Virgil Chabre
This is the poetry site of poet Virgil Chabre
This is the poetry site of poet Virgil Chabre
Welcome to the Website of poet Virgil Chabre. Author of four books of poetry: Silhouettes, Images,and Faded Memories; The Night She Left and Other Poems; Column One (Poems 1982-1992); and Washington D. C. (2010)
Contact: virgilchabre13@gmail.com
Anyone interested in discussing poetry or sharing their poetry, please contact me. All comme
Welcome to the Website of poet Virgil Chabre. Author of four books of poetry: Silhouettes, Images,and Faded Memories; The Night She Left and Other Poems; Column One (Poems 1982-1992); and Washington D. C. (2010)
Contact: virgilchabre13@gmail.com
Anyone interested in discussing poetry or sharing their poetry, please contact me. All comments and responses are welcome and appreciated.
Quotations:
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead."
"The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them."
"We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."
-Charles Bukowski
Poetry is more than words spoken
Or words on paper
Poetry is more than life
Or death
It is jumping off a cliff
Not knowing there is water below
Or knowing there is water below
But you can’t swim
It is taking the wrong path in life
But finding the right destination
It is things you cannot tell your friends
So you hide them under your bed
And dream abo
Poetry is more than words spoken
Or words on paper
Poetry is more than life
Or death
It is jumping off a cliff
Not knowing there is water below
Or knowing there is water below
But you can’t swim
It is taking the wrong path in life
But finding the right destination
It is things you cannot tell your friends
So you hide them under your bed
And dream about them at night
You wake up with a headache
Trying to remember the dream
But it is just another lost poem
Lost poems are like ghosts
They can haunt you
They come back without using doors
Or windows
They are in the air that you breathe
Without poetry life
Would be silent
Quotations
“Every human being is a raindrop. And when enough of the raindrops become clear and coherent they become the power of the storm.”
-John Trudell
“He is not busy born, is busy dying”
“Even the President of the United States sometimes must stand naked”
-Bob Dylan
“Take a walk on the wild side”
“There is a little bit of magic in everything,
And a little loss to even things out”
-Lou Reed
“Three-fourths of philosophy and literature is the talk of people trying to convince themselves that they really like the cage they were tricked into entering”
-Gary Snyder
“My teachers could have easily ridden with Jesse James for all the time they stole from me”
-Richard Brautigan
My poetry style is varied but consists mostly of free verse poems. I must commend some great teachers in my education process. Arlene Wesswick was a great English teacher who never let up on pressing me to do better. I had the honor of having her for my teacher in both high school and college. Ronald Gaskill was a college instructor wh
My poetry style is varied but consists mostly of free verse poems. I must commend some great teachers in my education process. Arlene Wesswick was a great English teacher who never let up on pressing me to do better. I had the honor of having her for my teacher in both high school and college. Ronald Gaskill was a college instructor who gave me the push to keep writing poetry. His class was always unpredictable and a place where imagination was the most important thing to keep writing. He left me so much to reflect upon. My quest for knowledge and writing are enhanced by the love I have for reading. Reading is the key to expanding your knowledge. My favorite authors are Herman Hesse, Richard Brautigan, Gary Snyder, Lyn Lifshin, Charles Bukowski and Robert Frost. I have also learned from listening to the music and lyrics of Lou Reed, Bob Dylan, and John Trudell. Life is a learning process that continues on and the journey is never completed.
A Relic Lost in Time
I am not the magician
There is no magic
That surrounds me
I have had too many losses
In my life
I am like a silent windmill
On a lonely hilltop
Waiting for the wind
Rusty and alone
Unable to turn anymore
A relic lost in time
NEW BOOK: MENDING FENCES AVAILABLE ON Amazon NOW!
Virgil Chabre is the author of four books of poetry: Silhouettes, Images,and Faded Memories; The Night She Left and Other Poems; Column One (Poems 1982-1992); and Washington D. C. (2010)
Virgil Chabre has been influenced by Gary Snyder, Richard Brautigan, Lyn Lifshin, Javan, Lou Reed, John Trudell and Bob Dylan.
Mending Fences is a book that is hard to place in a particular category. It is a story that started with a poem. This story takes place in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming and Paris, France. It is about a cowboy, an artist, a very spiritual Native American and Gypsies. It displays the influences of Richard Brautigan, Gary Snyder, Lyn Lifshin and Bob Dylan. But most of all it is a love story.
Link to Mending Fences on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mending+fences+virgil+chabre&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
Virgil Chabre's poems are about realistic events that happen to someone every day, He puts words around everyday life.
He writes about Native American life and the history and challenges that they faced and continue to face today.
She was all I had left from the war
Waited patiently for me to return
I saw her every time I closed my eyes
She was always there
But my eyes are afraid to close
Anymore
There was a fire burning in the night
It was another dream
The dreams overtake me
Giant centipedes crawl in the darkness
Waiting for their next sting
I cannot separate reality from dreams
The war consumed me
Agent Orange crawling on my body
Never-ending rain
Snub nosed monkey swats a mosquito
The feast is over
I stood alone in the darkness
Looking at the body on the ground
Lifeless
Friendly fire they would say
But there was nothing friendly about it
He dropped a grenade
Afraid to let it leave his hand
Self-destruction or collateral damage
The jungle on fire around us
I clutch my dog tags to my chest
Look at my toes to try to keep the dog tags away
I close my eyes and see the tunnels
I pull a body out
The sun shines today
The jungle is empty
Silence fills the air
A water buffalo stops by
Looking for food or water
He is alone
I hold her tonight but keep my eyes open
Afraid of my dreams
The smell of burning flesh and napalm fills the air
My eyes must stay open
I must face reality
Prepare for the day tomorrow
Some say tomorrow will be a new day
But nothing is new after war
Just the sound of ammo in the night
And friendly fire
I remember when I arrived passing him
He was leaving Vietnam
On his way home
The words that came out of his mouth
Stayed with me
“The enemy is in the distance,
You will find them,
Watch your friends
They cannot be trusted
This is war”
Life in Wyoming
Was not always
What it appeared to be
It was growing up
Under conditions that
created hard core souls
From a state
with a sparse population
More antelope than people
It was a world of confrontation
The battle between
The cattlemen and the sheep men
It was a Range War
There was no clear winner
Just hard feelings
That would drag on
As time went by
I remember Ridge Avenue
A place on a hill
Our backyard was an old cemetery
Leaving many ghosts behind
Always interrupting our life
A vacant lot next door
Told many stories
Of hidden treasures
Never found
Sandlot baseball
Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays
And many lost
Summer days
She was a stranger I saw
Out of the corner of my eye
She did not look like Lady Gaga
Or Marilyn Monroe
She was younger
With dark hair
And glasses
A photograph I could file away
In my mind
I did not realize
I must have been staring at her
As I tried to focus my eyes
On the curve of her lips
As she sat silently
Sipping upon a cola
But when I got up and left
And looked back
She blew me a kiss
A stranger I will never forget
Filed away forever
In my mind under
A kiss that slipped away from me
for: Veronica
Born in Wyoming
Among the sagebrush
And antelope
In the dusty fields of mining
Subsidence shaking
The earth below
She has the strength of a dragon
The wisdom of Minerva
She felt the world
On her shoulders
and stumbled
But did not fall
She had the ability
To balance her life on a tightrope
The fortitude
To lead and not follow
She walked on solid ground
As the earth swallowed
Those around her
Not afraid of yesterday
Looking forward toward tomorrow
The future on her mind
She found solitude
Among the forests of Idaho
A new journey
In a life filled with stones
She learned to smile
Walk a mile
And not look back
Always enjoying the present
The future unlimited
She found the true meaning of life
She found herself
She wants to go to Wyoming
Experience the mountains
Where snow never melts
The wind blows strong
But hearts stay warm
I can see her now
Bundled up in four layers
Of clothing
Seeing the frost on her nose
Her breath in the cold air
Running through the snow
Making snow angels
A snowman
Or just sliding down a hill
Finding life away from the Arizona sun
That can melt your soul
And leave you cold inside
Unable to find a reason
To carry on in life
She understands life
Always chasing freedom
But in the Wyoming air
Freedom is chasing her
It is all a vision she sees
Reflected in the eyes
That tell many stories
And yet
Leaves many stories untold
When someone asks us
Where we are from
We smile and say
We're from under Wyoming
The land of our fathers
And their fathers too
It's in our blood
The earth within us
We're not happy in the sunshine
We spend our days
And nights in tunnels
Where darkness is our friend
The gophers and prairie dogs
Live above us
In tunnels of their own
Sometimes they don't understand
The sounds down below
In the winter when they sleep
They dream of metal monsters
Digging in the earth below
When spring comes
Sometimes they are awakened early
By the sound of fireworks
Before the fourth of July
We work the earth
Like a farmer works the surface
Following the steps
Our fathers took
They walk in our shadows
Protecting us from the sun
I was born
A coal miner’s son
Watching my father
Come home
Covered in black dust
When he was
Not breathing coal dust
He smoked cigarettes
I heard him wheezing
And coughing in the night
Unable to catch his breath
Black Lung they called it
The disease of coal miners
The black earth
Took away their ability
To breathe
As I witnessed him
Fighting to take
His last breath
I cannot answer
All of your questions
Or place meaning
In the emptiness
That surrounds you
I can only give you
Some time
To think about today
And not worry about yesterday
Or have any fears
About tomorrow
Today is the memory
We will build upon
Without barriers
To provide a ray of light
That can be remembered
At the darkest time
We may face alone
For: Lori
She is a treasure
An angel
But she cannot fly
She does not have wings
Yet she is swift and smooth
On a racquetball court
Precise in every swing
She is a true caregiver
Her personality thrives on giving
To her life is not measured
By the ticking of a clock
Or the beating of a heart
But by the breath
That you take
Living life
One breath at a time
My father was a coal miner
He had Black Lung disease
Pneumoconiosis (CWP)
Coal dust hiding in his lungs
An oxygen cylinder by his side
It would have been positive
To have someone like her
By his side
As He was fighting
To take his last breath
The desert heat doesn’t bother me
Not the empty space across the horizon
Or the scorpion moving across the sand
What bothers me
Are the dreams I haven’t had
The hands I forgot to touch
The mystery in the eyes
I never solved
Or walking away
When I should have stayed a moment longer
So many things lost in life
Like the silence following a poem
I never read
We talk from long distance spaces
Where an echo can be heard between us
It works out so much better that way
If we get too close
We become lost in thoughts and phrases
As the words we speak
Get in the way of our relationship
So I’ll continue to say hello
From where I stand
And all you have to do is wave
And I’ll know
It does not mean
Good-bye
She said there
Are homeless people
But security
To calm your fears
But I do not fear
The homeless
I fear the men in suits
Working on Capital hill
Causing pain
Far deeper than a homeless person
Searching for shelter