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Charles R. Bachman
Bio:
Charles Bachman, a native of Iowa, made his way to Buffalo by way of Missouri, Nebraska, Texas, Germany, and Indiana, including three years in the U.S. Army.
His Ph.D. from Indiana University is in Comparative Literature, and his teaching specialties at Buffalo State are Native American Literature and Contemporary Drama. He took a 20-year hiatus from writing poetry during an active second career as an operatic baritone, singing 26 major roles and many solo appearances with groups including Opera Rochester, Arpark Opera under Christopher Keene, the Syracuse Symphony, and the Buffalo Philharmonic, as well as song recitals of German Lieder and French, Italian, English and American art songs. Periodicals where his poetry has appeared include THE CAROLINA QUARTERLY and THE KANSAS QUARTERLY. His book of poems, IF ARIEL DANCED ON THE MOON, was published in September, 2006.
Poems:
Letchworth Gorge, Earth Mother
From any one vantage point
the long opening
across her face
extends
as if forever.
Her river-carved, weathered carapace
frowns, smiles
depending on the place
we look from.
No matter where upon her
we place our feet
the depths out of which she speaks
clothed in vastness remain
warm, granitic, sibylline.
Mr. Shakovo's Efficiency
(from forthcoming book, The Strange Lives of Mr. Shakovo)
Saturday. Mr. Shakovo walked at such a rapid pace
he amazed even his wise conscious self,
an inner iron something pushed him as if he were in a race
with the weird double he wished he had left on a shelf
in the remotest corner of the night-filled cellar
beneath his modest digs. But as luck
or rather his usual fate would have it, the nasty dweller
of mole-like spaces had sprung again with a pluck
as amazing as it was frequent, competitioning Shakovo on
so fast, he feared he was missing wayside wonders,
Is that a wayward patch of sweet elyssum he just trod on?
a fragile gladiola against which he blunders?
Halt! He yelled to himself and his strange incubus.
Let us slow down, make an attempt to take our leisure!
Okay said the voice inside, see if it’s good for us,
try if it makes you happy, forget I even exist.
Shakovo did, retarding to lento measure,
finally stopping and sitting to take his pleasure.
When neighbors found him his rigid right fist
was pointed upward as if to box the trees.
Not again, they nattered, do you think he sees
anything with those frozen eyes, the discord
that brought this on? Oh well, we must insist
again, ship him back to the hospital ward.
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