PARKING LOT MEDITATION
Leaning back on my car hood
the old blue skies have my eyes
squinting ion clues of a melody
wanting to be born of scars in me
innerspheres humming to a song
an accompaniment to this show
of seagulls’ white wings soundless
in a crowded messaging sky shared
with jets of travel and wars lost in
a gleam of black crows eyeing gold
corn tasseled rows in a farmer's field
beyond this blacktop mall as tissues
catch my blow of sun sneezes in this
Wal-Mart parking lot as micro America
flows through a non-returnable Sunday
we are all too much with stuff and ink
yet I ponder to inhale what is beautiful
Charles Eastland
Wonder Woman
When I saw her five large powerful males
bodyguards at a photo shoot protecting
the actress of the movie Wonder Woman
the sight crashed me into reality with a pin
that burst my kickass super hero balloon
and reminded me all those NFL sized males
were not really being tossed like rag doll twits
in a spoofed fake hero moment and suddenly I
was reminded how fortunate is this seeing man
who gets to go home to a real woman of wonder
with true super powers of love in a cape of reality
Charles Eastland
LEANING
Old man and woman
locked arm in arm
neat dressed beige
sweetly leaning in
towards each other
backs now to the world
hard to tell who is leaning
on who but their faces
are towards some exit
smiling private O.K.s
…we’ve seen it all
we’ve done all’s to be
what matters is we are
together now as we were
then and now to the end
every leaning step earned
and paid in full with life
by Charles Eastland
from "The Car Has Ears - Selected Poems of Charles Eastland"
Amazon Kindle eBook
SPHINX
you silent riddle
of the lion stars
ancient in mystery
staring at omega
in a terrible patience
stone eyes are fixed
at civilization fractures
ground down by hubris
all human history's here
in these stinging sands
stone maned lion
symbol of king solitude
patient as a Bedouin
tending his camel
such appetite for code
unbroken in timeless
stare hinting fury is near
awaiting a new born
generator of myths
even in techno-chaos
you are in our midst
patient as a caravan
tented under stars
Stone Sahara Lion
image cut from ages
his appetite is time
his labor enigma
outlasts the flesh
as grinding sands
hums some meaning
in a stone head dream
of secret revelations
harboring a shadow
cast over our future
by Charles Eastland
from: The Car Has Ears - Selected Poems
by Charles Eastland - Amazon Kindle eBook
MOON LAUGHING EAST LIKE A WINE SOADKED POET
(9/12/05 - Somes Sound, on Mt. Desert Island)
A spilled red wine jug on the deck
my black dog “Imus” warms my bare ankles
stars sketch symbols in the ancient dark above
Somes Sound's Luna tides’ ritual movement
in my fertile solitude I am practicing an art
of taming this clawing rage in words tuned
to poet cryptic outer zone enlightenments
that will create a monument equal to a heart
made from the love beneath this wild moon
laughing east like a wine soaked poet
Charles Eastland
poem is in Amazon Kindle eBook: The Car Has Ears
ALLEY CAT
The city alley kitten is fire boned
body electrified in barbed wire fur
snarling ferocious wild fear bigger
than its raging dot of an existence
hissed from behind garbage cans
at this naïve boy also determined
to make this kitten a pet upstairs
in our three room cold water flat
armed with a trapper’s cardboard
box trap and work gloved hands
I did snag the little hell fire fur ball
and then spent the next pain days
upstairs with my step father’s help
again trying to get at the tiny fire
beast now out from under the tub
and soon a scratched denouement
fire ball kitty gloved back in its alley
dark and trashy and I nursing a fang
bit clear through the thick work gloves
into my thumb nail to keep the lesson
about allowing wild things to be wild
Charles Eastland
from Amazon Kindle eBook: The Car Has Ears
SUDDENLY The LAKE
This joyous lunge of spirit
when green forests suddenly part
and reveals a precious liquid animal
bathing its wind scaled body
healing its summer craft scars
chameleon element locked in grey
contest we both the cloud imprisoned sun
Charles Eastland
from Kindle eBook: The Car Has Ears
THE WOMEN
(1982)
How precious now, the women
who must take to the roads
we have scaled, and failed
to help support the roof
save the dream
how detailed now her
vague life’s focused suddenly
now magnified because
her invisible chores
are now tiringly yours
in the silent house her wonders reveal
the lover, the juggler, the fountain of you
how poignant and real the vacancy looms
Charles Eastland
BREAKING HABITS
What I once believed was love forever
Time has peeled and dimmed that glow
What we have here is addiction, Dear
A habit enjoyable and difficult to break
But cigarettes are gone and now so are we
Charles Eastland
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.