Paper and Sail

by Charles Thielman

Twilight, bats burl

through blued air above

bloom-shaded, cool loam.
This fresh notebook open

like an uncharted sea. This page

I imprint with spine-fed lines

below a yellow crescent
carries the same timbre

as the handle of my sable brush,

strokes darting over canvas

like nighthawks above a slow current
reflecting the vagaries of sky and flight.

The colors of the next full moon

asleep in the southern moss

 

draping the thresholds behind my eyes,

palette and page filling with ideas

and problems, hopes, dreams released

from an empty house onto a dune trail.

The graces of my heart rooted

in the oak shading yellow-jacketed azaleas.

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, Artiste and shareholder in an independent Bookstore’s collective continues! And not a few of Charles’ 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 www.utteredchaos.org.