Charles Rammelkamp
Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore and Reviews Editor for The Adirondack Review. A chapbook of poems, Jack Tar’s Lady Parts, is available from Main Street Rag Publishing. Another poetry chapbook, Me and Sal Paradise, was recently published by FutureCycle Press. An e-chapbook has also recently been published online Time Is on My Side (yes it is) – http://poetscoop.org/manuscrip/Time%20Is%20on%20My%20Side%20FREE.pdf Another chapbook, Mortal Coil, is forthcoming from Clare Songbirds Publishing.
The Myth of Lost Fortune
Loss is such a potent lure anyway –
love, money, family, fame –
the thing you had
but not long enough to appreciate –
popularity, a profession, innocence
(happiness, harmony) –
the thing you spend the rest of your life
trying to recover.
Sometimes life seems nothing
but a series of losses.
It’s always there, waiting.
Death – yours or someone else’s.
I had it once.
Or did I only think I had it?
Wish-fulfillment in its purest form?
Recovery’s the key, the missing piece
that completes the puzzle:
not the piece recovered,
the key that unlocks the loss.
It’s here, somewhere.
Buried. Hidden.
Not irretrievable, even though
you’ll never find it.
Maybe there never was
a treasure after all.
But one day, you know
you’ll find it.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 