Charles Snyder

Fine moss, juicy ferns

Fresh wood, dew coats each green

Thing, each living thing with moisture

Nostrils hold this earth like worlds stuck

Onto its follicles, hexagonal, but round

In another season, this same fertile, juicy,

The harmony of, the wholeness of

Earth, has become yellow, sharp, brittle

Something lost or stripped away, a bad season

A sudden single curious flame, carried over from

A past fire, this

not able to hold moisture in, it doesn’t stick, but what does-

The brilliant glow of desperation and

vulnerable spaces for love and acceptance

Seen above it all like the 405 freeway

Diverting paths, the heat is felt even inside the shell.

There was this spiritual world

We connected to, a hunger made symbolic

By a wolf, a pathway we had met on in the before,

The dizziness of a star coated night eternal, echoes

Thunder in the distance like rocks chewing

On each other.

The sparkle, the crystal gleam of light shard

Balancing itself in viscosity, fluttering, swirling

Eyes were set on this world

One bubble, two, three

It required me to drown to keep it afloat

Light can never be tangible

Even in darkest parts of

An ocean.

Into the well of

Sweet floral earth &

Her pistil

Feels with promise

How tulip star-gazers skin

Like you can snag it, like pastel currant luster  

Of love & warmth in its pores and lining

Churning gears of

Gazed into her mouth

To roots

Teeth even down

I will be participating in 30/30 this year. The focus of my poems will be beauty and horror. I came across an interview by Jordan Peel recently, I believe on NPR where he was talking about “US” and he gave this quote: “when you have something idyllic and beautiful and sort of perfect, that’s where the true horror lies.” Poem #1 will be going up soon.

Charlie

MYFATHER’STOUNGECRACKS Splits his kids Joshua tree A thirsty like love HOUSETOHOUSETOHEARTS Women as survival use Never latch on HOMELESSNESSFELTCLEAN Remembered the showers New homes, new faces HOWHISLIFEWAXES Dwindles; melts; minus sign in Patches tungsten-stained jeans PREGNANTHEADPAUSES, Causing scenes, embarrassment Whispers, darting eyes ASKINGFORAFRIEND Toxic atom, sharp cherry candy To dislodge his name TOOTHEDRUSTEDBUCK-KNIFE’S Carved effigies, wood curl-tongues Mouths of abused selves WHENHECALLEDME“BITCH” My tear flow held by night, he Low thinks of me so

If I reveal my finer parts

On bedsheets facing the dark

With glints of lights peeking through blinds

Only to spot my flaws between the eyes of the night

What will keep you here

And not roaming? Roaming—

this could be about, too ego

But I know I cannot keep anything for too

Long, I want to protect

This idea of being strong,

Even when I am bare

Inside this dark room, inside of slivers of light,

I am still a flower garden

I just couldn’t bare the crunch

Of wanton and careless

Traipsing

Its about nakedness, its

About the flicker of an electron

And being or being an instrument,

It’s about the fear of times not being

The greatest lover, living up to expectations,

It’s about keeping up a front and the fear of

Losing it.

If I enter you

And by doing so, enter me you

If I pledge to you my heart portion

Bare being and bleeding

Will you still accept me

Naked and shivering? Naked—

The turbulence of it

In front of new eyes, body is new again,

If I give you myself

Uninhabited

With nothing but my soul to bare

Split backs grind down;

the carobs, cremes, golds, and caramels all

Tamped into the polished silver portafilter, scalds

to liquid fetish the grounds

appropriating its hearth, its heart and soul

for consumption, now poured

into a fragile white cup,          the milky foam

slices into brown heart like a hot white

knife, metamorphose

genes of this espresso.                        They feel they’ve given the gift

privileged lactose, I watched this

barista take that portafilter, hands stained with

the browns of a moment ago, all

polished, shined his blotted, rouge mouth

his thin face opaque in reflected machine, as he dumped all

those leached grounds out, all

the richness; he stripped, discarded, the tale typical apathy:

one day was on top, they all

loved us, now no longer relevant, no longer in need,

into garbage, a tub somewhere, strung-out.

The exposed brick on wood, the minimalistic

architecture and the hip-hop of my youth trying to

escape this monument to gentrification, this shrine in their own

Image but where would they be without all of the browns grounded of this world?

The jams are consoling and only other presence of color, so I

asked it to stay.

I can feel their curiosity measuring my nose and

The crest of my lips, how’s and whys of my ashy elbows

with their eyes to say, “you are different. Maybe, you don’t

belong here.”

I count, one two three, don’t

count just

me.

At a diner, parenting questioned, cheap coffee tastes like excuses; the stale toast like an elegy recollects lonely druggin’ Denver days and his pop a salesman on Great Plains.

Higher than stomped ceiling; limbs fused to tulip chairs and glazed on the knotted Macramé. Like rounds of tether ball— “That Brazilian Gold,” fire hooked mid ceiling; nights interchain.

Used to sparkle of ruby, plus the smooth fit of an old heirloom—baseball mitt. A past perfect “Contender,” sketches of him drawn with a stick of fusain.

He’s outside Omaha, jeaned, flannelled, stands in the flickering abysm on flat plains. The aurora borealis, he can’t see it though he knows it’s still there, somewhere, plain.

“Pink elephants fox-trotted across the molding and window frame that night,” he said. Acid days, mounds of cocaine, gold fish in the heel of platform shoes; nothing plain.

Out west in Denver, his eyes were set on dying light blending slopes metamorphic. Jealous by what he can’t cut; yearns for no stops, one-way to California as there’s no plains.

“He can’t make fire bleed? White inna white world!” Her mixed son shrugs, eclipsing ears. Fixture at Chris’ and other bums drinking to better days, which won’t come, to put it plain.

Marble bar of Irish Spring son’s traumatized by the instability and homelessness.  Renting two rooms out, a husky dog, glass cases, a grandfather clock, slow, drab gongs plain.

That ’98 white mustang: sputtering, a graveyard for cigs, valleys of choking ash. Marks on clothing, marks on skin, that COPD scaring the lungs, wheezing again.

A child left, in an abandoned house and the feeling of wilderness. Your shared genes walk the world oblivious in his privilege; my heart swells of disdain.

How the night was shared in a quartet: a baby’s face, suffocation, excuse, the dark sequenced void. San Francisco bound, sour bottle champagne, a child’s pretenses fizzing over those flat plains.

Stares at a plane ticket, a boarding call, one way in night sky’s abysm, two paths, he takes the easiest. Four children w/o a father—a windless, restless, lonely plain.

Green and gold quilts,
Wet and tangy mildew,  damp grays.

A fire,
A cloud of black,
Effect of the two passages
Where its flesh connects.

Its red eye,
blazes in a dirt pitch,
Dug into a gut where
Thatch, evergreen, and the smell of vanilla lay,
Say
Who to burn for.

Photo, Philosophy, (c) Charles Snyder, 2017

Never Speak Easy, photo essay.

Long Beach, California is rife with talented creative souls. From 2011 to 2015 I had the honor and privilege to find, to hone, to craft poetry with some of these hyper talented people. This is a series of shots that tells a story. I shot these images, I imagine, on a Friday night between 2013 and 2015 at Elise’s Tea Room located on Long Beach boulevard, Bixby Knolls neighborhood. Every first friday of the month (First Fridays) we host a poetry open mic night. This night in particular was special because we had really gifted musicians as well as vibrant spoken word poets sharing the same stage. I believe, when a poet, or a musician performs that that space becomes holy ground. Hallowed. There’s a giving and a receiving as if holding church in this space and the recipiants walk away with a bit of stardust or holy water annointing and healing. There are many open mics in Long Beach and across the world. Poetry is not a new phenomena. Poets or Grios for thousands of years have been doing this work. I was lucky. The crew I am a part of being: Philosophy, Jragonfly Jon, Shy but Flyy, Nerd, and myself Charles Snyder, aka Black Charlie, is something special. This is an homage to these people who I craft with and love. This is an homage to poetry and it’s transformative power which compared to the other artistic corridors I delve in has had the most profound change and impact in my life to date. To Long Beach, CA. Lastly, cheers to all of people who have attended  Never Speak Easy events for these several years, thank you!

 

 

Personna (In order of appearance, the artists):

Philosophy
Jragonfly Jon
The Loneliest Casanova
Michelle Denise Jackson
Shyy but Flyy
Sipho N’Jedi
Guitarist* (need name)
Marvin West
Allise Brillault