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ISBN# 1-59889-320-3
Printed by: Pudding House Publications
Place of printing: Columbus, Ohio
Year released: 2004
Format: paperback
Price: $8.95 plus $2.50 shipping and handling.
Where and How to buy this book:
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USA.
2. Phone orders
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by calling: (614) 986-1881. Contact Jennifer Bosveld.
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Email orders can be placed here using any payment method including Visa/Master Card: [email protected] contact Jennifer Bosveld. To print out and mail in an order form, click on the book image to the right.
ODD is actually a saga highlighting the plight of a spiritual pilgrim, a poet whose approach to life is too mentally and emotionally complicated to achieve his goal: spiritual happiness. Unfortunately, the spiritual path requires simplicity. Thus, his dilemma. From the first poem to the last, we follow this complicated man through the maze of his life, encountering bums, bag ladies, barrooms, Spanish beauties, love lost, singles mixers, his first divorce, his second divorce, and a fish named Mike.
Only Ries could expertly handle such a perplexing character, a complex man who sincerely seeks the happiness and joy of the spiritual life, yet fails to realize simplicity is the key to attainment.
"I like to disappear into my head where it / doesn't cost too much to be alone. I see a horizon / in the distance lying between the vistas / of my temples, spreading from my left ear / to my right ear. // In here I astro project, read people thoughts / and see the future. In here I bring the dead back / to life and turn my tears to snowflakes. // It's a vast cine plex between my ears. A world teeming / with perfect lovers and sleeping demons. A theater in / the round where I view my life against the movie screen / God attached to the backside of my eyeballs." (A PERFECT PLACE , In: Odd, p.7)
Even though his goal continues to elude him, he manages to gather quite a few spiritual jewels along the way:
"Our thoughts are like dancers, two / inter-mingled, co-existing electrons / spinning around the same nucleus......... // I wonder if wishing sets thoughts in motion, / causing invisible ripples in the unseen? / Ripples that carry our secrets to God?" (POETS NOVA, In: Odd, p. 9)
"Maybe stars are the souls of the glimmering dead, or perhaps meteors are / the tear drops of souls soon to be returned. Souls like me who dread their / plunge back into life's unpredictable sea. " (STARS SUSPENDED FROM BRANCHES, In: Odd, p.11)
"Once I was a blade of grass and the breeze passed / above me and rubbed against me, bending me. "Such / freedom," I thought. "To be a breeze. To soar high above / and close to the ground, to be rootless in air." // Once I was a human, I had complex thoughts and confusions. / I yearned for wealth and love and power and good looks. / All this yearning tired me and gave me migraine headaches. / Headaches so vast and out of control they robbed my sleep / and made me vomit. And as I lay on my couch, half in, / half out of awareness, from the sleeping pills and pain killers, / I remembered myself as a blade of grass turning my side to / the sun and my tongue to the rain and my roots to China, / and I ached to be simply green again." (ONCE AGAIN, In: Odd, p. 14)
"And through seasons and / doubts and changes of fashion / they discover their relationship, / unearthing a heart painted in a / bold brush stroke and the message, / it has been better to love." (VALENTINE, In: Odd p. 25)
But in the end revelation strikes, and the poet realizes spiritual joy can only be found in simplicity, which Ries expresses beautifully in the Taoist-like title poem ODD in p. 34-: "They can't hear it. / They don't listen to leaves / in the moon light. The mystical / whisper of branches rubbing. // Funny what happens to a life / when the trees start talking to you. / When you hear the voices of your / garden." Is the road to spiritual joy really that simple? That odd? Yes, it is.
This is a finely crafted collection of poetry, one that leads the reader through the bewildering ocean of anxiety and melancholy many face during the course of their lives and relationships to the land of hope and light. What a delightful twist that the poet should find this spiritual paradise waiting for him in his own backyard. Ries is not only a talented poet, but also an engaging storyteller, and ODD is the perfect collection for anyone seeking refuge from a world that grows more complicated by the hour.
Highly recommended.
Charles P. Ries lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His narrative poems, short stories and poetry reviews have appeared in over ninety print and electronic publications. He has received three Pushcart Prize nominations for his writing and most recently read his poetry on National Public Radio's Theme and Variations, a program that is broadcast over seventy NPR affiliates. You may find additional samples of his work by going to: http://www.literati.net/Ries/ and you may write him at [email protected]
Valentine
by Charles P. Ries
Source: Odd (2005) p.25
They're complex
these things we
build our hearts around.
These things we construct
out of lovers leaps.
Communicated in the
silent language of-
how two-bodies fit together
a familiar smile
a scent of remembering
Souls recognizing reunion.
These are the mysteries of love.
A cat bugler creeps
between two strange hearts
and finds only their yearning.
And looking into their
underwear drawer discovers
their lust. And in smelling the
insoles of their journey together
the miles they've walked.
And through seasons and
doubts and changes of fashion
they discover their relationship,
unearthing a heart painted in a
bold brash stoke and the message,
it has been better to love.
March, April, May, June , Jul, Aug, Sep 2005