The Poet Sees His Family Sleeping by Samuel Charters

The Poet Sees His Family Sleeping

Samuel Charters
Kamini Press 2008
ISBN 978-91-977437-0-9
order@...
www.kaminipress.com $6.

"the girl across from me on the bus
thinks I'm staring at her, but I'm
just trying to read the advertisements over
her head. she scowls with pursed mouth
as sour as if I'd reached across the aisle
and tried to touch her,
since to her I look old."

Samuel Charters, like Whitman, asserts the mundane,
every day occurrences, the back and forth realities.
You are me. I am you. In his first poem in this small
volume of poetry, he brushes our ears, takes us on an
intimate journey through his writing rooms. The reader
becomes the child, parent, sky, night, "I move slowly
for a last time from one to the other."

Charters is open; he presents lust in a casual,
dignified manner. "what she presents of her elegant
thigh, slides beneath her swirling skirt." His poems
open all the windows and doors on a spring day, even
the heat of autumn bearing down over our laden walk,
we sit on his bench and breath.

"I notice that the deck needs painting,
I notice that it's still hot, that my legs are
too red for me to think of doing any
work in the garden.
I notice that the sunlight
wasn't given eyes or ears. it won't
see me if I sweat - or don't sweat."

Readers will enjoy the intimacy, the fit in your hand
size, the smooth way in which the poems appear and
gather into a complete song.

Irene Koronas
poetry editor: wilderness house literary review
www.whlreview.com