Winter “Candide” Chatman
My world has shifted
My sorrow lifted
I am once again tilted
Back towards Philadelphia
In the midst of Summer
I have found a glorious Winter
The Best of All Possible Worlds.
CANDIDE
poetry
BEAUTIFUL
A Guest Post By Winter Chatman
Author Winter Chatman
She be look’n at me like I ain’t nothin’
Cutt’n me down, My eyes have ears
I’m beautiful, you know? Really somethin’
Sixteen and pregnant , shoot, that ain’t nothin’
My life My block I have no fear
She be lookn’ at me like I ain’t nothin’
I ain’t cried, it ain’t no sin, nothin’
She can stare My eyes have ears
I’m beautiful, you know? Really somethin’
I got straight A’s, that’s really somethin’
I ain’t stupid , you know, I can hear
She be look’n at me like I ain’t nothin
My college degree, that’s really something
For my life From my block That’s rare
I’m beautiful, you know, Really something
My Imani child grows, beautiful, really something
One flower in a bush so rare,
They keep looking at me like I am nothing
I am beautiful, you know, really something.
Penn State Literary Magazine 2003
Home From the Hill
Home is the sailor home from the sea
Home is the hunter home from the hill
But for the sailor who fell from grace with the sea there is no home
He is destined to roam endlessly
And wherever he lays his head is where his home will be.
THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER
I went to Wigan Pier
To see what I could see
Only to discover
The pier was no longer there
It had been demolished sometime in the past
And where it stood exactly
No one could be sure.
AMAZING SPACE
AMAZING SPACE
Amazing Space, how sweet the ship
That saved my sanity
I once was straight but now I’m not
At last I’m totally free.
Twas space at first my mind did fear
In space it was I was stranded
How precious did that space appear
The hour that I landed.
Through many dangerous asteroids
I dodged far away from home
Tis space! I cried where I am bound
And space from where I come!
Falling fast through space I’m cast
Away headed straight for the sun
I’ll be there for 10,000 years
Unless alas it’s all undone.
Mystery
What mystery lies beneath the mist enshrouded tombs?
The dead die hard, they are born astride a grave
A stranger’s shadow finds its way across the yard by dead reckoning
He meets a deadend
He is deadbeat meat for worms
That’s a sensible cadaver
There never was such a season for mandrakes.
Shall we linger here until perdition caches up to us?
The Cemetery is a cockpit for comic panic
Sob heavy world, sob heavy.
THE WASP
A Poem by Benn Bell
I saved a wasp from drowning today
I ducked my head as it flew away
I was afraid it might sting me like bee
And hurt like everything
For it is the nature of the wasp to sting
But it is my nature to do the saving thing
Tomorrow you just wait and see
I’ll be saving a Pharisee.
Two Haikus For You
Haiku 1
Blue ribbons fluttering
Birds chirping in the trees
A girl walks briskly by.
Haiku 2
Sitting in the street
in front of the coffeehouse
My arms turn to goose flesh.
CLOWN SHOW
The roar of the crowd
The smell of the greasepaint
Always signaled to me
The arrival of the circus
Wringling Brothers
Barnum and Bailey
May have folded
Their tents
But the Clown Show in Washington
Goes on just as intense.
The Bamboo
The Bamboo planted
on the bank of the river
calms my restless soul.
Ghost Dog 