poems by Wynne Benjamin Renz
photos of an anonymous letter

REASON

Blair always said
Spock was the ideal
Man

Cause Spock
The pointy-eared
Black helmet head
On Star Trek

Honored reason
Over the human
Error of emotion

Reason, Blair argued
In a mouthful of
Non-gluten pancakes
At a vegan joint on Capitol Hill

Gets you out of a fix

Emotion only fucks with
The mainframe’s central wiring
Required for maximum human operation

Blair’s reasoning
Must have been pretty solid for my
Free thinking sister, Linnaea
To jump on his Starship
And ride it ‘til it blew up

Sure he played drums
In a punk band called oh, I forget
And lived in Seattle’s Punkin’ House
(Cause it was painted orange
And punk bands you never heard of
And probably never will)

Traveled from Portland
To entertain transient vegans
Drunk on Kool-Aid so fair trade
They reasoned how to live in a house
Infected with rats

Rats, I logic
Have more reason than
Spock, Blair, or transient vegans
As rats
And cockroaches with their
Inferiority complexes and OCD tendencies

Are the nerds in high school
Who eventually take over the planet
No matter how much we reason
The uprights to rule forever

Even if we destroy everything
And build a civilization
For the brilliant, talented, and strong
Emotionless humans on

The moon
Will spit us back out
Into space
With no explanation
No reason at all

Except that the moon
Had no patience for
Spock

Who never understood a
Woman’s body
Like Linnaea’s
Standing in front of Blair’s
Man’s body

When he reasoned
He had to focus on his band
And that there was no logic in crying
Or feeling “confused,” “sad,” or “angry”

Though her body
Irrationally disagreed
Heavy on the rail of the porch
Heart bowing to

The galaxy
With its web of stars, planets
And their intergalactic ambitious
Decisions

Regulate a woman’s
Inner vessels
Just as it does the waves
Coming in and out in the sea

And no matter how much we try to
Scientifically quantify, understand, or reason
Why this is
Those waves will never fall into
One straight line

APPROXIMATELY AROUND MAYBE SEVEN SHARP

Two horses
Jumped off the cliff
Half past Noon

They died on impact
Contemplating their fate
Seconds before impact

It was all Harold’s fault
Kicking his horse in the flank
The spot under the belly
That’ll make any ol’ swayback match
Minutes with award winning racers

Luckily Harold
Ditched the stirrups in time
To land hard on his bad arm
The one injured in college ball
Fourth quarter before touchdown

And Harold’s wife Melody
Spinned off the backside of
Her horse that followed
Like the last pin in the final bowl
Against the Jacobsons
Every other Wednesday night at eight

Later Harold would argue
He was simply “reacting” to Melody’s
Completely fabricated passive-aggressive “story”
About something that according to her supposedly “happened”
Over 16.5 hours ago, who can keep track

When the said couple had dinner with
Allison and Ryan Jacobson
In the cabin next to theirs
And Harold did that “thing”
Approximately around maybe seven sharp

Ryan was busy keeping their dog Sideways
From swallowing a wounded bee
Allowing Harold another peek at
Allison’s nipple
Sun-rising from her blouse
As she scooped from the bowl of her famous
Three minute mashed potatoes

Complete horseshit, Melody
Complete and total horseshit, said Harold
Kicking the soon deceased in the flank
If you weren’t so insecure you’d see I was just
Going in for a second helping

Second helping, I’m sure
Melody scoffed, to the nurse
Who kept her eyes focused on attaching
The sling to Harold’s arm
More like the second helping for the
Millionth time that week

If you could just keep it in your pants
Around Allison’s
Perky, perfect breasts
That hardened when she complained about
Little Brown “paying her way, way too much”
For her recently published bathroom reader
“How to Have It All: Advice From Someone Who Does”
A hundred pages too long, not like I’ve read it

Those horses wouldn’t be dead
And we’d not be banned from
The lodge until we pay them damages
A month’s paycheck at least

And the flight back to New York
Wouldn’t need so many magazines
Dave Matthews Band songs I’m so sick of
Those tiny bags of salted pretzels the stewardess keeps throwing at us
Just to make the eight hours feel less like
A lifetime.

Send your anonymous love letters to us! Not like it’s lonely here or anything. And watch for it on High Con! Our address is 403 South 1st West, Suite 2, Missoula MT 59801.

Check out Wynne Renz’s  poetry, as well as some good music, only this time it’s real and just more beautiful.