Tag: Chuck Kramer

Chuck Kramer: “The Desert”

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The Desert

arid scrubland where life flees the sun
water washes over color-stained rocks
but provides little relief or support
people trudge under sunhats,
quietly swiping away their sweat
but the lizards thrive and snakes
coil in drowsy satisfaction
a little is enough they seem to say
today is just another day
the flat horizon shimmers in waves
of light and dry heat
trucks roar along the interstate
loaded with boxes and crate,
the concerns of another world,
while the scorpions work
with the basics, ready
to kill and eat as darkness
falls and life slithers forward—
always forward, not to be denied

About the Author:  Chuck Kramer’s poetry and fiction have appeared online and in print, most recently Lothlorien, The Raven’s Perch and The Good Men Project. He has also been a finalist in the Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Poetry Awards in 2017 and 2023. Memoir in Chicago Quarterly Review (a Notable Essay in  Best American Essays 2023), Sobotka, Evening Street Review. Journalism in Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, Reader, Windy City Times and Gay Chicago Magazine.     

Image Credit: Chase Dimock “Desert Exit” (2024)

Chuck Kramer: “The Cruelest Month”

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The Cruelest Month

we stand at the end
of this stony, barren road
on the last day of April
peering through May
to the gates of June
and lush summer lawns
where we bask in the sun
sipping mint juleps with friends
maybe then we’ll forget
the isolated agony
of this brutal, crushing winter
but the exile might never end
as the evils of the last century—
the death camps the bombs
the plagues the melting ice—
finally coalesce into
the lonely, terrifying nightmare
we can’t wake to escape
come August there may be reaping
a rich full harvest—
the end of the ordeal
but the ground may be barren
a biblical judgment on our rashness
and the quarantine an endless
sentence to pay for the
thoughtless crimes we’ve committed

 

 

About the Author: Chuck Kramer is a Chicago writer of fiction, poetry, and journalism. He has an MA in Writing from DePaul University and taught writing in the Chicago Public Schools at the Communication Arts Center. 

He’s currently the vice-president of the NewTown Writers, works on the editorial staff of the Chicago Quarterly Review, and previously served as a workshop coordinator with the Chicago Writing Conference. He was the cohost of the long-running Weeds Poetry Open Mic.

He occasionally freelances for the Windy City Times and his journalism has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, Sun-Times, and Reader. His poems and short stories have appeared in many publications, both online and in print.

More at chuckkramer.webs.com.

 

Image Credit: Carol M. Highsmith: “Dirt road to nowhere in rural Moffat County, Colorado; well, Wyoming, if you take the road far enough in either direction. It loops up over the Wyoming border going either east or west” (2016) The Library of Congress (Public Domain)