Ben Kopel

BLACK DIAMOND SUTRA

Thus I have heard this / that guided by beer light / I came into town / fucked under / by days slept late / good enough for the future / and all the white that / happiness writes / chest out / and stomach in / and shoulder back / against waves not ocean / nor radio / could cure me clean / the way once / I was / yet when / what never comes / comes to / so too shall you and I converge / and collapse and begin / again / to get born / with or without a war / I love to you / when you say / waiting is so beautiful / you don’t believe you / but from my brightest eye / to my blackest heart / I do

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CONSOLATION PRIZE SUTRA

Revenge plus guilt / equals dancing / divided by architecture / and in the end every ex-boyfriend ends / up underground / Thanks God / what makes me feel better / feel anything / often I imagine myself / up and awake and hanging / on the phone / saying something untrue / I bought a dog / I named him Blood / the city you destroy / destroys you / and here come the dead friends / there is work to be done / for real / I am earning my living / with the wolves / I believe in one enormous desire / to protect one thing / so well / it forgives itself

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KING RABBIT SUTRA

Rabbit she called me / and absolutely rabbit / I remain / be it in the dirty snow / or watched over / by a mercy killing of crows / let me stay awhile / inside of some lovely thing / making my way / from megachurch / to megachurch / like a window mounted AC unit / dripping my bad waters everywhere / dreaming about an earth full of blood / last night I got so sober / I shattered someone’s weekend / with laughter / emptied out the empties / now I’m forgetting / how I got here / to get her together / I carried her aquarium / across the river / and I damaged no one / and I changed and / still I shine so rabbit

Ben Kopel is the author 'Because We Must' (Brave Men Press) and has had poems featured in Conduit, The New Delta Review, Makeout Creek, and elsewhere. He helps curate the jubilat/Jones reading series in Amherst, Massachusetts.