poems by

Michael Beadle

ISBN:  978-1-59948-434-1, 40 pages, cover price $8

($4 if ordered from the MSR Online Bookstore)

Author’s Choice Chapbook Series

Released: June, 2013

Michael Beadle is a poet, author and touring writer-in-residence living in Canton, N.C. His poems have appeared in various journals such as The New Southerner, Sow’s Ear and Pinesong. Since 1999, Michael has been teaching creative writing workshops and performing poetry professionally for schools, festivals and community events across the Tar Heel state. In 2012, he was selected as a poet-in-residence at the N.C. Zoo, and he serves as the Student Contest Director for the N.C. Poetry Society. A journalist for 15 years, Michael published more than 1,500 articles for community newspapers and magazines throughout North Carolina. He is also the author or co-author of four historical books on western North Carolina, including Haywood County: Portrait of a Mountain Community, which won the 2010 President’s Award from the N.C. Society of Historians.

Michael Beadle’s not only a fine poet, he’s a fun poet! His readings get people laughing and moving, and the poems in this collection are trademark Beadle poems with their high energy and playfulness. It’s no wonder he’s been master of ceremonies for several years for Poetry Out Loud. He enjoys what he does, and his enthusiasm is contagious. Accept Michael’s Invitation to you. You’ll be glad you did.

–Malaika Albrecht, Author of Lessons in Forgetting

Consider the Spoon

gentle utensil
saucer’s cousin

sculler of cereals
troller of chili bowls

you wait patiently
in your tomb of a drawer

beside the kitchen sink
until tonight

when I wake you
to greet the spinning fork

laden with noodles
and plump shrimp

a dish bathed in garlic sauce
blessed by a dry wine

when dessert arrives
you dig among cool dunes

of mint chocolate chip
sloping handle cupped palm

demanding nothing
but to be emptied

Because I Could Not Stop My Car

       with a pardon to Emily Dickinson

Because I could not stop my car
It kindly stopped in a tree.
The brakes gave out without a doubt
Near Exit 23.

A tow truck came; it knew no haste.
I counted eight hours that day.
With parts and labor and credit card paper,
I grumbled on my way.

I passed a weeded parking lot
And houses cold and dark.
I passed by stores where no one worked
And heard a distant bark.

I paused before an empty church,
Its yard of nameless stones.
A tree had fallen through the roof.
A wind swept through its bones.

Since then I mark my nights and days
Toiling beneath this steeple.
The pews are polished, the altar ready,
But where are all the people?

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If you would like to read more of Invitation by Michael Beadle, order your copy today.