Charlene

This is a book about a relationship I had in 1982 with a woman named Charlene. I had been writing poems since 1970 but had never written a love poem. Charlene opened that door and my poetry writing went ballistic across all subject matters. The relationship lasted about 4 months. This book contains all the poems I wrote to her and about her. I was 34.

NOTES: Dr. John WorldPeace JD

I was born a white male in 1948, in Houston, Texas. Since September 2011, have lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico

In October 1970, I wrote my first poem. Since then, I have written about 6,000 poems. Mostly in free verse, unmetered and un- rhyming and in my personal genre: Free verse Haiku. Most of my poems could be looked at as a supplement to my prose auto-biography; poetic snap-shots of what I was thinking or experiencing at a particular moment in time during my life in this earth dreamscape. In the beginning, I recorded the year of poems, then the year/month/day, then year/month/day/time.

I have also published selections of my poems. In June 2018, I began to self-publish all the poems I have ever written to date in chronological order using Amazon's self-publishing software. There are over 70 poem books as of September 2021. I have been adding about 1500 poems a year since 2019, with new poems being published each month.

My genetics and my current state of health make me confident, barring some accident, that I will live more than a few years past 100. I will continue to write poems and in fact, will probably increase the annual volume of poems I write over the rest of my life.

I do not force my poems. I don't channel these poems unless I feel inspired. I have no desire to set a world record for the number of poems written in a lifetime.

All my poems have a spiritual connect and I say that I channel them from the spiritual dimension as opposed to writing them. The poems are written in a couple of minutes, 2-10, then put away in a binder in chronological order. I have lost less than a dozen poems since 1970 when I began channeling them. Usually within a very few minutes after channeling a poem, I have no real memory of what I wrote. The edits I make after channeling a poem are minimal. Images of the original cursive of many poems are online: https://DrJohnWorldPeaceJDPoetry.com. All but maybe 50 of my poems have been recorded in my handwriting.

I do not channel poems that rhyme except incidentally. For me to try to force fit a poetic thought into a rhyming format or any format breaks the flow of the poem; more specifically, crashes the poem.

I have, and it seems natural, significantly refined a method channeling poems. I am in truth a filter. A poetic thought that comes to me is skewed in the interpretation and recording by my personal filters; physical and spiritual (not religious doctrine and dogma dictates). The same poetic thought channeled by someone else would be skewed by his or her personal filters.

Zen Petals

I am not a religionist of any stripe. I believe in the teachings of Jesus but not in corporate Christianity. Zen for me is a generic metaphysical word. Petals in my poetry are a metaphor for mostly
very short free verse poems.

I keep two steno pads together for writing poetry. One for my standard free verse poems and the other for the shortest of poems. Sometimes I will take a line out of one of my poems and enter it in my Zen Petal steno pad. I am most impressed by poets who can in the course of writing or recording a poem have within it a free standing shorter poetic expression.

Poems are never finished until the poet dies.

It is my hope that various publishers will decide to go through my poems and publish a selection of about 100. If that were done, it is unlikely, due to the variety of what I have channeled, that any two selections would be even close to being the same.

Dr John WorldPeace JD
210912-1142