Gary Beaumier
CONTACT:
Email: beaumiergary@gmail.com
BIO:
Gary Beaumier has worked a dizzying array of jobs including teacher, bookstore manager, gandydancer and garbage man. Over the past four years he has won seven writing contests for his poems including “Night Train to Paris,” “Sirocco,” “The Shape of My Absence” and most recently the Emily Dickenson prize for his poem “Spirit Animal.” His poem “Night Forest” won the Love Poetry contest was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and is the title poem for a recently released anthology. His two books Dented Brown Fedora and From My Family to Yours through Raw Arts Review and Finishing Line Press. His newest book Tales of the Afterlife was a winner for the Raw Arts Review book contest. He recently won the Proverse Hong Kong poetry prize for his poem “Portrait of My Soul as a Mushroom.”
PUBLICATIONS:
Collection, Tales of the Afterlife (2024), Raw Arts Review.
Collection, Dented Brown Fedora, Uncollected Press (2020), available for purchase on Raw Arts Review.
Poetry chapbook, My Family to Yours, Finishing Line Press (2019).
Poetry
Night Forest
Once there was a woman
in the night forest
who could hear
above the register of most.
She would listen to mice
sing in chorus
or coyotes
comfort their young
over the flash and rumble
of coming weather.
There was the night
when I stayed in the garden
late into the hours
and you called for me
and together
we watched the gods
toss stars across the sky
and later
we returned to our bed
and I watched you
over the vastness
of our pillows
as your breathing
fell into a rhythm
and you separated from me.
Have your dreams returned you
to a wooded place,
dusted in moonlight,
where you keen your ears
to other selves,
selves beyond the register
of my knowing?
Night Train to Paris
Our aged bodies
surrender to the sway
and lurch of the train
as we have passed through
the long tunnel
beneath the sea
old is a foreign country
we ride to
when we get there
we will rise to higher places
sit with gargoyles
balance on high slate roofs
as light slips through us
we sleep on park benches
dry leaves chasing around
us like wicked urchins
I will fish the river
in a floppy hat
mouthing a Gauloises
and you with a book splayed
in your lap will feed pigeons the remains
of your bread while sitting
on a soft blanket
and we will glance at each other
as only such longtime companions can with a pure knowing
later we will write postcards
from an empty bistro
—trumpet notes weave into the cool dark air—
telling the children back home
we are here now
and they will not see us again