Charles D. Tarlton
The Long Beach Press Telegram
I remember my father stopping to pick up
His Long Beach Press-Telegram, the evening paper.
It was all on green newsprint, and I am sure
There were sufficient adult reasons for that.
Like peppermint candy ribbons in display cases,
or the pedals and steering wheel in our gray Olds,
It was a common part of life, though out of reach.
Now, when I think of it, I feel an odd familiar
Sweetness in my chest, a door into what is past
That's slightly ajar, but can never be opened.
Bio
Charles Tarlton is a retired university teacher who has been writing poetry and flash fiction since 2006. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts with his wifeHis wife, Ann Knickerbocker, an abstract painter. He has had poetry published in: Jack Magazine, Shampoo, Tipton, Barnwood, Abramelin, Simply Haiku, Haibun Today, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, Atlas Poetica, Blue and Yellow Dog, Shot Glass, Sketchbook, Skylark, Six Minute Magazine, Cricket Online Review, Red Booth Review, Linden Avenue Literary Journal, Inner Art Journal, Prune Juice, Rattle, Blackbox Manifold (UK), Undertow Tanka Review, Spirit Wind Gallery, unbroken, KYSO Flash, Review Americana, tinywords, and The Journal (UK), a poetry e-chapbook in the 2River series, an extended historical poem, "Five Episodes in the Navajo Degradation," in Lacuna; and "The Turn of Art," which appeared in Fiction International. He is the featured poet in the fall, 2016 edition of Kyso Flash.