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Benjamin Rosser Poem
I sip compliance from a cardboard cup. Tight fine steel lines, hoist five lifelike life sized paper mache white swans. The birds seem to wing from sunlit atrium up and over an oak railing to the mezzanine. Dazzling beneath skylights, they depict ascent, flap, glide, brake and then descent towards wrought iron tables. They mimic our trek from mall entry up the escalator to feast at the food court. I sit alone at the railing, gliding swan overhead, and pretend to eye my phone. Today I secretly study humans. Food court stuffed with youthful staff, bargain hunters, transit transfers, mobility scooters, mothers, babies, bags, phones, the braggadocio of men meeting, gaunt faces of the needy. Bodies milling, streaming, yearning. The bubbling cocktail of pop rock, chit chat galore, languages, slanguages, giggles, and that one guy yelling. The carnal essence of commercial cookery. Unspoken competition for tables, at times nearly a blood sport. Each of us tiptoeing through our daily hopscotch. Only children wonder at the swans. Do mall swans search for lost wetlands, or do they strain to join us? Mythology has it that swans shift between human and avian form. The enchantment of Tchaikovsky’s swan, princess by night pirouettes into swan by day. In the wild, sudden bright white, raucous landing, huge bold birds calling, splashing power and grace. I wish we each burst into swan. But flight feathers do not anchor to my bones, nor contour feathers pierce my skin. I vow to visit the wild ones, and leave.
published in "Unbroken" 2025
Copyright © Benjamin Rosser | Year Posted 2026
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Benjamin Rosser Poem
Her new fridge
set as a giant gleaming jewel between
clean countertop & faithful kitchen cupboards
Icemaker
amiable crispers bins & shelves
cavernous freezer with sensible sliding drawer
She’d paid cash
using her hard earned own money
smartly side-stepping debt & obligation
The old fridge
battered exterior puny packed interior
bleeding cold & ice cube trays always plundered
It was his
revered bachelorhood relic
when it failed she feared she’d lost everything
She kissed
her kitchen’s cherished crown jewel
its powerful compressor cooling her mind
(published in “London Grip”, 2022)
Copyright © Benjamin Rosser | Year Posted 2023
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Benjamin Rosser Poem
My window shut,
blocking Summer’s fierce gaze
and brown haze from distant flaming timbers.
One machine cools the room,
then my cats and I may nap.
Another, like a Vegas magician,
pulls gallons of water
from the air we breathe.
My window shut,
glazed by Winter’s cruel lick,
outside sheets of ice and broken branches.
Furnace air and a space heater
blanket us with dry heat.
Eyes itch, hands and heels crack,
another device weaves soothing water
into the air we breathe.
I met a man, years ago,
who lived inside an iron lung.
It did the work of breathing for him.
His hapless head stuck out one end
of what seemed a metal casket on wheels.
With cheeky laughter, he read everything
and used his mouth to write.
I crack open my window.
(published in “Boats Against the Current”, 2023)
Copyright © Benjamin Rosser | Year Posted 2024
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Benjamin Rosser Poem
I take my rhinoceros with me
I take him wherever I go
People pretend not to see him
But it’s me they don’t want to know
(published in Eunoia Review, August 26, 2024)
Copyright © Benjamin Rosser | Year Posted 2025
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Benjamin Rosser Poem
My Delft blue plate, a replication of an imitation, lies smashed in the trash. Do not know the who nor how, never heard the crash. Flat circular center an idyllic scene sealed beneath clear glazed glass, cracked. 17th century Dutch fishing sloop, cuts towards wild reeds by a bygone windmill, beside a thatched roof cottage before a deciduous wood, white clouds in a soft cobalt sky, distant seabirds soaring. The plate’s raised outer rim replete with blossoms and feathered leaves. My Delft blue plate, thousands of meals, sticky egg yolk, thick turkey gravy, steaming potatoes, sweet corn, buttered vegetables, juicy meats, tangy sauces, pasta, chili, sushi, marmalade. Each dinner I exhumed bit by bit, bite by bite, the motionless wooden windmill, gulls suspended in air, the slicing sloop. Tiny figures on deck, lifelong companions. Everything wanting wind. I sit by the window in my 10th floor concrete cage, peering through grimy glass. Rows of residential towers resemble headstones in an amber haze, along the barren banks of an asphalt creek. We all wait for wind. I scroll the internet seeking a duplicate Delft blue plate.
(published in "Boats Against The Current", 2024)
Copyright © Benjamin Rosser | Year Posted 2025
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Benjamin Rosser Poem
I was the sun with flame and flare
‘til time did cloud my head,
a lively lord with hounds and mare
but now I lie in bed
I am the moon with pallid glow
a lone ghost light instead,
my mind a maze I do not know
I call for dogs long dead
(Published in "The Raven Review", 2025)
Copyright © Benjamin Rosser | Year Posted 2026
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