Four Poems
by Ben Goldstein, 1965
A MOMENT OF SILENCE
In the hotel of my heart
I inhabit four chambers
Pulsing, beating, surging
The nomadic corpuscles of my blood
Tumble down arteries
Pass into capillaries
Branch into the infinitesimal
And find the infinite
I once was separate, distinct
Like a gray patch on a
White paper
Isolated, alienated, alone
Until I began to look for the borders
Of self
Began to try to grasp the
Gray shabbiness of my life
I searched in the streets at dark
In the curious confines of my bed
In others minds
And each path beckoned me homeward
Inside
Nerve endings, tingling, exploding
Shooting up my spine
My brain coming
Bursting in light
All concepts ripped from me
Like a child ripped from its mother's womb
Passing through abstraction
I flew apart
And in that moment listening to the silence I became whole
THE JOURNEY INTO ECSTASY
Once upon a moon
the night was part
of the day
the light
before the phantasms of life
The weariless winds had not yet been
formed
The energy of the egg had not yet been
g-e-n-e-r-a-t-e-d
Only a presence existed in that great sea of silence
a
prelude
to the
ensuing concerto
Spewed forth in unerring multiplicity
came the ylem
the source of all being
the children of ourselves
threading out their own bodies
harmonically attuned
to
mind
Like some
infinitely dimensioned mobius strip
they twisted and turned themselves
into solidity
without losing their original nature
And so we find ourselves
perfectly narrated in 10 billion neurons
Witness to the primordial act of creation
stamped
Psychedelicately in the synapses of consciousness
ONE OF THOSE DAYS
The heart within was my goal
as I surged through
the
innermost vessels of my mind
To use all my senses on the machinery
of my existence
Filled me with an unexpressible ecstasy
My body pulsed
with the beat of my heart
I could hear the auricles and ventricles
filling up
and emptying
The valves made a soft clicking sound
I felt the fibers of my muscles
s-t-r-e-t-c-h-i-n-g
and
recoiling
I flowed through my aorta and ran the gamut
of my body
returning to my heart.
I swayed and reeled in inner contemplation
I was floating through orbs unknown
The sun of phosphorescence burst to my left
the golden sun
the purple moons
the turquoise stars
the infinite lights
All were part of me
and I of them
I SIT AND THINK I'M THE BUDDHA
I sit and think I'm the Buddha. And I guess I am... but I only recognize it... when I'm not thinking, not recognizing, not being, not not being. A jewel radiates within me everywhere the same... the world separate and inseparable in a universe of phantasms.
Action resides from past to future it has no place in the imperceptible now. Light is the only filler of the motionless moment.
Perceiving the dissolution of the material into waves, my mind begins restlessly to grope to control the energy patterns around me. The lightbulb stands out in its transparent stability against the pulsating wall. If mind can perceive its organic unity can't being manipulate itself? I try to make the lightbulb explode. Doubts well up in me. Bulbous indecision echoes its own contriving.
A pebble dropped in water expands in rippling pulses through its own body. A diamond tapped incorrectly shatters to bits. How much more perfect is the universe pronouncing itself in continual becoming, everywhere the same, everywhere different. Every fabrication organic or not partakes in change, the movement of creation spontaneously evolved in being.
In a perfectly synchronous universe the fluttering of a leaf resounds throughout.
In the universe of suchness objects are harmoniously orchestrated. The world of now is implicitly itself. The within of things declares itself in its own radiance undisturbed by the questions of time and the fruits of action. Disregarding my egocentric will for power its perfection leaves me separate and alone like a raving maniac trying to crush the life from a drop of dew.
My mind flashes through the sequence of my insolence in Eden. The question is not possible. How may one desire power persist in longing and yet take part in the most lucid of jewels, the universe. I succumb seeking release from selfhood, self conscious conception, desire. My body and the room flow joyously into one another.
I falter, look back at the bulb. The glass harboring a reflection of the window brings on vague thoughts of birth and death, creation and destruction, the phantasms of life and the path of selfless action.
Flashback to a mind continually beset by considerations. My question becomes my answer. Being inherently manipulates itself. I drift downstream through veins, arteries, capillaries into the clarity of understanding. An inner smile of purity holds me as a small piece of plaster falls on the bed.
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