An Intermission of Victimized Crime Units

                                                                      after Alina Pleskova

Robot Doctor, check my clock.
Pilots are flying into the sun for fun.
I pull out my boss hog in a Walgreens. I mean,
how else can I get off?
Teeth spelled backwards is Heatpad.
Heatpad spelled backwards is Father.
Father, Leslie has left us. Her words overheat.
She leaves us. She leaves.
My sounds are doused this far south from reality.
My music falls off the ledge.
Its funeral was a sad lap around my car.
A baguette flecking all over me.
A baguette so flecked, why me.
The plural of this tale is not a dog on a pillow.
Billy Joel owns only one poem.
He loans it to me. He eats apart my keytar.
A couple hustles a dumbbell around town.
A funnel cloud is not my kind of cloud.
The manager understands the packing peanuts
but corporate needs him to see the world.
How did the pilgrim transform into a pill?
Me and my denim filth.
Boredom stores its coats in my kitchen.
I’m kidding. I’m with six women right now.
We’re swimming.
I’m pretending I'm not drowning.
They don't seem to notice.
I’m playing it cool.
I’m telling my truth.
I’m writing lies on the wings of flies.
It’s taking much longer than I thought.
Laughter asks a heavy handed question.
I'm fine with the consequence of art.
He talked me out of the tusk.
The land we've created is lethal.
The evil we capture is chapped.
I’m so high I tried to rewind you.
We were scooping pumpkins when I missed what you said.
I said I missed you when you said what you said.
I pressed in front of me searching for a screen.
What's a window like me doing so open at this hour?
The signature principle dinner dish misses the point.
She’s annoyed in the anointed category.
She's storied until she screams.
Eats a tampon. Tramps the rat.
When the king is mentioned in the chat he dances in front of the train.
I went home to eat the sandwich named after my grandfather.
Remove the mute button from the sunbeam.
We're drinking enough water for the two of us to sink.
Someone asks about a tattoo.
Another replies in Russian.
The camera shuffles and the picture fades.
We sign up for the onslaught but she talks of nothing but time.
Deep in the chat, an anger aghast.
A foothill to a mansion where one man lives with his dead kid’s sick fox.
Pocket star is far away. Come back in laughter.
Stoic noodle dish. Return soon with dew.
The multi millionaires have halted all funds for sun travel.
She smells the screen. I hear her chew.
This is dedicated to the cabin in my dismantled heart.
She won the award.
She hoarded the money then one Sunday she spent it all on dolls.
Gathering a handful of boomboxes to call upon the candle.
How many times might I walk my snake before he finally takes the lead?
He ingests the weapon's perfume.
He cheers for a pear tree.
A new movie with a fool proof hero.
The dog barks. The swan laughs.
He writes a yee-haw talk show.

No Owe

                               after Michael Bazzett’s “The Favor”

I don’t owe you anything.
There’s no owe. You knock
on my door, that’s your choice.
You wake me up, that’s on you.
You brush my hair and feed me, you.
I don’t owe you anything.
This is about unmade signals.
When I dream, it’s about landmarks
man has yet to create, like a lake
made of thumbtacks
or a satellite made of flies.
Sewn together by their wings.
I do all of this day
dreaming on my own
without asking for your
help. You help
because you choose to.
I’m human, very
special, super
athletic, always on time.



Benjamin Niespodziany is a Chicago-based writer whose work has appeared in Bennington Review, Fence, Conduit, Fairy Tale Review, Post Road, and elsewhere. His writing has been featured in the Wigleaf Top 50 and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, and Best of the Net. Along with hosting the Neon Night Mic reading series, he also recently launched Piżama Press.

Website | Instagram | Twitter | Bluesky