Benjamin Smith
Monsoon 2016

*

Que te paso, Lupita,​

you used to be so concrete
before your mother died;

you used to believe in
making plans for the future;

you looked outward, saw
what stood before you.

Que te paso, Lupita,
what logic got a hold of

you, what match flare torched
your house to the ground,

what was it that you thought
you saw.

Aqui somos, Lupita,
just you and me,

and the lupine moon, together
in the garden that your mother

left to you
in her will – you,

with your wild, tangled black hair
and your low, tormented howls,

you, the she-wolf, crouched,
naked, rocking back and forth on

your haunches,
completely alone,

lost in the wilderness
of your love.

*

Behemoth.

As the tide floods the beach,
it fills our footprints with water,

                   empties them, erodes them,

transforms them into the claws
of a wild beast,

                   a hulking behemoth,

which lumbers forwards,
shifting unevenly,

                   hauling itself into the waves

with a widow's resolve,
relinquishing its cargo to the pull

                  of the moon, before drowning.

*

Snail Shell.

Desolate heath,
abandoned weather stations,
haunted windmills.

The tortured wail of steel
scraping against itself.

An outpost where the sun
never rises.

Insulated
from the glare
of glistening eyes

and gaping mouths,
we hide ourselves in a wilderness

of our creation, tapping signals
from the ether.

Two rings in an Arctic
blizzard, orbiting each other,
incandescent.

The white-wash radio static
is a voice from way back,

which you silence
without moving your lips.

​*

---

Benjamin Smith grew up in Hebden Bridge, UK. He has spent the past five years travelling around Latin America and currently lives in Bogota, Colombia, where he is working on his first collection of poetry. His work has previously appeared in: The Gap Toothed Madness, Gravel, Menacing Hedge, The Cannon's Mouth, PIF, The Recusant, The Empty Mirror and The London Grip.