ERIC TYLER BENICK
Synthetic Performer
Caught monkeying around again in the Byzantine Empire—
the men so flirty and fastidious, I barely made it out alive.
There isn’t much more to say about image or eros.
An erroneous algorithm confines the hard lines of my face.
You may have seen me in the denouement of the latest Aquaman.
You may have read my work thinking it was Rousseau.
We may have matched on the kinky app for Trotskyites.
You may have cuckolded my spirit in a Berlin basement.
We’re all so naked and getting thornier and thornier.
There is a reality seen through an embolism.
There is a reality where everything melts.
There is a reality of permanent amnesia.
Those of us who have felt oppressed by the mirror
are in very big trouble. A La Monte Young loop
pervades the global consciousness in a panic
of recurrence. We have seen this episode
and yet all of the actors are suddenly rearranged.
I go to sleep listening to the sounds of rain on my phone
to cover up the storm outside. Hot Cypriots
wave their dicks through my dreams like fresh scallops.
You are here: stuttering through the soliloquies of King Lear.
You are here: on a podcast about male potency and botulism.
You are here: selling Lactaid to a Jesuit sorority.
You are here: waiting in line for the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
The snow in Oz was asbestos. The Gulf War Did Not Take Place.
I knew that all sex was simulated. I knew the golem was a man in a suit.
I knew I loved you the second I saw the glitch in your visage.
I always knew we’d live forever with no memory and no consent.
––––
Zero Hour at the Flying Circus
I think we can all agree this performance has become far too silly.
The lust of nightshades emulating hydrogen bombs behind the light
pollution. The manly militia exquisite in fatigues fumbling dossiers like wolves
in heat. An armored limousine of decrepit dogs debating our deliverance
unto euthanasia. The circuit board is busted and we’re all thumbless MFAs
criticizing the absurd use of bricolage. I pawn my Volvo for Scandinavian
ambassadorship only to realize the Sisyphian myth of happiness
is hysteria. I’m beginning to miss God—that quaint substitute for abjection.
It’s hard to be circumspect when the dimensions of Earth
change with every unfounded assertion. It’s hard to be sexy
when every angle is violent. I was denied a low-interest loan
for being ascendant in Gemini. Some will think that virtuous.
Some won’t think it extreme enough while caressing the thick rope
of their gallows. Some are just checking their phones on the toilet.
I’m of the fastest-growing political persuasion that mushrooms form
a consciousness, perhaps our final underground movement. The last illness
I survived left me with permanent nostalgia, now I’m all lead paint and saturated fats
in Marlon Brando’s bisexual chapeau. Fuck me, every foundation is futile.
Soon there will be Alaskan wine and Minnesota oranges. Soon the sinkholes will sing
through their eructations, sick with Spring. Soon another flaccid renegade
will palpate the pathos of a mob with vitriol and validation
cementing their worst fears like an effigy. Soon we’ll all be wearing
Yeezy Foam Runners to the asylum while trying to withdraw a virginal IRA
from a dive bar ATM. We’re all so fabulistically tired. A feverish nation
of match girls. Another apparition in the foyer. Another drip
from the broken faucet. Another lover gone mad with industrial complex.
The airplane hatch is open. Your parachute is a startled cat. Your weapon
is a neglected vibrator. Your whole troop forgot your birthday. Stay focused.
The objective of this reconnaissance mission is to accept the inevitable.
Isn’t that useless? Your entire beautiful life for such a trivial conclusion.
I would have written it better myself, but I couldn’t.
––––
Eric Tyler Benick wrote the fox hunts (Beautiful Days, 2023), Memory Field (Long Day Press, 2024), and several chapbooks through Spiral Editions, No Rest Press, and The Operating System. With Nick Rossi, he founded Ursus Americanus Press, a publisher of shorter poetics. His more recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Afternoon Visitor, Bennington Review, Brooklyn Review, Harvard Advocate, Mercury Firs, and Puerto Del Sol. He lives in Brooklyn.