Poetry By Charles Rammelkamp

Winter Reverie

Be careful what you wish for.
The winters have been so warm.
Snow is a romantic dream.
Wish fulfillment may be more than you bargained for.

The winters have been so warm.
Insects appear inside in February.
Wish fulfillment may be more than you bargained for.
At least the heating bill is low.

Insects appear inside in February.
That bag of snow melt neglected in the basement.
At least the heating bill is low.
Sometimes you consider wearing shorts.

That bag of snow melt neglected in the basement.
Snow shovels gather dust in the shadows.
Sometimes you consider wearing shorts.
Would a trip to Florida feel wrong?

The shovels gather dust in the shadows. 
Snow is such a romantic dream.
Would a trip to Florida feel wrong?
Be careful what you wish for.


Casablanca Crime

We’d passed up Rick’s Café 
at Place du jardin, 
named for the Bogart film.
Maybe it wasn’t even open.
This was Ramadan, after all.
We wound up at Café La Cadence.
I was starving for lunch.

We’d barely taken our seats
when the police stormed in.
They arrested fifty of us
for having something to eat!
A crime to eat during the day?
A blatant violation of freedom of belief.

The worst part?
The crêpe fromage I’d ordered
was drowned in cheese
like a tasteless sludge of glue.
Adil’d recommended the place
for its coffee and bubble tea.
This was not worth going to prison for!


The Best Thing on TV Since Ruby Shot Oswald


What's the best thing I’ve seen on TV?
I think of that line from Andy Warhol’s Diaries,
apparently something a fan said to Truman Capote.
It’s got to be a sports show, a Wimbledon final,
a Super Bowl touchdown,
a game seven World Series home run.

But I did see that live killing,
Ruby muscling in with a snub-nosed pistol,
the sheriff – was his name Garrison? –
rearing back as if from an offensive odor,
Oswald crumpling in on himself
like a sheet of crushed cellophane.

As if the assassination weren’t dramatic enough –
and I can’t remember when I saw
the 26-second 8-mm Zapruder film,
but it must have been years later –
the “reality TV” killing
blew my ten-year-old mind,
sitting in front of the family black and white Motorola
in Potawatomi Falls, Michigan, November, 1963.

The moon landing? The January 6 Capitol riot? 


Brutal Honesty

When I complimented Ellen, 
the lady in the cubicle
next to mine,
on her lovely smile, 
her even white teeth,
she told me her first husband
knocked her teeth out.
These were implants.

It made me remember 
Freshman year registration –
how many decades ago –
college students snaking around
the gymnasium, table to table,
filling out forms.
In line in front of me,
another freshman, Dan,
who fancied himself suave,
telling Pam, the girl beside him,
she had the most dazzling blue eyes,
in his most Sean Connery voice,
she saying to him,
“They’re tinted contacts.”

Did Ellen think 
I was attempting debonair?


An Off-and-On-Again Praying Person

Sometimes for health.
Sometimes for love.
Sometimes for the home team.
Sometimes for the health and safety of pets.
Sometimes for respect, recognition, esteem.

Sometimes because things seem hopeless.
Sometimes because I know it’s impossible.
Sometimes because of the inevitable.
Sometimes because Fate seems so unchangeable.
Sometimes because why not, can’t hurt. 

Then there’s democracy, hazy concept,
but you know when it’s being subverted.
Pareidolia may just be faces in the clouds,
hidden drama in the motion of trees or water.
Prayers and their partner, thoughts, 
about as effective.