Ben Partenay Poems

skin slick
with prayer,
last look at
thin layered
...

walk a mile
when sleep won’t come
when winter is only rain
and wet leaves
...

eyes open,
door swings on latches
bent from wind too old
for the north. cuts at
...

My stone is black and
cracked three ways
but it still won't break.
...

It's old, you're old, and well,
I'm the rain.

This isn't a new dance, once,
...

I think
in order to feel
I need to hurt
and
...

You wrote this poem. Not me. In fact
all the things I ever wrote were just words
that tumbled out of mouths I loved.
I didn't write this.
...

I think I knew these trees
when sweat, like many hundred prayers,
fell off me
and into the ground.
...

Try this,
stand on one foot and tell me
that you wanted this, hop on
one leg and speak from your heart.
...

You told me, yesterday,
that I lied
from the beginning, but I didn't, I told you
that I was a monster. From day one, I was
...