To Persuade a LadyCarpe Diem

Michael Benedikt

True, I have always been happy that all the things that are inside 
    the body are inside the body, and that all things outside 
    the body, are out

I'm glad to find my lungs on the inside of my chest, for example; 
    if they were outside, they'd keep getting in the way, 
    those two great incipient angel wings; besides, 
    it would be messy

I mean, how would it be if your reached out to shake someone's hand
    and there, in the palm, were a kidney and a liver complete with 
    spleen?

Can you imagine standing at 5 PM in a crowded subway car full of 
    empty stomachs?

What if a nice, nearsighted old lady were knitting socks and suddenly 
    her veins fell out? How would she avoid creating a substance 
    full of strangeness and pain? To the barefoot country boy 
    sitting on the edge of the bed in the morning and opening 
    Aunt Minnie's gift box, the sight of those socks would be 
    what he'd call "a real eye-opener!"

And what if our voices touched? If our mouths went out, instead of in?

If you were inside of me; or, at least, if I were inside of you?

The European Shoe

The European Shoe is covered with grass and reed, bound up and wound
    around so that it may slip easily over the wearer's head.

In case you are an aircraft pilot, you must take care that the 
    European Shoe does not creep off your foot, and begin to 
    make its way carefully across the fusilage.

The European Shoe pressed against the fugitive's nose, preventing it
    from imminent departure.

The European Shoe spends summers in delightful ways. A lady feels its 
    subtle and unexpected pressure the length of her decolletage.

Michael Benedikt

1968

The Beef Epitaph

This is what it was: Sometime in the recent but until now unrecorded past, it was decided by certain ingenious and commercially forward-looking cattle-ranchers in a certain large, modern Western nation which prides itself on being nutritionally forward-looking, that since people are increasingly nutrition-conscious, and increasingly insistent that "you are what you eat," all cattle on the way to market were to be marked with brief descriptive tags noting the favorite food of each animal; and also stating approximately how much each ate of it.

Michael Benedikt

1976

Portland Taxis

If were on Mars, and wanted to get back-to-home, I would 
Hail a taxi. There's nothing I like better
Than hailing a taxi, they have saved me many times
From the spectre of fiscal responsibility. From the bottom
Of a well comes my voice, hailing a taxi: "Get Me 
Out Of This Oubliette"! Beside the bed where I make love 
The business cards of taxicab companies are tacked up.
Taxicab salesmen surround my every motion
Hinting I'd be better off as a driver, but it's
Hailing a taxi I relish, not threading my way
All day thorough the midtown traffic.

Michael Benedikt

1980

Poems

To Persuade a LadyCarpe Diem

More by this poet

The European Shoe

The Beef Epitaph

Portland Taxis

Poems

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To Persuade a LadyCarpe Diem

More by this poet

The European Shoe

The Beef Epitaph

Portland Taxis

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