A knife cuts clean the jugular of Greece,
Sun-shattered Autumn spurts in breezes,
Her face falls like crumpled sails of the trireme
~This is the sound of sinking clouds, mammatus~
The slow tottering head sinks into itself,
The arm of once-command lies lengthwise
Next to the sea, as waves erase all her form,
And the drear and maddened moon in its cage of stars.

freckled cheeks / soft decibels

dress wearing
wine taster
dreamcatching
manhunter

an attraction
to green and yellow
an aversion to blue

an imprint of her muted form
under a name that hides her

she often lies there
in a shimmer
a bit of a sleeping beauty

in the pleasing shape
of Wisconsin / Illinois

whose charms
are revealed
like arcane secrets
only to those
with patience,
persistence,
and a lack of proximity
to heavy machinery

I am the Empire in the last of its decline,
That sees the tall, fair-haired Barbarians pass,--the while
Composing indolent acrostics, in a style
Of gold, with languid sunshine dancing in each line. -Paul Verlaine, "Melancholy"


I am the Empire, in decline.
The elm tree is yellowing;
the rain-arm is broadcasting
from the cloud station.

I am the once-loved voice,
now a tired smear of memory;
the ghost of a market thrill,
a bed of smoke, a red register.

I am the Barbarian, grown fat
after the stuttering blonde pyres
are stilled: finger-flickers of ash.
I am the white noise nocturne

after the rerun is over.
I am the cathode ray,
the scent in the glass.
I am the Empire, in decline.

is a circle.
The
minefield of
breathing.

I inhale.

The rasp of a door

hinge.

Gone to rust.

Pieces of
time.

Jigged thoughts…

clang of
chains.

Soggy Days.

Lie wet
leaves.

Rain..

The air pushed.

Behind me a
young woman

falls.


Caroline Shank
9.24.22

L-,

It's a lonely acid evening,
citric-salted, hung like a skin

on headlights that rise
& split into orange antlers.

A woman screams "Barry!"
into the alley, over and over,

until night climbs over her
with black, grinding knees.

Sweet Saturday carvings
are Sunday's rack and bone:

after your lobby debut
(your eyes fine as sea-thread)

you spun away, you are still spinning.
The heart's ever-after is knotted:

I thin you with gin, smear
that clever flash of teeth and lip

into the cold hollows of air
that clot the mid-month.

Listen: the alley woman
gave up on Barry.

Yours,
E-

Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?