Buster Keaton Gives Advice on How to Write a Love Poem- Alex Stolis, after Beverly Bennett

Buster Keaton, by Beverly Bennett (USA) 1976

Buster Keaton Gives Advice on How to Write a Love Poem

Drink a half-bottle of Southern Comfort. Straight. 
Hit on the cocktail waitress at Ace High, not the sexy
hotcoolunmarried one 

but the older been-around-the-bend-girl; she’s more
of a challenge, and there are never enough of those. 
Go home alone. You didn’t want to get laid anyway.

It's about the chase. High speeds, crashes, and pratfalls,
the stuff of dreams. Drunk dial your high school 
crush. As the phone rings start praying

she doesn’t answer, if she does, hang up quickly.  
Wait ten minutes dial again, when her husband 
answers pretend it’s a wrong number. 

If you’re hurdling to blackout, pick an unusual spot 
to pass out; the women's room at Manny’s SteakHouse, 
the front steps of the local cop shop. 

We only get one chance to get it right. It’s serious business. 
Don’t smile. Never smile. Plan exquisitely, hit your mark 
but make it look spontaneous. 

Your memory will be scratched, scorched into fragments,
love is emotional nitrate; beautiful, extremely flammable 
and dangerous. ​
​
Alex Stolis

Alex Stolis lives in Minneapolis; his photos have appeared or are forthcoming in Ink in Thirds, San Pedro Review, Unleashed Lit, and Anti-Heroin Chic. His full-length book Pop.1280, is a poetry and photo collection, available from Amazon. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower's Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024, RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, 2024 by Bottlecap Press. 

Beverly Bennett, a lifelong Hudson Valley, New York resident,  is a visual artist who discovered her love for the bold, expressive qualities of printmaking early in life.  Formally a high school Art teacher with more than twenty five years experience teaching studio classes, she holds degrees in Graphic Arts, Advertising and Printmaking. Beverly’s focus, since her retirement from teaching in 2019, has predominantly been on further developing her artistic style while exhibiting in member and juried shows. Currently, she is researching her family's long history in New York and actively experimenting with printmaking and painting methods as a means to express her connection to that family.