Charlene Neely

Charlene Neely has been a dishwasher, waitress, cook, babysitter, nurse’s aide, stock clerk, elevator operator, paste-up artist, service girl at a candy factory, Fuller Brush man, Avon lady, printer, copy machine operator, circuit board imager, wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, chauffeur and sometimes tries to put it all into poetry. She is published in anthologies and magazines and mails silly postcard poems to friends and family.

In 2016, her book The Lights of Lincoln was published by Fusion Media. It chronicles the public art project Illuminating Lincoln: Lighthouse in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Her email motto is "The home of a poet is full of Delight!"

* Charlene's poem, "The Poem I Should Have Written," is included under the Introspection category in the Origami Poems anthology The Best of Kindness available on Amazon.

•

► Charlene's microchaps & selected poems are available below. Just click the title.

Microchap	Selected Poem(s)
Relatively Speaking
Cover: Family photo collage for Grandma's 90th birthday •	In the Four to Twenty Years Left to Me Since my mother lived to be eighty-six, and my grandmother to one hundred and three, I’m thinking I have somewhere between Four to twenty years of life left to me. They also left me patience, fortitude, and a sense of humor – much needed when dealing with our offspring – so I’m told. Case in point, shortly before my mother left us, I was regaling her with the latest escapades of my grown children. I asked, more or less rhetorically, if there was any chance they’d grow up. She looked at me a moment and completely dead pan, said she’d seen no sign of it in her children. Patience, fortitude, and a sense of humor. All tied up in one simple statement. It could be a long four to twenty years.	Great Aunt Mae’s Bicycle I’m biking to Florida, never mind that it’s a mere 1,400 miles one way. My map shows it’s downhill all the way. I’m going to wear my sunshine yellow dress (In fact, I bought five, each one is the same, billowy skirt to float around my legs, a deep ruffle around the square neckline.) My bike, the purple of a lilac bush, is a hand-me-down from my Great Aunt Mae. She swears it will not break down on the way (and nobody can swear like Great Aunt Mae). She threatened it with curses known only to drunken sailors and wart-nosed witches, thus insuring my safety on my way. • Charlene Neely © 2024
My Life in a Zip
Click on title to download PDF microchap. Cover collage by Jan K	What’s a Zip Ode? Memorialize your federally appointed numerical designation by writing an ode to your zip code. Each zip ode is five numbers, so each Zip Ode will be five lines – the number of words in each line is determined by the number in your particular zip code. If your zip code has a zero, that line can be left blank, or use a symbol such as !, #, $, the number 0 or a capital O. Try making a map of your life with your zip codes. · Charlene Neely © 2019	51560 Oakland, IA we crossed the Missouri River eastward from flat lands to hills ancestors once did this in reverse ! • 68446 Syracuse, NE a short stay in this town but we all enjoyed every minute of it we packed the car two times a day took the road to new adventure • 68443 Sterling, NE a café for a living room, people coming and going all the day long the smell of food the smell of coffee until we left • Charlene Neely © 2019
Soup Dreams
Click title to download PDF microchap. Cover : www.bbc.co.uk •	Note I'm Sure The Plumber Meant To Leave on My Refrigerator Door Missus, The door was open so I let m’self in pipe was leakin’, you said, I shut the power off not wantin’ to get shocked by garbage disposal leavin’ me with the need to reassure m’self all was back to workin’ ‘fore my tools got put, an’ I left the premises checked the fridge to see nothin’ went bad while I worked up my appetite under yer kitchen sink which is why you’ll find the left-over chicken an’ cherry pie gone missin’. • Charlene Neely 2014	Soup Dreams A big bowl of tomato soup and me in search of a spoon. The drawer was full of bees, I took the bees to the backyard only to find their hive covered with bath towels which I folded and returned to the cupboard. The shoes that fell out when I opened the door marched off with me in a parade down Main Street where I found a haberdashery that had one spoon but when I returned home the dog had lapped up every drop of my soup. • Charlene Neely © 2014
Lessons Learned
Click title to download PDF microchap. Cover image from the Web •	Lessons Learned This is the lesson I learned when my dead father returned. Leaning against the coffee shop wall he just waited for me to acknowledge his presence, to tune out the espresso machine, the teen-agers at the next table discussing a teacher they hated, the new-age music coming from poorly concealed speakers in the rafters, the fire truck racing by siren blaring headed for one emergency or other. He waited for me to settle my notebooks, put my cup where it couldn’t spill, get out my pen and look up to see him. Then he told me the secret is to listen. Listen for the quiet that lies underneath the mayhem of everyday life. • Charlene Neely © 2014	Beginnings My father came from a place that was always moving from one end of the country to the other and back again. From the end of the line where the railroad stopped, they doubled back to Tennessee and then to Denver, the Mile High City. When moves came before the end of the school year, home was whoever would take him in and feed him. He learned early to fend for himself. He learned that every ending was just another beginning. • Charlene Neely © 2014

Poets