>Connie Bensley..

>.. is one of those poets I came across by accident. I was in a hurry and wanted something to read and I grabbed at the first book that caught my eye and I’ve been hooked since. My biggest lament is the lack of documentation of her work on the world wide web.

Just a few of her stuff.

The Case of the Distracted Postman

The postman is in love
and all of us are bearing the brunt.

My newsletter from the Secular Society
went to the Vicar. The Vicar’s bank statement

arrived at Number 33, who steamed it open
then put something extra in the collection

on Sunday. Coarse seaside postcards
have caused offense to Lavinia, who was

in mourning, and I personally was expecting
a love letter rather than

the Bus Timetable, copies of which
I keep receiving, day after day.

We are getting together to offer him
counseling. Every day he is seen

Staring into the pond, his disordered letter-sack
trembling on the brink.

*

Out of my Mouth

I’ve heard all my opinions before
and I am tired of them.
They fall heavily out of my mouth
and lie around
like tiny, wizened children.

I don’t blame you
for stamping on them.
We will do it together
and when the massacre is over
I will begin again –

My thoughts darting and colourful
as tropical birds.
You will hardly know me.
I will hardly know myself.
So, that’s a start, anyway.

*

Advice

– so kindly meant,
so freely given –
so very often wrong.


*

Certainties

She knew he was attracted to her
because of the way he avoided meeting her eye;
because of the shy way he failed
to take the chair next to hers,
and because – to get closer to her –
he pretended to flirt with her sister.

After he left the party
he was still too diffident to phone,
or even to write.

Someone had taken photographs.
He was in one of them,
turned away and out of focus,
but she kept it. Year after year
it grew more potent.


*

Shopper

I am spending my way out
of a recession. The road chokes
on delivery vans.
I used to be Just Looking Round
I used to be How Much, and
Have You Got it in Beige.
Now I devour whole stores –
High speed spin; giant size; chunky gold;
de-luxe springing. Things.
I drag them round me into a stockade.
It is dark inside; but my credit cards
are incandescent

*

To Those People I’ve Annoyed by My Infatuations

First there was the boy with the hamster
who blushed and became monosyllabic;

Then there was the music master
who ignored my notes;

was it the gynecologist next?
Such men cultivate deafness;

and what about the psephologist?
My predilections were strange in those days.

Finally, that Austrian with no chin and a bow tie
who moved out of the district

I’d like to apologize to you all
for the inconvenience caused

by my tears and sighs,
intrusion and lingering looks.

I am quite better now.