Charles Edward Mann
1988 Poet Laureate
Charles Edward Mann has an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College and teaches English at Bucks County Community College. His poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Threepenny Review, The Greensboro Review, The Southern Humanities Review, The New York Quarterly, The Cream City Review, and many other publications. His chapbook, After the Pledge of Allegiance was published by Puddinghouse Publications in 2000. He won the Robert Fraser Memorial Prize in 2001, and his work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Come and Let Us Mark Our Measure
(for Dee)
What magic will our lives compel,
dear mistress to my willing muse,
in this, the kingdom of our pleasure,
where less is more and more is need,
and one to one is present gain.
Come and let us mark our measure
hard against the wall of heaven,
the past in all its parted treasons.
Let time’s flight subtract the leaven,
and do its best to best discount--
our numbered knot’s alchemical:
here we two as one are fused,
a mathematics of the double heart,
clearly co-signs in a single part.