Charles Snyder

My script, “Imitation,” which I co-wrote with Brandon Murray was awarded as a semifinalist at the Flickers’ Rhode Island Film Festival ending 08/10. We’ve been writing, reviewing and editing this script over the past four years. The hard work is finally starting to pay off. However, we can’t rest on our laurels just yet. There are other readers, festivals, mangers and hopefully one day, producers who will have interest enough to make this dream real. One day, we’ll see this project produced and streaming or on a movie screen near you. It deserves it and the story is necessary.

Family, today is a big day. I decided to take a leap and create a page on Patreon. Through Patreon you will be able to subscribe, essentially, to my writing career. For so long I have dreamed of being a working artist. This is one step closer to that goal. You can donate 2, 5, and 10 dollars and with these amounts comes different incentives seen on my page. As I get more and more patrons more incentives will be created. Thank you for all of those who have recently read Left Overs, keep reading it, telling people about it, and if you can become one of my patrons on Patreon. Click the button below. Much love!

Charles Snyder, Poet

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Hey folks! I have some special news. I just finished a poetry collection! It’s called, LEFT OVERS: Poems from the Hearth. It’s a collection comprised of several poems I have written over the years, well, spanning 2011 to the present. I cover various topics such as masculinity, sexuality, ethnicity, and heartbreak. I am releasing it totally free. Why you ask? I am into purification. These poems are like friendships or relationships that have served their purpose and now I must let go. The action of releasing these pieces to the world reminds me of the time I moved to Spain. I used to live in Long Beach, California and I sold or gave away everything in my apartment. If I couldn’t sell it, I put it out on the curb. I let go of maybe 100 CD’s, several books, furniture, many things. But after I purified my living space, after it was bare, I felt so at peace, rounded, smooth, pure.

So, this book represents that: release, purification, letting go of an era or of a past self. I hope you enjoy it. I suggest reading this book with wine or bourbon while listening to Jazz by musicians such as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Mal Waldron; something smooth, down tempo, introspective.

Leave comments, email me your thoughts, etc. Also, today is James Baldwin’s birthday. I felt like today would be a good day to release this book in remembrance of him.

Click on the download button next to the title below to download my e-book in PDF form. Thanks for reading. – Charlie

That I opened all the way

turned myself inside out like a levee that broke

That I fell shattered the ice I drowned

became smaller and smaller

That your tongue was like a steel rake scrawling scars

of names reprobate you wanted me to wear openly

That at times I was sun that went super nova too early

Vomiting my pressed down rage on you

That I will never try to hurry up

to heal for anyone else

That my legs were bound strapped down

teeth clinched sometimes just at the sight of you

That I watched as you transformed from tulip to

A colony of fire ants swarming around my orifices

That wolf guide was actually the ferocity to hide

That starry night swirls of hypnotic lamps in awe of us

That old sermon down, white robes, down at the creek

Its mouth, our toes sunk in clay, this was scheduled to be a baptismal

That I know at times it wasn’t just you

An ember takes its last breath and quietly ashes

That I spoke to my scars yesterday and gave

them permission to heal; to dust my ego

That I wish you well to salve

In acreage full of sunflowers

Though

Life started out a sketchpad

A wreck of dark thick lines scribbled scrawling

And beating across my eyes, I am now

Round thumbing and indexing smooth

Smoothing stretching out to

limits permit me, I do not bleed

all over it, do not bleed the goal now is form,

Light must pass through it

They did the best they could

I prune I evolve

I create new neural pathways

I scrape the scrawl that wreck,

the carbon shavings, the pulverized

child-self from pit to gradient see

how I am rising into

an orb, life like, real, crystal

my god

in the temple

worship in the curve

of her hip, in the dip

in the sage of my offerings there

the aroma of her praise

Obsession and passion found

Occupying same metro line this morning

One with today’s trades the other bound

An paranoid eye Instagram scrolling

Macallan 12 caught the sun setting

The way its overwhelmed by ice

Like dusk between clouds not savoring

Diluting its flavor, effect, advice

The heart knows its target

Before the mind goes like the way

Smoke runs away from its

Origin story

path beaten cut deeper toe stubbing jumped on other

Falling backwards arms spread wide for someone catch

Lips calloused purple of daily blunt

spine and limbs of a book ratty soft edges ripped pages

same meal prepared now tired of a stairway bows

dips in warped grooves wood smooth the quieting of

a crescendo at its zenith tired of its blues strings

Plexiglas window slowly shattering into cochlea

From the constant cleaning there using sponge same wring out a lover

to absorb another the desperate search for a roach with one more hit

At a night club in seven and half ashtrays trying to shake

a shadow all day until night where it doesn’t matter;

shit gets old if your keen

on it. IChing today:

relax. permeate.

release.

espresso

splattered on the round

of white walls; architecture

identity/ compass

civility

a homogeneous mixture of light and path is

floral essence in a rain storm is

the State’s morning pledge of allegiance is

monitoring enlightenment by applications is

a billion changing faces is the internet is

chains and chattel is fair according to victor is  

the loser’s reparations in golden grills made of bibles is

righteous is what you make it is self-donation in party is

womb and the invitation into this realm is the opium of drum is

a warren of human existence and its labyrinth is

encapsulated in tongues poetic is puppeteer of time is

a crutch is a crystal prison is the regret in healing is

silence hidden inside of a forest creek is ego is

an overflow is the matter of absence is sanctification by dance is

the reflection ping from a wet eye is the sphere of life is

a vibe is an angel Coltrane’s horn, is scar tissue of ascension;

Never trust a two-dollar steak.