Ivory— The Collection (2022) by Valencia (Lenciaga) Benjamin
Intro
Subsidiary (2022)—
By Valencia Benjamin
The world’s greatest portion// was given to thought/to the power of it//to slumbers in winters//to the cries of silent children/who never whispered to the living. —
when I was younger/I practiced dying//to focus on the living//it was traitorous/to the vessel//but I did it//thought to protect it//this vessel/those/ parts of me//not worth losing.
Me.
Humph/a cliché for your thoughts— a little poison/ for/your/life; to know me.
The parts that happen (ed)// a cliché;
/and when there is silence/and you become all of what prophecy left you//will you devour what is left to live?
//for your thoughts…to give;
//Only to see what a God meant//a cliché.
The Brave Heart
… to hide behind words//I’m too much of passion for that//I get too much from passion// for that. So, all— no, every word I have/ is full of dramatist//and despondency//and triumphs; sacrifices//and heartbreak/s.
In total silence I can create a thousand worlds. And in a world of a thousand/I can get lost in anonymity//to be free (of it).
I could never surrender the only freedom that binds me. So, I search between the irony//the words/to get to the truth//
to actually live.
And so, I found a pen/and a binded tree//and I learned a little more about me.
Broken Islands (2022)
The word is indigo; intuitive, like rainforests.
There is something else there, searching and wanting.
Underneath the climates is human flesh, pulling and kneading summers out of thinned airs.
Upheavals, there—
shining light on hollowed dirt.
Only,
they missed the message within it.
The soil quaked; ached, and gave more.
Within its belly were veins/and/vines, which pulsed and sent out fragrant letters// whispers even.
Growing from all of this, were the smiles of children, whose teeth were stained with the melons, with the strawberries— and the red berries. And here//there, was no poison.
The word is indigo.
Intuitive.
There are African tribes in it; and there are no flags in this.
The wind met its lover, which is the rain;
And, perhaps, the children stopped smiling when they made love.
Perhaps, the rain hid their tears/then.
Every space has meaning/just as the words do.
Every orgasm/too.
And human flesh knew the meaning of it/because it was the flesh that had been broken for love.
And there, in here, is the woman who bore the first bruise//where it had been bro/ken.
She levitated and stayed behind shadows, like a ghost.
Time had plucked her like a harp; and her whimpers had turned into fables, which turned into songs, which turned into slang; everlasting. She is where forever goes to see/ again.
Inside, behind the skin, is where her music plays; this is where we learned her word.
The word is indigo.
Extended:
Captured.
Intuitive;
And everlasting.
The last part of legacies: the smiling and weeping children in the rain.
The children of oceans//and reefs.
Venus (2022)— Valencia Benjamin
Welcome to the sex palace:
I am the one who will give you the orgasm.
I will speak explicitly to you// and you-will-come.
And what is the purpose of any of that? —
Look at my thighs.
Look at my caramel: ain’t the skin all golden/and sweet?
See where I open and release (?); note where you should be.
Give me lilacs for my body’s poetry,
and I’ll make it lavender and sweat, and …sex.
… and I’ll make it plume and ascend;
I will give you your thirst; and you-will-come.
Look at me,
All skin and teeth,
with breasts that speak,
and lips that part with the setting.
Give me your plot and tone and I will make-you-come.
Call me home/and/heaven; and I will open gates with worlds inside/ like planets;
far from satellites and nebulas.
Part my lips and taste my song.
Open my belly // lick/ my sound.
Caress my thighs with your tongue and hands;
tell my spine your secrets.
Place love inside of your liquids/ and I will make them oceans and lakes.
Kiss my cliffs/ and open my silk//again.
Look at me.
Love me. —
Come.
Dissociative Countenance (2022)—
Perhaps the valley made something of the mountainous light;
the rumble from thin air makes me think of you
… it’s ironic because you are the love in me that shadows romance.
And in love I make countenance/a covenant// a promise; no paper could ever sum it.
And, this:
I never told you anything.
You don’t know what my life turned into//without you.
Outside of it/ no spite grew.
I became insightful; spoke the words again;
ignored your soul— the wind, made me notice//defend.
I don’t especially know when, but//
the concrete within/released and piqued. —
I love you.
There are fundamental things that we/didn’t speak.
And that had become a ritual/habit/u/al/ly meek.
We’re artists// we meet—
Had met in cesuras on rhythm/in drums/on feet.
Every society saw your face/I- fade into streets.
Who you love attacks me.
It’s quite frank, quite obvious.
Another ritual; a different reason/ to pause/ in this.
Humph//we’d/ make/ good strangers/ to one another.
Like good intentions in parliaments.
I won’t waste your time w/applausin’/ shit.
We/ have work to do//I understand the excuse.
I understand you’re profuse;
And it could be abuse.
I was unhinged; I am few.
I turned around; it was you.
Don’t understand that one clue,
cause where you stand was in two/
like there is me, there was you.
Anew.
And/ I knew,
Like know, that I’ll get attack for the glow.
Time has been merciful to me in some sense;
I can breathe in the love.
It does not smother me,
Or weather me,
Or make me forget;
I love you.
Quiet Happiness (2022)—
I can accept it;
And it is just as well that I celebrate you.
People expect me to be concerned with their perception of me/of you//
It’s almost pitiful/could be//if I wasn’t so empathetic//prophetic.
I understand the distance;
Could neva’ make it about jealousy.
People want to hear the hurt in me; I get it. —
But I won’t live it.
I can express myself without being livid;
speak sincerely, even when angered.
But I’m exhausted…
I’ll send you some energy/still.
…there are things that you don’t understand.
There are things that have happened to me that you do not see,
That you will not seek.
So//understand this once movement:
I /celebrate you/with the foolhardy and the insiders//
And without envy or malice.
I understand the distance//and the affinities between us.
It is not a chasm/or some special void;
Nor is it the categories that classicism constructed,
I am your shadow//not your flesh.
Anubis rising in the phoenix/ to meet the abstract creation/spinning symbols into emotions that flipped the tide in you//
celebrating your crushed velvet/admiring the flecks of gold in your eyes//that made you shy when you were younger//because you had perceived the definition of causes inside of bones that had whispered to you, many lessons; celebrating your reflections, your redemptions//your hidden mentions.
Salud:
To your preludes,
To your monologues,
To your poetics,
To your song,
And to your dance;
To the ethics that made you share them,
To the purpose of your land.
thank you.
Ivory Hearts (2022)—
Don’t blame me/ ‘cause I don’t give a fuck.
I’m some like stone too.
Feminine/with shackles to break at 3.
Shit, I wear gold on everything;
And I got diamonds for teeth.
I make notions knowledge.
I finished/ everything/ I started.
I make love;
I don’t- give- a- fuck.
And that stone that I mentioned// completes the preamble/
I grew up.
- I fucked, and I made love,
Learned which one was worth more the hard way.
Humph, wasn’t made for the class.
In brass, I turned in on myself and made myself a lover.
I eventually found another.
I told the truth— my truth.
Gone in poofs, like shunned Arabians;
Nomadic.
They turned me invisible; homeless.
Unshackled.
Outside of prisons and matrixes.
Purposeful.
Exploding.
Magical;
Unlearning the social condition.
Black/
And beautiful//
Attacked matter;
Flesh broken and bleeding; open-ed/ without the scar to prove it.
The Mind rendering the minds, until everything looks like the universe again;
Until normal becomes the malady/and the nightmare;
Until intelligence conceives the reality in a manner that makes empathy go to babel.
Make stories turn to pure light,
Until my daughter’s lips sing, and my son’s eyes search the trees for the winds I know.
…until they tell their elders about the moors in their bones// that talk of secrets and legacies//I know.
Until my own lover sees what I gave her too/ and let her own mind meet// with my heart.
A prayer becomes a manifest,
and the ivory of elephants picks up my soul and carries me home.
The trumpets bleed for my wounds, and I heal.
And, I will bring back home to her; and she will smile genuinely at me;
Because/ I had made love of it; and/ I had given all of me.
Poets Corna
Thu 1st Sep 2022 22:32
Ivory— The Collection (2022) by Valencia (Lenciaga) Benjamin
Intro
Subsidiary (2022)—
By Valencia Benjamin
The world’s greatest portion// was given to thought/to the power of it//to slumbers in winters//to the cries of silent children/who never whispered to the living. —
when I was younger/I practiced dying//to focus on the living//it was traitorous/to the vessel//but I did it//thought to protect it//this vessel/those/ parts of me//not worth losing.
Me.
Humph/a cliché for your thoughts— a little poison/ for/your/life; to know me.
The parts that happen (ed)// a cliché;
/and when there is silence/and you become all of what prophecy left you//will you devour what is left to live?
//for your thoughts…to give;
//Only to see what a God meant//a cliché.
The Brave Heart
… to hide behind words//I’m too much of passion for that//I get too much from passion// for that. So, all— no, every word I have/ is full of dramatist//and despondency//and triumphs; sacrifices//and heartbreak/s.
In total silence I can create a thousand worlds. And in a world of a thousand/I can get lost in anonymity//to be free (of it).
I could never surrender the only freedom that binds me. So, I search between the irony//the words/to get to the truth//
to actually live.
And so, I found a pen/and a binded tree//and I learned a little more about me.
Broken Islands (2022)
The word is indigo; intuitive, like rainforests.
There is something else there, searching and wanting.
Underneath the climates is human flesh, pulling and kneading summers out of thinned airs.
Upheavals, there—
shining light on hollowed dirt.
Only,
they missed the message within it.
The soil quaked; ached, and gave more.
Within its belly were veins/and/vines, which pulsed and sent out fragrant letters// whispers even.
Growing from all of this, were the smiles of children, whose teeth were stained with the melons, with the strawberries— and the red berries. And here//there, was no poison.
The word is indigo.
Intuitive.
There are African tribes in it; and there are no flags in this.
The wind met its lover, which is the rain;
And, perhaps, the children stopped smiling when they made love.
Perhaps, the rain hid their tears/then.
Every space has meaning/just as the words do.
Every orgasm/too.
And human flesh knew the meaning of it/because it was the flesh that had been broken for love.
And there, in here, is the woman who bore the first bruise//where it had been bro/ken.
She levitated and stayed behind shadows, like a ghost.
Time had plucked her like a harp; and her whimpers had turned into fables, which turned into songs, which turned into slang; everlasting. She is where forever goes to see/ again.
Inside, behind the skin, is where her music plays; this is where we learned her word.
The word is indigo.
Extended:
Captured.
Intuitive;
And everlasting.
The last part of legacies: the smiling and weeping children in the rain.
The children of oceans//and reefs.
Venus (2022)— Valencia Benjamin
Welcome to the sex palace:
I am the one who will give you the orgasm.
I will speak explicitly to you// and you-will-come.
And what is the purpose of any of that? —
Look at my thighs.
Look at my caramel: ain’t the skin all golden/and sweet?
See where I open and release (?); note where you should be.
Give me lilacs for my body’s poetry,
and I’ll make it lavender and sweat, and …sex.
… and I’ll make it plume and ascend;
I will give you your thirst; and you-will-come.
Look at me,
All skin and teeth,
with breasts that speak,
and lips that part with the setting.
Give me your plot and tone and I will make-you-come.
Call me home/and/heaven; and I will open gates with worlds inside/ like planets;
far from satellites and nebulas.
Part my lips and taste my song.
Open my belly // lick/ my sound.
Caress my thighs with your tongue and hands;
tell my spine your secrets.
Place love inside of your liquids/ and I will make them oceans and lakes.
Kiss my cliffs/ and open my silk//again.
Look at me.
Love me. —
Come.
Dissociative Countenance (2022)—
Perhaps the valley made something of the mountainous light;
the rumble from thin air makes me think of you
… it’s ironic because you are the love in me that shadows romance.
And in love I make countenance/a covenant// a promise; no paper could ever sum it.
And, this:
I never told you anything.
You don’t know what my life turned into//without you.
Outside of it/ no spite grew.
I became insightful; spoke the words again;
ignored your soul— the wind, made me notice//defend.
I don’t especially know when, but//
the concrete within/released and piqued. —
I love you.
There are fundamental things that we/didn’t speak.
And that had become a ritual/habit/u/al/ly meek.
We’re artists// we meet—
Had met in cesuras on rhythm/in drums/on feet.
Every society saw your face/I- fade into streets.
Who you love attacks me.
It’s quite frank, quite obvious.
Another ritual; a different reason/ to pause/ in this.
Humph//we’d/ make/ good strangers/ to one another.
Like good intentions in parliaments.
I won’t waste your time w/applausin’/ shit.
We/ have work to do//I understand the excuse.
I understand you’re profuse;
And it could be abuse.
I was unhinged; I am few.
I turned around; it was you.
Don’t understand that one clue,
cause where you stand was in two/
like there is me, there was you.
Anew.
And/ I knew,
Like know, that I’ll get attack for the glow.
Time has been merciful to me in some sense;
I can breathe in the love.
It does not smother me,
Or weather me,
Or make me forget;
I love you.
Quiet Happiness (2022)—
I can accept it;
And it is just as well that I celebrate you.
People expect me to be concerned with their perception of me/of you//
It’s almost pitiful/could be//if I wasn’t so empathetic//prophetic.
I understand the distance;
Could neva’ make it about jealousy.
People want to hear the hurt in me; I get it. —
But I won’t live it.
I can express myself without being livid;
speak sincerely, even when angered.
But I’m exhausted…
I’ll send you some energy/still.
…there are things that you don’t understand.
There are things that have happened to me that you do not see,
That you will not seek.
So//understand this once movement:
I /celebrate you/with the foolhardy and the insiders//
And without envy or malice.
I understand the distance//and the affinities between us.
It is not a chasm/or some special void;
Nor is it the categories that classicism constructed,
I am your shadow//not your flesh.
Anubis rising in the phoenix/ to meet the abstract creation/spinning symbols into emotions that flipped the tide in you//
celebrating your crushed velvet/admiring the flecks of gold in your eyes//that made you shy when you were younger//because you had perceived the definition of causes inside of bones that had whispered to you, many lessons; celebrating your reflections, your redemptions//your hidden mentions.
Salud:
To your preludes,
To your monologues,
To your poetics,
To your song,
And to your dance;
To the ethics that made you share them,
To the purpose of your land.
thank you.
Ivory Hearts (2022)—
Don’t blame me/ ‘cause I don’t give a fuck.
I’m some like stone too.
Feminine/with shackles to break at 3.
Shit, I wear gold on everything;
And I got diamonds for teeth.
I make notions knowledge.
I finished/ everything/ I started.
I make love;
I don’t- give- a- fuck.
And that stone that I mentioned// completes the preamble/
I grew up.
- I fucked, and I made love,
Learned which one was worth more the hard way.
Humph, wasn’t made for the class.
In brass, I turned in on myself and made myself a lover.
I eventually found another.
I told the truth— my truth.
Gone in poofs, like shunned Arabians;
Nomadic.
They turned me invisible; homeless.
Unshackled.
Outside of prisons and matrixes.
Purposeful.
Exploding.
Magical;
Unlearning the social condition.
Black/
And beautiful//
Attacked matter;
Flesh broken and bleeding; open-ed/ without the scar to prove it.
The Mind rendering the minds, until everything looks like the universe again;
Until normal becomes the malady/and the nightmare;
Until intelligence conceives the reality in a manner that makes empathy go to babel.
Make stories turn to pure light,
Until my daughter’s lips sing, and my son’s eyes search the trees for the winds I know.
…until they tell their elders about the moors in their bones// that talk of secrets and legacies//I know.
Until my own lover sees what I gave her too/ and let her own mind meet// with my heart.
A prayer becomes a manifest,
and the ivory of elephants picks up my soul and carries me home.
The trumpets bleed for my wounds, and I heal.
And, I will bring back home to her; and she will smile genuinely at me;
Because/ I had made love of it; and/ I had given all of me.