Ben Mazer: 8 Poems From January 2008

None of the 135 poems comprising Ben Mazer’s January 2008 (Dark Sky Books, 2010), written shortly after the death of the poet Landis Everson, have been previously published in periodicals, due to the sudden nature of the book’s publication. Here are eight poems from the collection. May they induce you to acquire this epic, tour de force 149 pp. volume of poetry.

Embarrassing the Gods

My urination violation
helped to pay for my vacation.
Oh do not ask what is it
when you make your mental visit,
quoth the raven, while my mental
escapades are accidental
only when I do not think it.
So I’m making you this trinket
in case you want to contemplate
our coinciding at this date.
I could not express it better
than by talking through your sweater
like an Indian chieftain or
a gentle army of wild boar.
All that I can do is wing it,
hoping back to me you’ll sing it,
sometimes embarrassing the gods,
exposing all the inner thoughts
that make me want to
categorize them all in lots,
I think I can do.
When it is pouring in the noon
maybe it won’t be too soon
to softly name
and itemize the groves of June.
Like a fire then will fame
enjoy its promise without shame.
Occidents of welter rudge
may discontinue to misjudge
the preening prom queen
and turn her quizzi-
cal extremptions to a quasi-
mathematically obscene
half exposition
on the strength of my position
and orgasms of myopic
caring for my biopic.

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