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Best Poems Written by Charles Eastland

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

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Wonder Woman

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

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Sursum Corda

SURSUM CORDA 

(for Ruth and Clement Mc Cormack, 
Bridgton, Maine)

“Come see us, we’ll talk about the job."

you were convalescent, generous, 
and anxious to get your hands moving
into the garden among the buds and birdsong 
ready to get your mind off the disease
and get a grip on the healing green
rise of Spring

the woodbine was a naked scrawling then
as the flowerers raged in wild crowds of color 

in the open barn…the big riding mower
and hidden in your field the granite mounds
of large blade killer rocks sneaky under grass
you pointed out camouflaged those to avoid  
yet in my long mowing dreams under the sun
the steel crash with granite screeched up nerves 
you had to teach me how to flip the machine over
like a red turtle on its back and change the blades
a city boy I was happy to learn new country ways

now I know the names and habits
of dozens of herbs and perennials.
your patience has filled my notebook.
too soon summer’s over and scarlet 
is notorious in September in the leaves
and Woodbine stripping naked again
crawling down to join the falling leaves

how many times I’ve mowed those fields
between the stone walls and summer
months beneath the moody dominions
of Maine skies
while my nine year-old played nearby
and your English Setters lived the good life
with an eye on the kids and woodchucks

then summer ended like a calendar’s 
monthly scene flipped back to memory 
it is time to put the bulbs in a bag
and take the sweaters out
check the wood, adjust the mood
for pumpkins and Fryeburg Fair

outside you and I and “the kid” stood together 
overlooking the silent gardens and fields preparing 
for sleep as a mood of endings came 

we said our not too-sad good-byes
and recalled some of my first tripping days here
the wild azaleas and hummingbirds
on the Sweet Joe Pye Weed and it’s butterflies
the wild heart of open fields knows its pollinators 
and its place among the meadow roses and weeds

then you pointed over the barn door to the Latin 
phrase and asked my daughter:
“My child, do you know what that means?”
neither of us did.  You smiled and said in a firm,
cancer-free voice, “Sursum Corda, it means, 
Lift up your hearts!’”

when I drove by your great white Colonial 
with the archway garden entrance and the black
shutters and all the new people gathered talking 
though I see only us…from the road 
like an old silent movie

Charles Eastland 
from Amazon Kindle eBook, The Car Has Ears

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When the Wind Comes Down Long Lake In October

WHEN The WIND COMES DOWN LONG LAKE in OCTOBER 
 
(1 AM in the morning  -  Naples, Maine)

When unseasonable lake water balm 
meets you tripping out of Ricks’ Café 
after midnight
you know those blues notes  
were not meant for you
tonight you’re off the hook
a poet’s advantage is being all here 
in this world yet outside its grip

you see certain slants and curves 
others deem not worthy of pause
by the ear or eye on curious forms

pretty is this small Village and mood 
here in Naples with its musical buzz 
tilting us leaning on the Causeway 
over lakeside guardrails peering out 
over black waters of Long Lake north  
to Harrison Village or Mt. Washington  
white capped beacon of New Hampshire

this night sky scatters star salted black
with cosmic light posing guided questions 
that share heavens with futures’ residents

cool fresh air wipes the hot barroom faces
moving outside Rick’s along the causeway 
attending flags slapping at the sharp wind 

the gals are in good hip dancing moods
as guys go pissing in available shadows  

tonight was a queen for a rook
so determined to ignore the rules

there will be lust and pregnancies 
to force new questions on the ages 
nature is the ultimate correctness
and it practices it’s tools of destiny
breaking all human rules by instinct
offending everyone without apology 
we all know it in our denials of mind
cement stuck earthbound in our flesh 


cheers then to the barmaids’ hustle 
stirring feminine joy and heat 
that keeps life grounded in basics
of modern denials such a joke..Hey? 

we reveal it all in drinking lips and eyes 
so cheers!! for musical babes that sway
sharing their girl spirit dancing attentions
we crave with our appreciative hungers

what astrological signs are rising up there
 tonight by alchemists’ charted light  wheel
across this October black sky as declared 
in the Boys Book of Blues it shall be lighter
or darker as Hell is pain and Heaven is joy 
and life is concerned with a Purgatory on
Earth this location as described by a sponge 
squeezed  here tonight from fleet moments 
our eyes did meet in a cell parade of  ages

outside Ricks Café we are breathing fresh 
lake water air baptized in a fleeting pause 
of calm joy captured in all this ephemeral 
night’s spirit high in our eyes and the wind 
bejeweled for your adornment as you wish 

you and I know by our essence we must 
slip away from this present grasp of now 
since we are all destined to give back flesh
in the hope our recorded breathes of life 
will survive in some memory celebrating  
night’s music and dance of us sentimental 
romantics in our finest buzzingest night’s 
smile  and applause being fulfilled then 
calmly when the wind comes down always
like this night on Long Lake in October 

Charles Eastland

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Sphinx

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

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Alley Cat

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

Details | Charles Eastland Poem

The Car Has Ears

THE CAR HAS EARS 

  by Charles Eastland
  (also Kindle eBook:  Selected Poems by Charles Eastland) 

Shhh shhh…whisper 
that news about extra money—
shhh…don’t say it…
the car has ears 
I tell you truthfully 
from experience, the car knows 
when money is coming 
it may be clairvoyant 
shhh don’t repeat a word 
be prudent in your thoughts, if 
you pass it in the lot 
the car has ears 
 come over here 
I’ll tell you something else— 
the car is a hypochondriac 
if it hears money is coming 
it will surely get sick, that’s right 
its carburetor will develop a sudden cough 
its wheels will wobble 
the choke will choke 
its shoes will need soles 
its eyes will get dim—anything! 
it’ll shiver and shake 
and throw a tantrum at every red light 
and if you don’t give it the money 
it will purposely quit in the middle of intersections
you either give up the money or walk 
it’s a bandit I tell you! 
and I’ll tell you what’s spooky 
about my car—so listen 
whatever the amount of the windfall 
its service bill will match it 
almost to the dollar and cents 
that’s right—many, many times 
it’s happened like clock work 
I tell you truthfully 
from experience, the car has ears 
don’t repeat this to anyone 
shhh don’t say it—
be prudent in your thoughts 
if you pass my car in the lot 
because the car has ears
and a mouth that speaks
about you

Details | Charles Eastland Poem

Plowman

PLOWMAN 

(for Bill Troy, and Messer’s generous 
free Plowman Day.) 

Not soon enough comes the thrill of snow!
for plowmen who beckon the blizzard’s fall
anxious to use his craft of geometric cut lines 
and angles of  blizzard white in reverse drive 

so shines a man’s intuition of spatial awareness 
a gift more like knowing than any clear thought
to read white-out screens  of sky and windshield
the  plowman’s art performed in winter snow

plowman craves the joy of plowing a first white
applying his clever angles to defeat the weight 
of wet snow’s higher walls and piled tonnage
hands on a wheel he shifts to feel the road
with a hot coffee steaming to favorite tunes

he’s cranking until the windshield white-out 
demands an all senses alert mode in quiet  
‘cause backwards driving on a narrow road  
calls up deeper focus in rearview mirror reads 
as white storm fury closes heavier curtains
and packed snow tires treads slide like ice 

a rush demands radio off  full concentration
at the edge of thin roads’ sagging shoulders 
ready to jump the heart and pull down a rig 
and a plow like a trick spirit hand thrust up 
as if the old camp road was bad with karma

plowman and wheels of a machine in motion
the best Plowman’s final look is edged just so 
his framed snow art soon melts with a season
like those  sand sculptures on a summer beach 

Charles Eastland 
from Amazon Kindle eBook: The Car Has Ears

Details | Charles Eastland Poem

Our Signature of Rain

OUR SIGNATURE OF RAIN

(for you Arlene, my True Love—  
     Valentine’s Day 2017)

Our signature is of the rain
it rained on our wedding day
relentless it rolled off new love
and on through all our events 
the heavens opened and poured 
on us soaked again at a Foxboro 
Patriots’ game and Eagles Concert 
were fogged in moving arm in arm
on fun Bar Harbor streets and shops

we shelved time a few days free 
as antique memories’ treasures
just us, more precious with age 

as newlyweds we went out then 
stepped into an unwritten history 
abandoned all smooth perfects
and fought for rough agreements 
like how a constant sun oppresses
how a rainy day cozies us inward
we sought each other’s soft spots
preferred home cooking and wine 
by the preferred sea of possibility

in time we recognized the need 
for this ingredient of rain to grow 
we learned to see each other’s lacks
to fill in cracks that made us strong
each strength firmed each weakness  
so merged differences to live as we
 
now age is sweeping swift time away
with us too Dear goes an age where
much was claimed yet nothing owned
what I’ll remember most of our lives 
is love and work and music in the rain

Charles Eastland

Details | Charles Eastland Poem

Suddenly the Lake

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

Details | Charles Eastland Poem

Parking Lot Meditation

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