I am re-adjusting to this release. However, I recognize how distraught I’ve been for the past long while. It is very sad to think of an animal in pain, unsure what to do for it. I don’t feel as hurt and heavy. Hopefully, I am less prone to probe myself, and others, and by doing so, hurt them.

    How can you know? Such a wise thing to suggest of yourself, no?

    Well, I don’t know for certain what tomorrow will take, but I told my quack, well, it has been good to read Junie B. Jones and now with my five-year-old brain and conception of the world and literature, let us begin Anna Karenina on the bus. 

    It’s just a metaphor (based on his experience convoluted with mine) which is not always the best absolute explanation of everything. 

    Brief note: I’m starting to learn a little more about grammar. I am making sure to pay attention to using the same tense in the same sentence. Although, there is some untraditional part of me which wants to use both present and past tense in the same sentence, as though something can be happening while something else has already happened – it would just be very bold for a self-published author to do. But that previous paragraph is an interesting example. 

    Words are like math. And commas and punctuation are like arithmetic. Been trying to make everything perfect until it all turns to mulch. Aries Full Moon. No Pizza. The city out. Living to love, loving to die. September is a strange month to extrapolate my life online.

  • 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

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 wrote his own major at the University of North Carolina, Asheville focusing on Racial Tension in America. He attended Northeastern, Illinois University where he earned a Masters of Arts in Secondary Education. He lives in Chicago, where he likes to take walks.

B. A, M.A.T.

Get in Touch

Bencbon@gmail.com

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