Charles Thielman

Waking in April

Wave-crests 

            like the faces 

            of sleeping poets
 

               bisect my soul. 

 
Dream’s warm shirt 
                                    unbuttoned

 

                          and coaxed off my shoulders 

                            below pre-dawn birdsongs,

 
                             her scent rivers inside 

                                    my tongue 
 

                              and floods my chest.

 
© 2013 Charles Thielman

Wind Grazing Wave Crests

Dawn soon carved

  by the shadows left by loss

     in each layer of real

and what we bring into each room,

                            windows painted shut,

                     voices stymied by glass.

                 
On the street,

   the world starts in fifteen minutes,

             strap on your watch

                              or

                      write into this quiet

             as your lover rolls out of sleep,

        her thighs catching light.

 
Dream waxed eyes deep,

    she watches you

              as a doe,

    standing in long grasses and sun,

               watches an August streambed

                            and sees wind

 
                        grazing wave crests,

                    clouds rooted in undertow.

 
© 2013 Charles Thielman

Machine Parts Hauled

The night sky rolls its dream 

of white shells from ridge to ridge

 
as lampposts pour orange light

over factory lot cars.
 

Arms bare, biceps to work gloves,

they unload a boxcar then load a truck,
 

machine parts hauled sea to shining sea.

Night shift stretching past dawn,
 

their longest break taken at first light,

one woman passes photos of her baby around


as rail spurs ribbon silvery light, boxcars open.

Match flare to cig ember, he stands long


on dock lip, birdsongs rising from the hills.

His eyes shift from lukewarm on the down-slope


of ten hours straight, overtime at their command.

Friday one long drag uphill as fatigue siphons 
 

light from spirit, strength from muscle. 

He stands long before turning. 


Crew boss glares pecking at his shoulders.

Train wail on horizon, 


another truck backing in, 

crude joke sparking laughter.

 
© 2013 Charles Thielman

BIO: Born and raised in Charleston, S.C., moved to Chicago, educated at red-bricked universities and on Chicago’s streets, Charles has enjoyed working as a truck driver, city bus driver and enthused bookstore clerk. Married on a Kauai beach in 2011, a loving Grandfather for five free spirits, his work as Poet and shareholder in an independent Bookstore’s collective continues! And not a few of his poems have been accepted by literary journals, such as The Pedestal, Poetry365, The Criterion [India], Poetry Salzburg [Austria], The Oyez Review, Battered Suitcase, Poetry Kanto [Japan], Open Road [Planet Earth], Tiger’s Eye and Rusty Nail. His chapbook, “Into the Owl-Dreamed Night” is available through Uttered Chaos Press at http://www.utteredchaos.org.

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