November 30, 2021

Ancient Mirror

by Giulia Bencivenga

The door to my house looks nothing like my house in style
ornate and woodsy against a purely suburban tract, concrete in its blueish-grey
remember
the doorknob must be jiggled slightly
classic archetype of a weathered character
my lock is a dog with milky whiskers covering a heartful grin
and once one enters the walls
are jacaranda purple
mirroring the sidewalk debris
a framed display one of Natalie’s pieces, a photograph taken on a rainy day in Cuba, a postcard from John Ashbery to a friend
an ode to the culture that locks the key
inside the house spirits find me
an old man who eats sausages covered in a sheet of dust
with me, a complete stranger
why does he not return to his family
or is the house itself the source of his lively rumination
when I ask him he just nods
and I’m left
unlocked
with the spirits
one of them I reckon is my mother
from the way she scares me so
her little orb of halos hovering over my bed when I write Mother
when I repot the sagging vine Mother
when I will her Mother
when I commence Mother
The lightness of spirit closes in on the light of the spirits
will sometimes keep me awake at night
so I wrap myself with blankets for shade
some respite

salmon colored flamingo illustration with narrow watery spiral around legs

Anarchy begins with a reevaluation of chaos, says the ghost with the molten core.
Think of it as empathy, the time that wraps the coil,
The present as the apex of futurity, replies the gluttonous one.


Shut the fuck up and let me think!

.....................................

Which one
was it that
deemed me
a crisis?
Recognition
proves
more action
is needed
from the
object
to be seen
than the
subject
living
lavishly
in her
thoughts
of
self-cognitio
n

What’s your favourite weapon? Cage, said […] from behind his knees.

T
He
P
Oo
E
T
S
A
R
E
T
He
L
Ou
D
E
St
O
F
Th’
B-b-b
U
N
chh

I could’ve been a poet, but I became an actor instead. Played the part of the fool as it would be the easiest way to put my words in people’s mouths. And mouths give way to a draconian play. Cut up a mouse, it’s still a mouse. Horror lasts long after the body dies as the idea of horror deepens. One day I will be expunged from my grave and my skeleton will be deemed that of a thirty-year old woman. Actress. Touché.

Chorus:
Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was.

There is
no dearth or abstract, “world-conscious” philosophers
who discover a universe by means of the dialectical
game of the I and the non-I. In fact, they know the
universe before they know the house, the far horizon
before the resting-place; whereas the real beginnings
of images, if we study them phenomenologically,
will give concrete evidence of the values
of inhabited space, of the non-I that protects the I.

Sympathy begins with.
The polite one does not mock nor scorn
but the way she watches me alivens in me
the greatest shame:
that I should want more
that I should live a life basking in sunlight
free to nest without having an idea of time’s budget
her sinewy voice sharp like a beak
the elegant flamingo of my soul
Did you know?
Flamingoes aren’t pink of their own accord
it is the brine shrimp they feast on which cultivates
a fleshy hue

...............................
........
.............

Weeds, inter me
I love the plumage’s softness how she makes
The world sultry, assuaged
The question concerning anxiety
Was never posed by philosophers to be a sociological one
Let me know how you live
And I’ll let you know it is

Your death
Ensnare me



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Love is the second day of a hangover
one martini deep […] cry
Lou Reed is dead
Tom Petty is dead
Kurt fucking Cobain
God, can I cry!
And the day shines bright amid the blur
mother the addiction
to this place […]
draws me closer than any distinction could —
symbiotic to id.



Outside, I feel like Nancy Kerrigan on her way to the ice.
To those who lack creativity
it looks like I’m building a mausoleum to the time I’ve spent applying lipstick.
Mercutio is the fly that can’t help but drown in the cereal bowl
and I’m blinded by rage, already dead.
Anna Nicole, please come back. You won’t have to
sleep your time away, you’ll be free
to keep to yourself if you want.

Time puddles, swamp-like in its natural evolution
of juicy couture. I’d like to take my swing at humanity, so I put on
every dress I own and jaunt down to the batting cage. I could kill all. Kill all of them so easily
if only I had learned to speak Latin. I’ll have written all history
around the body, and then I’ll emblazon myself
the little lamb. Only love
conquers me.

Here she is, the flamingo speaks as though the cold glamour of the things she says
could tidy a molten core.

The
home
you
built
gives
you
cance
r, the
asbes
tos
raini
ng up
your
nostri
ls
with
every
smili
ng
mem
ory
you
hook
to
your
walls.

Memory fumigates my vision
to live is to listen to the same song
over and over
remembering the words
understanding them a little more each time.
I want to pay my respects to this life in all its glory
but first we must put the dead to rest.

Boil water with a mixture of bay leaves, rosemary, orange rinds to infuse the water with protection
Once the smell penetrates every room of the house you’ll know it’s ready to spread even coat
across the floors
pay special attention
to spread the solution
at entryways that pose the cruelest questions.
Science has gone in and out of vindicating the solution
but the empirical effects have been known for centuries.
The belief which can’t be called knowledge
has kept the recipe alive.

I do not know you, my dear spirit, but I want to give you a picture of the sky from the night I was born:
a possible explanation
for this impermeable loneliness.

…



How these ghosts eat!
The one with the molten core delivers an aside from behind the fridge:
Gluttony will have me revisit death time and time again, jamming the key into my heart like I’m not even here.
Here like I was
never really an outsider looking in through the keyhole
performing my shame to abstract myself from this world.

I’ve tried to extradite my personality
But it’s contagious,

Laughter booming through an empty hall.


Lulls the invisible hand, rocking me to sleep.

Collapse the symbol onto me
collapse
the world and work unravels. We learn how to tie better knots,

One that is both utopian and desperate.



00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 0011001100110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 0011001100110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011 00110011

Chorus:
The repetition a refraction of justice that includes history
The ghost is already dead
The ghost is already dead
The ghost is already dead
THE GHOST IS ALREADY DEAD
hahahahahahaha

01001001 00100000 01100100 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101100 01101001 01100101 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01100101 01110110 01100101 01110010 01111001 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100101 00101100 00100000 01100010 01110101 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101111 01110010 01101001 01100111 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100101 01100100 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100010 01100101 01100111 01101001 01101110 01101110 01101001 01101110 01100111

⌒

Giulia Bencivenga is the author of GIULIA BENCIVENGA IS A MANIAC (Inpatient Press, 2019), Unreasonable Whole (Gauss PDF, 2019), and CUD (nueoi, 2020). Their work appears in Peach Mag, Maudlin House, Wonder, Ariadne Mag, Blush Lit, and other places. She runs the reading series Two Snake in Los Angeles (@twosnakela).