Charles Freeland


A Schema Theory of Everything

Tempting to think the hospital wing named 
for the inventor who first put ink in pens 
and funded by a local family with sixteen siblings 
and nary a tooth in their heads 
will change our lives for the better, or 
at least not cause undo harm when the doors are pushed open 
on a cloudy April morning 
and the high school band plays Victor Herbert. 

When the episode gets written up by historians 
some decades later, 
terms we don’t currently understand or recognize 
will probably be at the forefront, 
terms borrowed from algebra and the sonar-enabled surveys 
of the deepest oceanic trenches 
where fish the size of lunchboxes 
lure their unsuspecting prey in 
with phosphorescent appendages attached willy-nilly 
to their heads and to their hindquarters.



The Complaints Come Trickling In

The horse stumbles into its role 
the way we might find a submerged car chassis 
in a bend of the river, 
the way we sit at scuffed-up tables 
to play pinochle or blow on a saxophone,
each its own mythology and syntax. 

The horse can locate objects with its nose we can not -- 
tubers that come to the surface 
yellow but quickly turn a violet 
so pure as to suggest stretches of the Punjab, 
patches of gasoline spilled 
thirty years ago when we didn’t appreciate 
what we had and kept looking 
for something to replace it, something modeled 
in our own heads after 
the mostly symmetrical heads of those who’d come before us. 

Maybe the horse is some kind of symbol, 
I don’t know but 
you certainly can’t sneak up on it 
at night 
and impose your will. 
It is a restless sleeper and frequently greets 
the dawn with a jumping and running about, 
a frenzied abandon 
that, according to those who would know, 
serves as a wordless type of prayer.       



In Memory of Margo Lane

Trust the cluttered surface, the crusty dishes, 
the unopened envelopes, 
to reveal something underneath 
that others might have intuited previously 
but have somehow kept secret. 
They hide it away in compartments 
of their mind’s own intricate design 
along with various surnames and mazurkas. 

It is an instinct similar to that 
which causes us to hold our breath as soon as we hit the water, 
and to exhale again at the memory of it 
long afterward. 
In fact, all of our memories seem to lurk 
porcupine-like and subversive 
in the shadows 
while the radio churns static. 

The others head for bed because it was a long day 
and the weather wasn’t exactly inspiring. 
I have inscriptions to chisel and
my head is throbbing, and, the other evening, 
a hot air balloon settled into the fallow field 
not a mile from here. 
There was no one in the basket, not even a frightened child.

     

Lectures from the Kentucky Bend 

The previously unreleased memos 
bleed into one another like flesh wounds 
and we are left with a sense 
that everyone has already abandoned the vicinity 
with their personalities intact 
but their skin tattered and then re-arranged 
to appear seamless, attractive even. 

Say what you want, the seas are whistling tunes 
that become less familiar each evening 
and the sailors stick close to home 
as if they know the trek, the journey is just a trope 
meaningful for those who have the luxury 
of reading books all day and then doddering about 
in their gardens. 

As for the rest of us, assemble the pieces 
and you have still more pieces lying about 
in haphazard fashion! No one can get to the end of it 
so we start to behave as if there is nothing 
but endings in sight, as if the deathbed 
is just your regular bed 
with lacy pillows on it of the sort that scratch the neck 
and make it nearly impossible to fall asleep, 
and the concertina sitting dusty in the corner 
beckons suddenly to our fat, unsubtle fingers 
like half a sandwich 
to the hovering but otherwise mindless gull. 



The Science Behind Seeing Faces in Everyday Objects 

Journey backward a year or two 
and you still won’t be able to identify 
the exact moment when everything fell apart. 
It will look now just as it did then, 
a parrot squawking from the neighbor’s back porch, 
an airplane flying low overhead. 
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. 
The accompanying voices will fall 
into simple harmonies of their own accord 
and someone will transcribe them eventually, 
someone will find in them patterns 
that appeal to both those who have been listening 
to Puccini all their lives and those 
who go ballistic when asked to string a viola. 
The name we give this phenomenon 
is unfortunate, originating as it does in the delta, 
but not the one you are thinking of. 
The Okavango maybe, close to the place 
where you spent almost every summer 
swatting at the oversized hornets and practicing Jiu Jitsu. 
Love affairs were few and far between there 
and you had to content yourself finally 
with flying back home again, hungry and alone 
just as snow began to accumulate 
and the suburban streets grew so slick with it 
you couldn’t walk a mile without sliding 
into one of the ubiquitous drainage ditches.



Hanlon’s Razor

Twenty-seven of the total number
of tales revolve 
around shape shifting of some sort, 
even if it is only becoming someone 
very like a neighbor, 
with a pipe hanging solemnly 
from an otherwise slack and unremarkable mouth, 
the moon not bothering to so much 
as puff itself up to full capacity 
in honor of the proceedings. 

We don’t always understand 
the motivations of the less than sentient, 
but rest assured they can be found 
with a little snooping, 
with a rummaging through 
the frequently referenced works 
of the Greek illiterate poets
and the mostly ignored same from Costa Rica. 

Spend enough time in those tales 
and you will come to realize 
they are not really tales at all, 
but complex and cunning entities 
designed to sound ordinary 
when listened to from at least ten feet away, 
when overhead by those of us 
who never really wanted 
to be in that position in the first place. 

We envisioned a day on the water, 
sailing or pulling up lobster traps, 
especially those that did not belong to us. 
Rumor had it most of those traps 
belonged to a man living alone at the edge of town 
who had this habit of claiming 
he couldn’t make ends meet 
while at the same time hording 
hundreds of recovered and even stolen 
stained-glass windows, 
many of them depicting the very apostles themselves.



Land of Few Pharaohs

The infamy lasted a day or two 
and then morphed 
into something resembling 
sourdough bread, 
savory throughout 
but with connotations 
of a formally upscale neighborhood 
and an obstructed view 
of the ocean. 

We like to pretend that that part of our lives 
was just a precursor, an interlude, 
a place where we could neglect to tie our shoes 
and still manage to walk down the street 
without falling over. 

Our symptoms have grown milder with time 
but they still include respiratory 
anomalies and a creeping malaise 
you could write whole volumes about 
If you could only find the time. 

The stockyards 
twenty minutes up the road 
buzz with an inhuman activity 
even in the noonday sun 
and the drifting miasma is something to be feared, 
something to flee 
using any means available – 
bicycles, a child’s wagon, 
modified horse trailers 
with functioning refrigerators 
and showers inside. 

We are rarely too proud to admit 
when we have made a mistake. 
The repercussions involve 
the loss of employment or 
estrangement from family and acquaintances, 

but they are not as daunting 
as the nightmares that otherwise arise. 
Filthy things 
full of bird-eating spiders 
and facial disfigurement 
so horrifying as to serve as models 
for the real-life apocalypse 
or an Italian Giallo. 

And yet, 
some of them 
nonetheless manage 
to leave us feeling 
invigorated 
come morning. 
They get the blood 
circulating more aggressively 
than usual 
and fortify our decision 
to stay in Sioux Falls.     




Charles Freeland lives in Dayton, Ohio. His website is The Fossil Record (charlesfreelandpoetry@ blogspot.com).
 
 

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