CHARLES TALKOFF - POEMS

Charles Talkoff's poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in, Visions International, Dime Show Review and Collective Unrest. His short fiction has appeared in, JMWW, Underground Voices, Rumble Fish, The Midway Review, 3QR, and The Urbanite.

He lives in Chicagoland.

"i want to love you as if it was simple"
​

i want to love you as if it was simple to love you 
and the hours in your small hands
you move with simple grace across ideas and frontiers
but nothing is simple and everything is complex except
everything is simple and complexity retreats
when you say yes or wear your blue shoes
and smile
i love how you wear your smile like a great scarf
or a fantastic journey with jazz pirates
and the laughter of perfect museums
i love the winds big hat and wild boots loud charging
bursting across the lake and the trees
shake like a giant rattle and the impossible blue 
of the water and the stones 
smoothed by time
i love you in the wild wind already memory
on the path between the water and the fields 
and there is chicago which is certainly
a crazy idea and later your lovely face
fresh from the day
has captured the wind
and you show it to me
and the searching vagabond night arrives as a tent
with your big green everything eyes

​

"in the small garden with you"
​

in the small garden with you
i love how the roses wear red brightly
like fred astaire 
in a top hat
and a tuxedo dancing without 
apologies in
elegant softness
and
thank god
with disdain
for irony no
its all out as if only
a fool
or a pervert
would be unhappy or disapprove
and the birds in a great fan
of feathers
through the ink of night summer
drift


​

"your hemingway imitation and a blue beret"

isnt it pretty to think so
i mean
we could
have such a damn good time
together with your blue beret
and the trees
in their laughter of spring
and theres a midnight show
at the palace
on state street
ava gardner and tyrone power in
the sun also rises 
and erol flynn trying to return
to being a star i know
its sad how the war was always there
even if
they did not go to it anymore
but you and your blue beret
and nothing else


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