Past Wildflowers

by Ron Charach

In his third book of poetry, Ron Charach is no less innovative in perspective and considerably more accomplished in verse form than in his two previously celebrated books, The Big Life Painting and Someone Else's Memoirs. Not since William Carlos Williams has a poet so effectively combined clinical knowledge of the human psyche (Charach is one of the few psychiatrists writing poetry in English) with compassion for the human condition.

119 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Ron Charach's work is widely published in national and international journals and anthologies of writing by doctors about their craft. He was contributing editor of The Naked Physician, the sole anthology of poetry by Canadian medical practitioners. A practicing psychiatrist now residing in Toronto, Charach combines a physician's candid eye for the foibles and betrayals of the body with a psychiatrist's compassion for the suffering of the mind. He creates poems around the memorable image, the anecdote that, on the surface, seems to say little, yet opens to reveal a great deal about the human condition.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a way you began
in an earth-floored basement
with walls of crumbling plaster
where grandfather dragged grandmother
naked, the beating's coup de grace his urination,
overheard by two cowering brothers and three sisters.

What unsuspecting man one day
donning a suit of everlasting promises
will wade into the fire
of such a legacy?

- Legacy, pg. 26

* * *

What a prize she could deliver
out of a misspelled word,
how far she could go
beyond the old poetry game of opposites,
how completely integrate her rage.
And you, like a mechanism shut off your conditioning
to sweat in the undecorated third room dormer
where you dare sit up only half the night
wary of your back as you strain
to cough up something deep.

Your love of language is a poor second
to self-love,
your exploration of others' images cautious,
lest they contaminate,
deflate.
How gingerly you sample from their best
as though passing your hand through fire,
someone else's fire.

- Someone Else's Fire, after Elizabeth Bishop's "The Man-Moth", pg. 51

* * *

Finished at 2 a.m.,
frosted beard and steel-blue glassy eyes,
his ungloved hand brushes damp snow
from roof to sporty body.
"One more anthro on an icy night
on thin polyester legs."
The door resists,
then the key slides in,
the motor is summoned, and again,
the need to break gravity,
air pressure hugging his body, two lovers,
pursuing downramps, unlawful lanes
through a history of tickets
- to pay this one, throw that one away -
Why not stall?

When the icebreaking studs move
with a thick crushing sound against the curb,
and the tail pipe that would gleam under heavenly lamplight blackens,
the body rises toward the cracked mirror, and whispers Why not stall?

- Why Not Stall?, pg. 80