Benjamin Gorman's Shared Poems

The toes are having none of it.
They’ve shuttered their business,
gone on holiday in warmer climes.

The throat complains bitterly,
sends up waves of viscous sputum
in protest—and as proxy for the lungs.

The legs? well, they just do what they can
pump away at a steady plodding rate,
happy to be protected by leggings, anyway.

The heart gives all it can—
never a moment’s hesitation,
full bore, pedal to the metal.

The rest of the gang
would do well to take a page
from heart’s playbook.

These hands of mine.
Well, they say they're mine;
they're attached, after all--
though I can shake them,
still I can't shake 'em.
They do my bidding,
more or less--
these days it seems less than more
or perhaps I've become jaded
expect too much,
and though they have in fact
become fantastically well-tuned
over the years,
I'm always greedy for more,
never satisfied.
They seem at times such clumsy things,
blunt unfeeling terminal stumps
on larger unfeeling limbs.
There, see? A word for trees!
I've often wished for fingers
on the ends of my fingers
to do the fine work
mind envisions.
O, for hands like a jeweler's!
Elegant and tapered,
capable of such finesse!
I'm told I must make do
with these.
We get along well enough
I suppose they'll do.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care
In hopes that some fruit baskets wouldn’t land there,
Tearing a hole and then dropping clean through
Just to land on the floor in a pile of fruit goo—
Which would hardly provide us distraction enough
From the sight of old Santy Claus, there in the buff,
One mit on a bottle, one clutching a ham;
He’s gnawin’ and swiggin’ and trying to cram
All the silver and technoswag into his sack
While dispensing a view of his ample butt-crack.
There’s nothing like Christmas out here in the sticks
Where the easement’s disputed, the neighbors are hicks,
The basement’s no match for this climate-change rain,
And our blueberry-growing is sadly in vain.
But some holiday cheer is enough for today,
Word With Friends is a game that we all now can play
(Except Artie, because he still lacks a device),
And—wouldn’t you know?—Santy found us all nice.

It’s all about food, you see.
Here are the legs:

they take you to food and run you
away from being food for something else.

And the arms of course:

they gather up food, prepare it for use,
bring it to the mouth—

Pretty obvious, that one:
it’s all built around the mouth;
the whole design is based on a food tunnel—
in one end, out the other.

Oh, and it never stops being food, no!
Once it leaves you, it’s just food for something else.

The hands are a special case
because they not only handle food
directly, intimately, they also do other things
complex things, elegant and violent
and astounding things—

mostly related to the acquisition
and protection of food, of course.

The art-making? Yes, correct! It’s really about food:
isn’t art a form of worship? and what more profound
worship than that of Food, the Life-giver?

Ah! and here in the center, hidden
in darkness and wet mystery: the heart
moving the food throughout, sending it everywhere,
nothing left untouched, unnourished,
so no cell is guiltless, all must buy in,
all complicit in the quest.
Yes, heart—

incubator of motion, marshall of will,
drumbeat of the hunting party,
coxswain of this longboat,
metronome to the unending cause.
Lovely thing.

Well, I’m getting sentimental.
Here, take it. Go ahead, try it on—
give it a whirl, see how it feels;
I’m certain you’ll like it.
And remember this:
though it seems that way,
it’s not really all about food.

They were gathering firewood, the girls.
Why were they all together?
Was it a new hunting-ground to them, or a place they’d been before?
Were they chatting and laughing as they picked up twigs and small branches?
Were they singing an old song taught them
by their mothers and grandmothers?
When her sandaled (or bare) foot
tripped the trigger,
did the girl hear a metallic click
before all sounds merged into one?

There are always questions with death,
reverberating into a vast silence.

The news report said,
In a statement, Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of American
and international forces in Afghanistan, said he was saddened by
the girls’ deaths. “Over three decades of conflict, Afghanistan
became one of the most heavily mined countries on earth,” he said.

In an instant they knew the speed of angels.

No need now to gather firewood;
Instead, they will collect finer things:
half a world away,
20 new arrivals needing guidance
are blinking in bewilderment.

And so it goes.