Charlie NEWMAN

---

Dress for the Men in Your Life

My voice echoes and

my words rise like helium-filled balloons.

My love soars

to the very marrow of heaven

and, there, it is buried

in a hole so deep

no one in their right mind would ever look for it.

I wrap it in white linen

just as I would wrap a lover or an enemy.

I trash it after everyone is gone.

I feel like hell

but I still have my sense of humor.

You always underestimate me, my love.

But I am the one who warns you to beware

of friends bearing gifts of sleep...

or smiles...

or peace.

They will steal your face.

They will bury you in rust.

I step on them.  They are roaches.




jobbed

I get on the bus

and close my eyes.

“I can’t cut it,” I think.

“I’m just not doing it.”

There seems to be no “instead” for me.

I might as well be mopping floors in a gilded tourist spa in Greece,

or washing dishes in a greasy spoon in Toad Suck Ferry, Arkansas.

“All honest work is noble,” goes the cliché.

But should we be grateful for every indignity

suffered in the name of earning?

Yes,

there is meat on my plate.

I just don’t have the teeth to chew it.

clairvoyant

drinking my Crown Royal [neat]

screaming at meaningless celebrity faces on the tube

 

I          am          dumb

 

drinking my Crown Royal [neat]

trying on one custom-made iron mask after another

because they are more beautiful than I am

 

one day I will come up short

my head will be full of crumbling age

dust will cover my eyes

and I will ride the light to my proper place

drinking my Crown Royal [neat]




23rd Pslam for the 21st Century

The Lord is my shepherd;

name's will fear me and my rod for ever.

I shall not want.

He art with me;

He comfort me.

He lie down in green pastures.

Death ain't all that.

I leadeth thee beside the shadow.

Evil is over-rated.

Prepare a table before enemies invade.

I eat my soul.

His cup runneth over.

Surely this good water is wasted.

He is the path of righteousness.

Rub thy head with oil to avoid pimples.

Mercy...have mercy, Baby.

Yea,

though I walk through the days of my life,

I have no clue.

I need his help, Brother.




 

stuff 

1.

the thing is     things

 

an earring here

an empty glass that once held a shot of     whatever     there

until something is everywhere     over here under there     see?

for better for worse for richer for poorer

foregone but not forgotten for God’s sake ENOUGH!

 

stuff

 

an agenda hidden behind old dusty compliments

family photographs stacked next to .357 shells in a shoebox

invitations neatly filed away by someone who never went anywhere

love letters read by unintended eyes

obituaries saved

 

time management training books

good-for-nothing lottery tickets

don’t you see?

scraps of sandwiches from lunches that ended decades ago

shoes hanging from dead limbs

 

the     stuff of history

 

leftovers from life

 

I’m there

he’s there     she’s there     we’re all there

applications to places no one in their right mind wants to be

plane tickets train tickets bus tickets

expired license plates stacked eyebrow high

 

seen one inventory seen ‘em all     except no two are alike

once you get inside

once you get by the     stuff the     things     to the how’s and the why’s

once you get intimate with the marrow

 

consider:

 

sunlight touches me just so     distracts me     turns my head

an unknown visitor steals the pictures from my cell wall

under my grief a lonely man hides

from shame     from honor     from history

forgetting solemn moments     remembering only tangents

 

I need the sun to survive but it distracts me

I need dreams     I need pictures     I need books     all gone

I need these     things this     stuff

or I am a shepherd without a flock

a gun without bullets     bullets without a gun


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