EMBRACED BY BEAUTY

My eyes gaze on a thing of Beauty,
feeling its pulse within my heart.

I want to be washed in Beauty's song
to taste her delicate thrill upon my lips
and drown in her subtle
threads of ecstasy.
I want to wear Beauty's diaphanous cloak
gently upon my shoulders,
while she peers out from the
windows of my soul.

Beauty lives
within the concerned heart of caring
moved by a child's cry,
she dances upon the winged brush
of a painters delight,
and sighs within the graceful grace
spun from masters of movement, music and form.

Beauty spreads its words across the page,
words inked from a quill's tip
and relayed from a writer's mind;
she sings joyous notes of earthly communion
freely sung like an open book
written in nature's own hand.

Beauty lives in so many ways
many are its forms,
to each it has a different face
to each a different song.

© charlie elkind 4/1999
Charlie
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HANG-UPS #2

We've all heard the call -
it's a ring from our internal cell-phone
calling to wake us up.

you know those days --
our phone is ringing off the hook
and all anyone gets from us
is a busy signal.

it rings again and again --
occasionally
we pick up the receiver
and try to listen --

but just when the voice gets clear
we get interrupted again --
by "life's" call waiting

so we hang-up --
hoping that the operator
will try
to reach us again --

soon.

© charlie elkind
9/23/2006
HANG-UPS #1

What is a hang-up?

and why does my throat tighten
                   so utterly slow
when I say this sentence
                and why do I find it --
                so equally hard to voice

                                     within myself.

We need
to drink ever so softly
from our past --
sip outworn memories
that hang haphazardly through
                        our closets and clothes.

those outfits that once smelled sweet --
now are harsh and hard
filled with faint odors of
            counterfeit costumes and
            vague remembrances.

it's an ancient mothball scent
that hovers in the air
barely alive
but still reflected in mirrors of
          outmoded weariness and waste.

finding and following
those uninhabited
  material concerns
that sleep unbeknown
among our future's,
 they silently taint our dreams
                              of what will be.

we have to try
our suit on
one last time
before sewing the next step
towards a threshold of tomorrow --
being aptly attired and prepared to
 dance joyously
       with the impermanence
                                of all of life.

© charlie elkind
9/22/06
FLOATING

i want to swim with words
to paddle in a pool of metaphors
and feel poems breathe
in and out of my nostrils --
as I fight to live in the
turgid waters
of my everyday knowingness,
                       unknowingness.

so much needs to be said
but our language is incomplete
it lacks depth
depleted of remorse
and deficient of compassion.

   but the joy of our joyousness
   lurks intimately close by
   a hidden melody
   alive in the aftermath
   of our affections.

But,
why do we hesitate?
why do we waffle and weave?
away from the present
away from the whole
away from the holy.

   perhaps it's all to find
                        a way back.

© charlie elkind
3/08/2008
GO ON TO
PAGE 1
Spring Blood, Unsubmerged

Walking on light layers of snow
but sensing whiffs of spring
hiding just around the corner.
Spring slithers -- cloaked and concealed
while mysteriously prancing, dancing
sneaking behind dark shadows and
unassumingly awakening trees - - it stands
slouched, shawled, and impregnated
in a joyous children's game
of hide and seek.

Catching concealed glimpses of daffodil
shoots
peaking underground
seeking a draft of air-born freedom,
thirsting for a sip of sunlight.

Spring blood
has reemerged, trickling subterranean style
tickling us, tricking us with
its nearness.
It's an undeniable scent
forebodingly found in flakes of late winter.

charlie elkind
1999
POETIC ENCOUNTERS

Words trickling from the mind,
flowing forth - idea by idea
in staccato style.
Some washed over,
others captured and contained
within the hand.
Waiting,
to be spread across the page
and consumed - with a cup of tea.

charlie elkind
Charlie's Poetry & Prose - Intro
I, in the early am

i am sitting at my computer
listening to poems on a podcast,
snow sleeping outside
as I listen wide awake
wrapped in a white light night --
the tape ends,
then silence again --
a pregnant silence
heard behind
the gentle tapping of my fingers
upon the keys --
ready to unlock a new day
soon.

© charlie elkind
3/01/2010 3am
Taking Tickets
for an
Underground Theater
with a Large Overhead

We’re on a threshold
of a new play --
actors learning lines
costumes being fitted
as Nature creates sets
and circumstances.

The story has been written
and rewritten
many times --
Each unique cast
thinks they are new
as a fresh production
mounts
upon ancient manuscripts.

Can the audience
really be satisfied?
has the director’s touch
been lost?
will the theater’s lease
be renewed?

The playbills
are printed again
as a new curtain call
commences - we begin.

Let us take our seats.

©charlie elkind
01/17/2010