| Charlie's Poetry - Page 8 |
| HOUSECLEANING
Packing up a life consolidating our closets boxing up our wardrobe and our words - moving on, moving out acting grave - as we timely bury our past. ©charlie elkind 1/03/99 |
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| THE SHARDS OF THE ALCHEMIST We are bound in a furnace born out of ashes stirred and boiled in a cauldron moved and mashed into pulp stretched across windows strewn over clouds covered by lightness covered by closeness covered by infinite causes extracted from water extracted from fire as we tunnel like moles fermented with molds making new wine making new medicines healing old wounds laying wounded and worn enlightened and shorn from an internal weather and a sense of whether or knots. ©charlie elkind 6/30/99 |
| ICY ANTICIPATION Winter arrived late last night the striated birches were covered and bundled up in tall coats of white barks waiting patiently like frozen turkeys, for the Christmas feasts to commence. Faces of cold winter rocks with silvery frozen scarves that shelter their mottled gray shins and skins are getting ready to drape themselves in full winter attire. This morning overhead, families of pines danced, alone and together, chattering in nature’s cold swaying breath anticipating our nearby deliberate steps as we waddled around for a paced winter walk. Last eve the moon on high beam bright hung in the sky like a lucid lighthouse - as we watched from our frosty windows it danced in and out through wispy white clouds leading us forward. We all wait for nature to change its clothes one last time -- it’s preparing to party at New Year’s -- as it departs, it will turn, look around the room then flick the switch on the old millennium. ©charlie elkind 12/22/99 |
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| A BLUE PICNIC I happily, haphazardly snatch July blueberries from clusters of bounteous bundles - a few ripe, unripe ones fall through my fingers to the melted mud below -- these descending blue pearls make tasty snacks for noshing birds to munch and nibble on and taste discernibly delicious when washed down with tiny sips of freshly fallen rain. Indigo/purple giants that are really hunks of huckleberries are posed and pumped up plumb ready to go an extra mile to please -- they dangle, hang and huddle in clumped bunches like juiced up reservoirs of sweet/tart blueness. I love the way they dance off their short vines into my rubbing fingers - the mature ones waltz with ripeness and experience letting my fingers take the lead as we tango hand in hand and take our first steps together around the bowl room floor. A few I pop into my mouth as the bowl fills up and my tongue turns a blueberry blue -- it’s a blueness I imagine that coats my stomach lining it with blue cobalt transforming my blood into a swirling blue ocean. My insides now lie like an open nest with flocks of lounging bluebirds painting and coloring their wings by daintily sipping drinks from lapis colored liquids which leap and course merrily through my veins. ©charlie elkind 7/13/99 |
| WRAP MUSIC
Night before Christmas tied up with boxing of gifts in the present moment. ©charlie elkind 11/12/98 |
| A PAGE OF TIME
Standing in a used bookshop wearing an old leather jacket reading new words. ©charlie elkind 11/6/98 |
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| WASHING UP don’t talk to me of water when I am at the sink don’t talk to me of pain when I am at the window listen to the miraculous sounds of flowers growing out from seeds flowers that taste the sunshine but still long for a sip of evening dew accept that voice which speaks without words that embraces us deeply -- close to the heart but has no hands that walks on water that has no feet but lots of “sole” if only I could truly break off a piece and travel nowhere to that place of peace. ©charlie elkind 05/2008 |
| EMBRACING IT ALL we travel not right, not left but find our center smiling within, wherever we go. breathe it all in embracing drops of experience that light our way - as we dance freely in the present moment -- flowing with words and wind, surrounded by sacred sounds that sing softly amidst our dying and our dust... walk out into each new day like it was our last don’t wait for it to rain don’t wait for it to pour. letting the flickering fire within our open hearts help to dry the sorrow of our human tears. ©charlie elkind 5/2008 |