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Charles McBride

 
 
 

Charles McBride has been writing nearly all his life. When he was a child, his parents encouraged him to write in a journal to document his spiritual growth. Out of this, he developed a voice of his own, introspective, yet engaging. While studying for his double major in Psychology and Germanic Studies at Indiana University , Charles turned to poetry after being introduced to The Beats. It was a revolution of the soul. Currently, he is a social worker by trade and a poet at heart. Charles McBride's inspiration is altered reality, the deception of perception and subconscious thought. Writing poetry is his form of meditation, his release. Some of his work has been published at The Refined Savage Poetry Review Issue I and "Song of Herself" won 3rd place at WTF Magazine’s 2007 Poetry Contest (www.wtfmag.ca).

 
Body Language

I’m fluent in body language
But I can’t seem to read
Quite fast enough
As your pages turn autonomously

You lean away
With folded arms
As I caress your crossed legs

The ones that had lain
Open and beckoning
On previous nights’ beds

I stumble over
Your subtle insinuations
Written in a foreign corporeal typography

So I sit here taciturn
While I attempt to interpret
The distance between us
As it continues to fill with lost meaning


Random En Tandem

I don't mind the fly baggage
My mind is not being
Remotely controlled
I have an RC dick
And I'm going to smoke
Till I've drifted away

Fuck Wings of Desire
I gave my angel death
You missed my pressed release
It's stuck to the bottom
Of that girl's shoe
And it's getting flatter
With every step
She breathes in be-sharp
To balance herself
On my grain of salt

Crunchy lost in grovel
What are they doing
With that cement mixer mind?

Ah, these boots are
Heavy
And your suits are so
Gentle

I've been snuggling
Up to my tithe
And she has been
Hording blankets

Pretending I'm a malicious cave
But it's such a nice place
To place all these nice things
Like monoliths and blankets?

Exactly

Press record
No, don't

Ack-hack-splat!

She tickled the back
Of my spoke
Convinced me that we
Could be evil agents together

No one would understand
Our en tandem abandon
Ship!

My time is sinking
And everything is writ
In sand


Sample (Or How I Learned To Hate Shopping)

She allowed me
To dip my finger
And have a taste
Now it seems
She normally
Stands in
Supermarket aisles
Drenched in
Fluorescent light
Doling out samples
In mouthwash cups
While unfortunate
Muzak versions
Of Beatles songs
Play almost
Imperceptibly overhead
 
Copyright © Charles McBride

 

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