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Best Poems Written by Charles Braun

Below are the all-time best Charles Braun poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Plumbers

Without great words of wisdom, a nation will survive.
Without purveyors of idiom, a dynasty will thrive.
But let the sewers overflow when waters run amiss,
And you will find a people on the brink of the abyss.

Kingdoms rise to glory through the works of humble men
Whose masterpiece is laid with pipe, not scratches from a pen.
So if the water from the tap should flow with earthy umber,
Best dry the mess with manuscript and then go call a plumber.

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The Birds of Drancy

Little birds spill onto the gravel
Chirping with disoriented confusion.
A spindly flock warbling
“Mère! Mère!”
Through cracked lips and bony beaks.
Hawks circle indifferently
Unfamiliar with the call
But acquainted with the cry.

The scarecrows converge,
Singing their songs of
Reunion across the river.
Seductive assurances and
Dry straw lies
Come together when
Hopeful lines form
For a mère poule promise.

Across that green field
The boathouse beckons,
Under late summer boughs
Alive with blossoms.
Across that green field
The boatman waits.

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Star Gazer

Beneath the dam St. Vitus swam
Till he settled upon a bar
Where heaven's light reflected bright
In eyes fixed upon a star
No move he made, or mind he paid
When minnows gently kissed
Good night to him, who couldn't swim,
Now shroud in mornings mist.

Epilogue - The Fall of Man

With celestial shine cast so divine,
His rapture was complete.
Was heaven's call that caused the fall,
Damned by agnostic feet.




* A light parody (if imagery of a drowning could be considered light) of a wonderful poem "Muess des Beaux Arts" by W. H. Auden.  Auden's poem is based on a 15th century painting "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus".  The theme of the poem (I am vastly over simplifying the theme here) is the human capacity to be so focused on our daily lives that an amazing tragedy, Icarus fall from the sky, could go unnoticed.  My point is that if you are too fixed on the heavens and great questions - life, the universe, and everything - you might miss the simple things that are important . . . like watching where you are going!
(And no, St. Vitus didn't drown, he is the patron saint of dancers and epileptics.)

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With My Apologies To Ogden Nash

The Following is the poem "Lama" by Ogden Nash


The one l - lama
He's a priest.
The two l - llama
He's a beast.
And I will bet
A silk pajama
There isn't any
Three - L lllama.

My version of the lines Nash missed.

But Mr. Nash
I must insist
On an addition
To your list.
The three l - lllama's
Clang and din
Brings cries of “Fire!”
In Brooklyn.



Yes I should be publicly flogged in a poetry forum!  An old joke but still a good one.

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Mothers Cat

Mothers Cat

Silky, sleek, proud and strong,
Capable of nothing wrong.
Under foot, won’t be ignored
A miracle to be adored.

No broken dish or glass upset
Would give her reason to regret
All of the time and sacrifice
It took to raise the lord of mice.



*inspired by a few lines from the D. H. Lawrence short story "The Rocking Horse Winner" -
"She had bonny children, yet she felt they had been thrust upon her, and could not love them."

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Fate

A young man journeyed round the world
In a quest for greater knowledge.
He did pursue the secret truths,
That weren’t revealed in college.
 
His search led to a mountaintop
Where a prophet old and wise
Stirred from his silent reverie
And smiled without surprise.

“You seek to be enlightened,
That is plain enough to see.
But I will only answer once,
What would you ask of me?”

The young man thought a moment
Of questions small and great,
Before asking, in a tremor voice,
“Please tell me, what is fate?”

The prophet beamed quit broadly
And threw his arms out wide.
“It is that which burdens donkeys
And comes in with the tides!”

“It is that which crosses oceans,
And binds great nation states!
Its path leads it to humble towns
And tears fall when it’s late!”

As the prophet smiled serenely
And made to speak no more,
The traveler slowly realized
That he knew less than before.

“Wait!”  He cried, “This cannot be!
Sir!  How could this be fate?”
The prophet looked quite mystified.
“I thought that you said “freight!””.

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Boys

Boys
Slugs and snails and puppy dog tails
A clue right from the start.
That muddy shoes might trample through 
The chambers of a heart.
Sugar and spice and everything nice
Are spilled without a care.
To messes made no mind is paid,
They seem quite unaware.
The toys they break cause them no ache
That they will long regret.
They’ll find something as interesting,
And then they will forget.

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Ecstasy

ECSTASY 
A kaleidoscope of life swirls,
Rising and retreating,
The aura of its abundance joyously alive
With honeysuckle rabbits 
And the pine needle sweat of children.
All animate, a scent in the air,
Breathed on a lightening wind
Of creations God intended
But never got around to.

Rankness ascends to rhapsody
As freshly turned fields
Of soured milk and socks
Stoop to mock the dead fish
Floating by the docks,
Because it stinks of cheap cologne.

These sharp, shimmering images,
Their dance becomes diffuse. 
Then disappears.  
With the
Slowing
Of the
Car. 

Miraculous visions
Lost...then forgotten,
In the instant of my ecstasy
At the familiar scent of home.    


This poems origin sprang from curiosity about why dogs seemed to like hanging their head out of the car window so much.  It occurred to me that their sense of smell is so developed that they probably form mental images from the odors in the air and that the rushing wind must be like looking through a kaleidoscope to them.  Colors on top of colors or for them, perhaps, smell on top of smell, forming a rush of images until the car slows down - at home!

*Did you know a blindfolded dog can still identify individual rabbits?

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Words

The greatest gift of god above
Is sewn with sonant strands of love
That takes a half and makes a whole,
Whose kingdom lies within a soul.
No heralds cry or trumpets blare
Are grander than the stir of air
Moved by whispered words of love
The greatest gift of god above.



*God's two greatest gifts to mankind - speech and the opposable thumb.  While the thumb is lovely for opening jars it is speech that enables love.

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Faith

Faith

A great river rushes relentless
Unaware that its end is the sea.
If a river could question a thing so uncertain,
Would it doubt…turn aside…cease to be?

Life’s course can run cruel and crooked
Through storms that wail without wind.
In doubt we may deign it’s for nothing,
Still its surge is sublime at its end.
 
Does the river run without purpose?
No end in sight to give cause to believe?
Are we a brief blink light in eternity’s night,
Or is the darkness cast down at the sea?