enter in    the (benjamin) wyskida



sat down to set aside 4Ø minutes & let my uniball

resemble you. didn't take under consideration your length of bone

or wealth of water. april. spring. 1998. it is cold & in just under 25 hours

you'll be in my favorite philadelphia. by this time tomorrow

we'll commence the unfolding before one another.      awkwardly.

pushing towards...

modulation.   undulation.  staccato ritual of courtship

& seduction.   for the first time in 1Ø months we'll be in the presence of

the other.    i'll be nervous.     will it show???

& so, i chose to duck into this coffee bar to escape the rain,

wait out the balance of time remaining before my train

& to think of something post-modern & preemptively brilliant to say;

to intellectualize sex & sexual attraction,     jedi mind-tricks and mental

masturbation       to unpack & bull shit-rationalize the mysteries of jitters

&   jumbled

tongue.




7.55.  tattooed & premature. the waitress looks me over.    once.  &

then tells me that i have "absolutely beautiful handwriting." so now

this is no longer 

random scribblings on a trendy napkin. this is obliged to becoming.

this is:     word & worth, word craft & crass sentimentality. background:

music. hip-hopped & jumpy. i'll throw in a head-bop for good measure

& then go back to my 

arcticmochascreamer     & my trance-like reveling, unraveling

meanderance.

outside the glass, a man & someone far too young for the former

stop to point me out.	       caught dancing (by the watcher's gaze) again.

panopticon.	
 
edging into    the public sphere.  & they almost see my guilt 

at fitting the	archetype       	for angst.	

how artsy & cliché:    dark & brooding café.     smoky w/

me exhaling marlboro & french cognates. outlined by ink on paper

& mind set to rhythmic workings.




& you become a ghost in the abstract

of all of this. you are the impulse forcing this pretention--writing poems

in a café about writing poems in a café:    the irony will be lost on no one!

how presumptuous of me; how sensuously stupid to assume     that i 

could possibly capture all i need to from the idea of us

face to face    again.	    finally.    in 3 one-shot paragraphs & a 4Ø minute

lull

in my day, en route to the train station. (more cognates:    i'm wincing).




tomorrow night, i'll bring you here. 

to this table & this window.	       to this waitress w/ her literary affirmations

& striking black-platformed height.

to city-light ricochet off of glass ashtrays

& grandé mugs.	       & i'll hand you the genesis of this

botched-up attempt at meaning.	& by the time it takes

you 	       to breathe out a single word to justify

your marvel at me & my verse

my eyes will have begun to fumble 	       w/ my fingers

and what's left 	       of my smile. 	       & i'll unfold in front of you--

prudent & realized:




a budding poet in potential love	& dangerous... 

• Chy Ryan Spain

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