Tuesday, December 9, 2008

NEO Poet Field Guide

Full name: Ben Gulyas

Age: I suppose one has to ask something.

Habitat: In my mind.

Range: My treehouse room over the garage where the Spider Barks , and the piles of flotsam have risen to the Valley of the Kings. This could be true of any person in any quarter, who lacking certain principles of order, then finds themselves situated sublimely on the upwelling of their accumulations.

Diet: Favorites will fail you. Check the weather each night and smell the wind, the evolving being will devour multitudes, though they may rely on a diet of roots.

Distinguishing Markings: Stripes and spots smeared with mud & the blue whale of sunset.

Predators: Myself.

Prey: Myself.

Call:

…”a scattering of birds at 6am their nest of voices weaving in the cold,
a tear shed amidst the shattering of glass,
the pollywog bull strumming the ripple…
the pollywog bull strumming the ripple-…
toes cold--
merciless instinct waking from the mud--
the face of everything off-tune,
whistling to the feather and the egg,
the mud worm and the seed devouring pulp and bugs,
the corner ledge, the nest, the damp night,
the knuckle and the course arthritic brick
waiting to reach out, waiting to get smacked back--
what does a bird care, blue or speckled,
throat full of flight--
the smell of petroleum drifting…
…a passing life—“


Contact info: I’m around here and there, yet rarely seen.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rarely seen indeed... I've only seen this cat at one reading, and it was one of the most memorable I've ever attended (click here to read a blog I wrote about the occasion). I also found a Gulyas chapbook hiding in the shelves of the Bookstore on W. 25th when it was closing - bought it and enjoyed it thoroughly. I'm glad you featured him here.

e b bortz said...

a voice shouts up from downstairs
about a dozen years ago (or more) on a wednesday night...heard something about lake superior and deep green upper peninsula...mixed it all in with the road before and the one ahead...thank you ben

Pressin On said...

he's a criminal lookin dude...
grape soda! land bidge!
bull strumming dude.

Cited...

The poet doesn't invent. He listens. ~Jean Cocteau