Ode to the Grape Grower

Let me be that fulsome glass

To slake your thirst

The ruby for which

You have inceasingly sought

Then I shall be your

Amarone and your Zinfindel

Deep with complexities

As we mellow with age

And with careful fermentation

We shall sparkle like a thousand stars

In each other's soul.

This poem started out as an attempt to capture the ecstasy of hope when one is venturing into a possible relationship.

I was heavily influenced by mood of 'The Rubiyat'...I was also having fun with the wine symbology. The "Amarone and your Zinfindel' line is referencing the Greek alphabet sort of like saying 'the alpha and the omega'or 'everything from A to Z': an all encompassing relationship. It is not a God reference. Like a good wine, my hope is for a complex relationship. The 'thousand stars' is a champagne reference: Legend tells us that the creator of champagne, Dom Perignon, upon his first sip called out "Come quickly, I am drinking stars."

Tell Me About You

About the season you like best
The dish that takes you home
And the people on your short list
I want to hear about your first bike
And that teacher that you really liked
And all of the places around the globe
Where you need to see your shadow

Tell me about
What you saw lying on your back
Watching clouds sail by, did you chew that blade of grass
And don’t forget to tell me
If you’ve ever smelled lightening
And what was the first record you bought

I’ve been waiting my whole life
Just to learn about you
I want to hear your dreams, your plans, the big stuff
I’ll tell you mine
Let’s make up secret signals
Invent holidays
And kiss under stars

I’ve been saving this seat by my side
Just for you…it’s comfortable
Kick off your shoes
Let’s plan tomorrow
And share yesterday
Welcome home
Tell me about you.

Woman Song

Waking, sleeping
feeling the long missed protective embrace

Stretching, touching
to the slowly, moving rhyme

She arched her soul
as he danced her in mirrored time

Echoing, listening
giving release from her a cappella pace

Kissing, caressing
they shared every accepting hello

And he played
her as his most precious cello

And brought forth
her ancient, joyful, woman song.

copyright Charselle 2008

This was published with a different title but I like this title better and it needs no annotation.

Harvest

Autumn bawdily exhaling

Gold leaves skittering

Bare branches shivering

Flaming persimmons beckon.

copyright Charselle 10/16/06

I was walking across a parking lot when a huge gust of wind blew all the leaves off a ginko tree and they raced past the other trees like little ballerinas rushing to make their entrance. I looked up and saw a tree laden with persimmons and was taken back a quarter of a century to a magnificent autumnal feast my girlfriend Debbie and I prepared. For a brief moment I could taste our persimmon pudding with hard sauce . This poem is dedicated to that dear friend Deborah Cummings/McDonald, I am forever grateful for her friendship and she will always have a place in my heart and be on my short list.

persimmon pudding:

hard sauce:

http://southernfood.about.com/od/christmasfood/r/blxm90.htm

persimmon pudding:

http://www.sustainablescoop.com/2007/12/04/monthly-meal-november-2007/

Juice

I want you to crave me like juice

Like good, comfortable, icebox juice
drunk straight from the jug
on a hot, youthful, tree-climbin' afternoon

Like elegant, extravagant, luxurious juice
squeezed from voluptuous oranges
on a breath-takingly beautiful, bird-singing, break of day

Like sweet, cool, salvation juice
soothing your dirt road of a throat
on a mean, dry, hung-over mouth morning

I want you to crave me like juice

Juice in tall tumblers
Juice the color of padparadscha sapphires
Juice as fresh and new as childhood

The juice that nourishes you all the rest of your days.

I want you to crave me like juice.

(copyright Charselle 2008)

This is my favorite poem and also the first poem I wrote as a full-blown adult (a bunch of hot air! LOL) ...this was not a poem I planned to write... it just came pouring out of me like 'Juice'....I had not sat down to write poetry since my late teens-early twenties...
The morning I wrote "Juice" I was in a depressed state, (unknown to me at the time) I was going into a breakup...that morning I had one of those extreme headaches, with the accompaning cotton-mouth, that only come from extreme alcohol poisening...I was gently walking me and my aching brain across the kitchen floor, imagining the bottle of juice I was going to pull out of the refrigerator...when this poem started pouring out of my brain so fast I literally sat down on the floor and wrote it on a paper bag...I love it ...once I figure out how I will upload an audio file of my reading it either here or on my website