The snow goes away.
You call me out to play Lord.
I feel joy at last.

Temperatures rise,
Spirits dance in the daylight.
You catch me spinning.

Tomorrow gives way
to a dream. A warm balming
wafts my soul about.

You melt my winter
like icicles in the sun.
I run toward spring.


Caroline Shank

Your shade, ma, follows me like a
loaded red wagon .  You are heavy
with the fruit of your youth.
What were you like as a young
girl fresh in the breeze of
morning?

Did you love your mother?  I heard
her singing in her French
voice.  She folded into life in
Milwaukee, spread into death.
She covered you like a
cowl.

You don't cover me.  You are not
allowed. I never cry for you
and that is your naked
sorrow.

I saw you once crying for your
mother.   Are you together now?

Shades rolled over on
the window of my
days and nights.  

Go away  Ma.  
Run for cover from my
poem's imagination.

Caroline Shank

Love melts like chocolate on a face
on a hot Summer day.  You can't
capture it because it drains down
your lips to tomorrow.  

Love falls to the ground and colors
the grass a burnt orange.  The color
of my  heart when you left me
without sound.  

Words unsaid smear.  
Unrecoverable sounds of
midnight kisses elude.

Love remains in me,
before you ever left.

How do I say goodbye
to nothing in my hands?
The silence of
your leaving drips
as you
melt away.


Caroline Shank

Good morning Sunshine, roll over me
in that special way.  Bring out the
juice that warms me.  I see your clear
heat.  You are not invisible to me.

Roll over me Sunshine.
I wait on the day.  Gray days
you hide.  I know.  You are
Tantalus to my Sophia.  I call

you out of hiding to run your
fingers over my skin call
cry to be love touched.

Good morning sunshine. I
wait for your song.  Rub on
my skin.  I am open
and I hold hot hands with
the summer winds.

I am mellowed by your touch.

Caroline Shank

It's the end of another day.  Goodnight Moon.
The sun is gone now and it runs away
from me.  Hello long hours of Sturm
and Drang.  I don't sleep until, drugged,
I stumble into dreams.

I no longer dream of you.  I dream of
the deaths of friends.  I count them.
Some are pebbles, some are rocks.

I trip into my waking hours like a
Redwood falls in the forest.  I walk
forward with a limp.  

I no longer dream of you.
I save sleep
for unimportant things.

Tonight is a blank sky.
It is tears dammed by floats
of lost time.  Unrecoverable
time.

Are you still
softly singing

"Sweet Caroline"  

to the dark horizon.  🎼 🎶?



Caroline Shank

(Do you remember Columbine?  I do.
From Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris
straight through to Anthony Ferrill
of yesterday's Milwaukee nightmare,
the deaths like a drumbeat go on,)

Shooters like thistles crawling
in their dementia to our cities
leave trails as the unexplainable
cancer claws to vine into our
conscience.  We listen to the

words as waves of newspeak
write the epitaph of our known
society.

Deeds as gunshots slap the
faces of we who can no
longer sleep. The panacea of
Peace In Our Time has rotted
limbs.

I live in the branches,
the false years of  the 50's.  
The Days of Our Lives
are indeed shot with a

bang

not

a whimper



Caroline Shank
2.27.20

February in Milwaukee is a quiet time.
Waiting for Spring and trying to lose
weight for the usually beautiful
midwestern summer.

Shots ring out.  The brewery is a
Crime Scene.   Snow falling on
police.  People are dead.  The
shooter too.  No more information yet.

It's a cold Wednesday.  School
children are hustled away.  Hours
in lockdown.  The press scurry
like beetles.  Flashing lights are
blinking like scared eyes in the
crowd.

Over and over the sounds of
chaos are quieted.  Clouds fall
steam and noiseless tears
as people are released to
go home.  A TV reporter
asks banal questions of
survivors.

The brewery goes on melting
hops and grains.  Mash is
safe at least as Milwaukee
bars stock Miller beer to
complete the conversation.


Caroline Shank
2.26.20