A Bird of Flesh and Futures I take the knife and slice Pieces of myself away and Hand them to be scattered Along tattered and uncertain timelines …Ben Berman Ghan
poems
Hiaku for James
Old man on guitar electric marshal on stage ancient at twenty-eight
Blue-Stained Skies
We beat back the long grey clouds stretching out coating the tops of our skyscraper world and put down hard blankets of the deep chill reaching through the flat-light afternoons to earth. * Long hours long nights long roads long horizons November-February skies mix together into mate tombstone paintings until time strips away mistakes in … Continue reading Blue-Stained Skies
The Poet’s Keeper
I am not a poet for poets My lines won't stay straight under scrutiny hands with skill will feel my ineptitude fault lines of an idiot in the dark * drunkenly scratching sketches on the wall if you look at no art, it looks like art no art looks like my art next to good art … Continue reading The Poet’s Keeper
Disco
I see you standing under disco light The universe readjusts around you My world moves to create a new center Particles of dust freeze around your form. * You under the trees, a delicate frame Around your feet dead leaves, hair frames your face and everything nods in your direction. * I see you … Continue reading Disco
Poem for the Man on the Corner Again
Pastiche People I have seen all this before, without you. Echo children, they fit us together. Did you think this was the very first time here? Easily broken men, this might never end. Patchwork people, shadows in the moonlight Broken records repeat for new partners Old jokes used before slid them in again The … Continue reading Poem for the Man on the Corner Again
Poetry Workshop Challenge: Reworking Folklore
Death Waiting In the market. Can you see? Can you see? White men, white horses, send servants to me, Old merchants, old men, hiding in the crowds all men seeing what they cannot outrun. Now that my business in Bagdad is done In the market, in the streets, you see me. The young … Continue reading Poetry Workshop Challenge: Reworking Folklore
Poem: The List (in tribute to Johnny Cash’s To Do Today)
Link to Cash's original note
Poem for a young Jew
Timeless Do you say you think that I look timeless? Dark rings, dark circles, shadows round and round My brow lined with other people’s secrets She tells me Jewish men never look young. Is it the beard that hides my too round cheeks? Or the scalp peeking through my too thin hair? The … Continue reading Poem for a young Jew
Taken from a Walt Whitman Misquote
Loving Backwards Raindrops like the keys fall upwards from grass Time drags back to the pattering of song You reappear at our old piano Backwards melodies played on your body * Atoms draw me back out into cold night Dragging my body up broken flight – Falling upwards, I am without heartbeat, The fractured … Continue reading Taken from a Walt Whitman Misquote
Ben Berman Ghan 