BENJAMIN HOLLANDER'S WAY
(1952-2016)

You are missed
in lieu of eulogies
or eloquent elegies
of a near missed departure
at San Francisco's cafes
with a memoir years away from
your parent's German memory
but it's still better
to be here here to fulfill
in a cosmopolitan city
near your army of fans
of your skilled letter poetry
reciting narratives
to friends over benches
when you in reality composing
your cultural correspondences
as you captured nuanced riffs
in vocal chances of success
from a brief life span
in the world more than
in a local vicinity's call
from your beautifully accented
emanations of French verse
or the complex German
of your favorite Paul Celan
you are now not really gone
from our own knotted memory
in an often cursed and shuttered
blind shadow covering
over shades of a window
as you are spotted
outside a club disclosing
and uttering translated phrases
from our Moses- stuttered words
as an eye opened
injured black swan
is heard with broken wings
to engage us
with a bird chorus
still clinging to waves
over the Bay area sea
with wishes to acknowledge
your last surprised gesture
in a profoundly met poetry
here in the late dawn
on an age's contemporary bridge
reading your poetry
over any summarily sentenced
barrier in the secreted
star language
of Ben Hollander,
you are now set free.