Benjamin Gorman's Shared Poems

Fall glides in
like an old lover remembered,
imbued with the peculiar sagacity
of the one that got away,
the one against whom you measure all others,
the avatar who lives in a secret antechamber of the heart
and appears at certain times—
when you’re off guard,
your eyes captivated by a sparkle of old light.

She has that omniscience regarding your heart
that paradoxically relaxes
because pretense is moot
under eyes that see clean through you
like October sunlight
through bare branches.

She is the ebb tide
revealing what was hidden, not buried—
burial means decomposition, dissolution
but fall exhumes no graves,
seeks only final resting places
for what must be released.

Fall arrives and remembers for us
or we remember ourselves
or we remember fall
or, falling, we remember
or we remember falling—
leaves from trees
the inevitable
letting go
the descent to a common ground.

This click-clack click-clack stuttering of mind
’tween wake and sleep, this breathless oscillation,
Leaves little leisure for the mind to rest
And, like a sea anemone, unfurl
Its wispy tendrils of awareness—Ah!
To slip between the breathless press of day
And night’s beguiling enterprise of dreams;
A state of being separate from the two:
Awake, unshackled from the monkey mind,
Yet not unconscious, flailing on the plain
Of primal id. A fertile state between—
A realm of peak awareness, free of stress,
Where mind can spread its wings to soar unbound—
A state of bliss: imagination’s playground.

lilting strains of a Mozart violin concerto
stumble drunk into the spring night air
surprised to find themselves emerging
in the parking lot of a midwestern convenience store

surprised but unperturbed
they pursue their orderly frolic
along the midtown street
dodging cars and teasing passersby

unperturbed people plow through
32nd notes like falling spring petals
pass through the doors and become customers
brushing the notes from their shoulders like snow

customers on a Sunday night
at united dairy farmers #632
scan the colorful shelves and gleaming glass refrigerators
unconsciously seeking to resolve, in commerce, each musical theme

the robin stands in stillness
on a patch of winter-faded lawn
beside the straining daffodils

they are about to burst
yellow trumpets
ready to blare on cue

but the robin does not move
none of the usual hopping
and listening

the robin stands in stillness
no turning of the head
to betray the spark of life

rusty breast feathers
rustle in the cool spring wind—
taxidermy or contemplation

perhaps the worms
she hunts have themselves
stopped moving

only the restless wind persists
the wind will outlast it all
even the waiting

Trying for a glimpse of the awkwardly named comet
(the drier option is C/2011 L4)
I’m down by the river,
staring into the dregs of sunset.
It’s cold, my fingers needle complaints
    why you wanna do this?
    let’s go inside, get warm
A new front steals in slowly
from the southwest,
horsetails moving like minute hands
across the afterglow.

In fact, it’s all clocks and gears,
the cranking of the spheres
the great music box of it;
if our awareness were just a touch slower
we’d be dizzied by the complex motion
—we dust motes in God’s orrery.

Best to perceive in smaller increments,
apprehend only minutiae,
not sense the furious whirring of the machine—
distracted instead by details
like cold hands.