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Charlie Becker sees life in pastels. In a world often dominated by brash flashing colors, his eye slows things down and observes the muted shadings. Only when one gets past the blinding blaze of the sun you can see its true complexion of corona and freckled spots. His gentle poems and drawings in his book, Friends My Poems Gave Me, invite us to slow down, our eyes to take a relaxed, better look. In his poem, "What We Believe", Charlie lays in bed at night, slowing down, trying to make sense of a troubling day. He writes, "At night I would listen to the sound of mist sinking into tree branches jacarandas growing crown shaped purple buds over the streets…' and perhaps, finding some peace manages to "make friends with my heartbeat anything to make me feel safe anything." In one of my favorite poems, "Gumbo 101", he gives us stop-action photos of his Creole partner laboring to make gumbo. He tells us, "A good gumbo, like you has a New Orleans skin seamless sepia roux defining who you come from." And then later, as the partner furiously dices vegetables, he writes, "You sweat the tears as your T-shirt sticks against broad shoulders, biceps flexed with a hunger creamy and thick." Whether Charlie is reveling in the beauty of the human form, celebrating the nourishment of love, discovering what it is to be a gay man, or dissecting the mind of a bully, we are swept away by his poetry like a dandelion in the breeze and fortunate to catch the seeds of wisdom and beauty it disperses.
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