Jessica Weyer Bentley is an Author/Poet. Her first collection of poetry, Crimson Sunshine, was published in May 2020 by AlyBlue Media. She has contributed work to several publications for the Award-Winning Book Series, Grief Diaries, including Poetry and Prose, and Hit by a Drunk Driver. Jessica’s work has been anthologized in Women Speak Vol. 6 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), Summer Gallery of Shoes (Highland Park Poetry), Common Threads 2020 Edition (Ohio Poetry Association), Appalachian Witness Volume 24 (Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel) and Made and Dream (Of Rust and Glass), Jessica currently resides in Northwest Ohio.
Quietus
Small tragedies stitch red pain into an intricate quilt, pure earthen connections of man, kisses of black serendipity, wedding together our imminent demise, painful true simplicity that levels even the most affluent soul, removing the charade. We all become dust under the plow, a mare’s grazing clover, rising up beneath her galloping hooves, as she tests the iron confines of the pasture gate.
Zelfmoord
Vincent, paint for me, scratch the piercing cruelty. The overlay scars in mustard and burnt umber. The subjects shed their scrutiny. They let you seethe in your creativity, dying slowly, wilting your own shadow. They praise you now but left you for dead, to sever your own ear and wound your heart. You had never lived. Your acrylics thrive in brazen blue, the violet hue of your agony. Vincent, Oh Vincent, if they could have used your cipher, to decipher the wails to be heard. The sunflower, your shade from loneliness, you were drowning, yearning expelled onto the canvas.
Fox in the Henhouse
Casket of cobalt, auburn skin pale. Your turgid hands fold against your patrolman’s lapel. Lying on satin with ringlets of black. You have left me to wolves, Sir- you can never turn back. My little hands grasp the mahogany. You promised to silence us with your revolving blue steel. They were called to a domestic, you showed her- sapphire and sable. You screamed my name, a young man’s dying last chant. I scream for you daily inside of myself. My plea is reticent, though breaking my hull. The waters seep in, the damage- irreversible. An anchor run foul, lost to the deep. My reflections are ghosts, a little red jeep. I am your poltergeist. I never sleep. My little hands grasp the mahogany. Forever bowing now to the mahogany. Bio: Jessica Weyer Bentley is an Author/Poet. Her first collection of poetry, Crimson Sunshine, was published in May 2020 by AlyBlue Media. She has contributed work to several publications for the Award-Winning Book Series, Grief Diaries, including Poetry and Prose, and Hit by a Drunk Driver. Jessica’s work has been anthologized in Women Speak Vol. 6 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions), Summer Gallery of Shoes (Highland Park Poetry), Common Threads 2020 Edition (Ohio Poetry Association), Appalachian Witness Volume 24 (Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel) and Made and Dream (Of Rust and Glass) 2021 and online showcases including Global Poemic and Fevers of the Mind Poetry Showcase 2022. Jessica currently resides in Northwest Ohio.
Fevers of the Mind 