New Mirage Journal

Review of Charles Butler’s “39 Poems”

No Shirt Press, 2010

ISBN # 0-9772718-9-7

Reviewed by:  Cindy Hochman

In the great tradition of Walt Whitman, Charles Butler invites us to stroll along the gritty streets of Brooklyn with him.  But unlike Walt, who was no doubt too busy looking at sailors and delivery boys, Butler sees blood in his tracks.  In these 39 poems, a quiet but savvy simplicity resides with depth in rich, rough, and real language, and words that amble energetically all over the page as if clad with walking shoes. While not so naïve as to claim that “love conquers all,” neither is Butler jaded enough to deny that love can ease some of the misery, and if there is any salvation to be found beneath these urban cobblestones, you can bet that Butler will find it.  Using acute powers of observation which rival Walt’s, this poet’s perspective of life within a not-so-just, and sometimes discordant, world, is tempered by a surprisingly jaunty gait. 

long walk

                                                at night

you almost miss it

                        almost

it’s dried                      spread out

almost stepped in it

                        almost

someone’s life bled out

at your feet

                                    think on it

                                                times you bled

times you made others bleed

                                    look on it

                                    big dark patch on 8^th ave

                                    brooklyn side . . .

who bled

a woman, a woman, a child, black, white,

straight, gay               

In both cadence and content, Butler follows the natural music of his heart, his mind, and his circumstances. While this leads him, at times, to sing the blues, there is also an acknowledgment that keenly felt pain is far better than numbness and apathy.  These poems bespeak an earnest effort to mitigate the “come hither call of death” – indeed, the poet gives us plenty of reasons to continue living.

In “Gospel”:

            when a friend or loved one dies

            I wish the world would stop turning

            to honor their passing

            then I remember

                                                the world doesn’t care

about my pain

This leaves the poet to soothe his own wounds while hoisting himself by the bootstraps, from the edge to the ledge and upward again, through abject loneliness, to a recognition of human folly and our cheating hearts, and our attempts to be better people than before.  Butler’s poems refuse to wallow in darkness, unless this absence of light leads to tunnels of love and bedrooms of sweet passion, where the poet’s lady peacefully sleeps and he can “feel her breath on the back of his neck . . . pale, lost in her dreamstate.” 

Butler’s pain is not solely his own — his compassionate arms encompass the woes of the world as well.  One of the hallmarks of a Butler poem is the art of the overheard conversation, where he effectively creates a patchwork of universality that crosses ethnic and class barriers, literally and metaphorically moving from out in the gutter to the inside of the diner. But it is the DMV which becomes the embodiment of a curious mix of angst and equality, “a photo finish between my amusement and annoyance”:

lookin’ on this scene, it’s all mad

gotta be

                        half the world is on fire           an’

the other is on line waiting for their

number to be called

lookin’ for a place t’ sit

an empty seat

is like

fool’s gold

Whether he is paying tribute to the memory of his loving grandmother, or the various people who have propelled him to succeed, or referencing drug addicts and thieves he has encountered on his journey, or pondering how “life just happens,” he is ever cognizant of the larger picture:

an American city

nearly wiped out in an almost perfect

storm   . . .

in Sudan, Arabs who look like Africans

murder Africans who look like Arabs

Although there is certainly suffering here, Butler’s central message transcends that of despair; there are many moments of “raging joy” too.

Of all the relationships which are examined, perhaps the most intimate is Butler’s relationship to poetry itself which, ironically, is couched in denial:

                        when I lay pen

                                    on paper

            hey!

                        i’m not saving lives here

Oh, but he is!  These poems exemplify what poetry is all about:  the heart bleeds, chunks of it fall to the ground, and we have no choice but to pick up the pieces and heal ourselves. Despite Butler’s reluctance to play the hero, his words are a blatant testament to the powers of poetry in saving one’s soul, and one gets the sense that the poet himself knows this, despite his humble protestations.

This book ends where it began — on a walk, coming full circle, temporarily interrupted by the routine profiling of an African-American male who is carrying nothing more sinister than his groceries (“I am afraid but I’m not living in fear.”)  But Butler (“a man — ghetto raised”) has not given up on an often-hostile city that might easily have given up on him.

            he finds

                        the rules

                                    his laws

trust    no one

                        learn to be alone

are killing him

                        comes a new rule

a new law

                        a new lore

walk in the light

            and darkness

risk . . .

                                    everything

These poems will make you leap for blessed joy or cup your head in your hands; they will make you furious and grateful, and cruel and kind — most of all, they will make you feel. 

A television commercial once proclaimed that “it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.”  Charles Butler is a tough man and he makes tender poems.  But one thing he’s not — is chicken.