Demo: Poems

by Charlie Smith

A dazzling volume that gushes with the rhythms of life and language, from award-winning poet Charlie Smith. Moving through shades of darkness and light, Charlie Smith captures a refracted view of a disturbed, disintegrating world. Demo explores landscapes both natural and urban, probing the places where the two overlap. Its narrator is at once wanderer and witness, living among streets where flowers are covered with dust and smells of Mexican food and Chinese cooking fill the air. The poet finds a resurgence of life in the ruins, reminding us once again “that we don’t really know what beauty is until we’ve looked hard at the horror that throws beauty into bright relief” (David Kirby, New York Times ).

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

Published April 7, 2020

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

THIS WATER TASTES OF IRON

My tattoos tell love's story in miniature, which I prefer:
My dips in style, the picture I painted on a pool cover,
express a reckless calm, unsubstantiated but plush.
I pray to the ticking sound I hear at night. Breezes,
shaped in Africa, remind me of friends
buried in the sea. For years I lived in a home for the blind,
working the semaphore. My over-obvious
rectitude bought only time. Let's drain
the dark, she said, from every room. The mottos
on the radio scratch lately at my door, unverifiable
and hilarious. The past sinks like a body in a well.
I read the Bible for the stakeouts and descriptions of terrain.

[Louise Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

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