Gumball Poetry - Poetry by Bryan Charles

Bryan Charles

I, Superman

I have searched for truth in every pause,
stoplight to stoplight.

When the chair accelerates, I am weightless,
an earthbound alien.

These young toughs, they bruise too easily,
thrown from hills to houses

right into needy, smothering arms.
When I left my university, handsome and alone,

I was not yet bulletproof. I learned
that feeling the world has never moved it.

Then some freakish passion overtook me.
A Broadway revival, with no wires, no cape.

Where are those things now?
My muscles atrophy, my money has been

made in honest ways. It's ironic
I am still alive, filtering these small details,

but I lost my life somewhere
in the progress of clouds.

Bryan Charles lives in Brooklyn, NY, where "Falls Apart" by Sugar Ray occasionally plays. He has been previously published in Third Coast and The Columbia Poetry Review, and he used to co-edit and write a literary magazine called Rocket Fuel (before the current Rocket Fuel). This poem, and On Being Gone a Year, also appearing in this issue, were originally part of a larger project called "Dormitory Songs", a book-length kiss-off to his adolescence.

Email Bryan Charles at charles@gumballpoetry.com.

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6.22.2000
cj from ca

Great premise, love the title
and some nice elaborations. I especially like "I was not yet bulletproof./I learned that feeling the world has never moved it", which is insightful and yet easy to relate to.

6.2.2000
annonymous from Milton, Ma

improper english=poetry
I found this poem delicate and beautiful. Don't let anal 3rd grade english teachers get you down on the grammer. Grammer is obviously not most pertinent when it comes to poetry. I found the flow and imagery of this poem sensational despite other criticisms.

5.24.2000
Ron Prawa from Philadelphia, PA

Can't anyone write a proper review, here?
Bryan, you must have made a lot of enemies along the way. This is a great, great poem. I'm going to hesitate a guess that it's about Christopher Reeve, but if not, my pardons, it applies rather well. I felt a thrill in nearly every line, here. In particular, the first and last stanzas were strong. Kudos.

5.22.2000
I, Meghan VanLeuwen from Kalamazoo, MI

Improper English!
Bryan, you need to go back to school. Work on your grammar. I'm disgusted. You should try attending a small, liberal arts institution in the American West. For $30,000 a year.

5.14.2000
Joseph Elmhurst (wl2lv@mailcity.com) from Portland, Oregon

I thought it was the sin bin
Mr. Charles' fine use of hyperbole is second only to his stature as a human being. Seriously, there are trees in California that are being chopped down. I'm not kidding. If you relax, close your eyes, and imagine that you are a speck on the lens of my glasses, then you will understand exactly how *simple* this all really is. Not that I really have anything to say about Mr. Charles. I'm sure he's a wonderful person, a peach of a man with good teeth and a girl on each arm (or a boy, depending on Mr. Charles' preferences). I bet he even is happy, sort of, with his lot in life which is more than I can say for the guy in the cubicle next to me.