Long ago I was born.
Generations have grown
up around me.  I am
reminded of this by
a recent escape from
depression.  

Cynara.

I have loved as well as
I have been able.  But
I am not full to the brim
of life just yet.

I offer
crepuscular years,
roses that grow
in the shade, and
warm wine at
supper.

Please forgive
the imperfection
of a soul survivor.
The choice was
made by God.


Caroline Shank
3.23.20

"I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,"

We dug with bare hands
each to the other.  Sifting
minutes into memory,
language into clover.

We spread our hands
gave life a chance and
the Universe said Yes.

We haven't changed a
minute.  We share the
telepathy of souls,
the candles of passion.

Tomorrows infinite,
reaching into each
other,

roots entwined.


Caroline Shank

Renaissance man.
You are the face of God,
of breathing. You move
currents in
our direction.  

I offer you the flower
of my country.  A flourish
saved for a hero. Be my
Cavalier.  Move
true to our time.

Renaissance man
history will move
us together if only
for the length
of a petal.

Caroline Shan

Outside my window is a globe
dropping frozen tears
that hover between the small
spaces afraid of touch.

Distanced from each
other by the sweeping of
grass on the frozen seeds
of a landscape falling from
trees.

The sky is abandoned to
fate.  We walk on tiptoe.
Today is not enjoyed.
There is no kiss.

My bird sings from her
cage, oblivious to familial
possibilities that render
me reaching for the
soap.

Snow turns to
glops on wet pavement.
We stay indoors.  Our
own globe infected with
a search for sanity.

We can only touch
thru glass.


Caroline Shank

Down the pipes it pours.
Wet, earthy smelling and
warm in July.

Keep the sounds for
me.  I hear only the
horns and slather
of the wet cars.

Rain in the buckets.
Rain in the storm
drains.  The pouring
down street lamps
glowing at night.

Rain.  The song of
Songs in the Bible
of my life.

I stand still in the
night.  Listening
for your voice
in the splash of
rain

on my face.

Caroline Shank

We are born in tide pools
and **** heaps minutes after the
Big Bang and Slow Drip.
We are remnants of some
primordial ooze.  

I have lost my tail.  
My call is
clogged with ages of
brittle shake.

I knew you before
the worlds were made.
Soldiers of misfortune,
we trip over fossils
and skree to touch
each other.  

The Flood placed a wave
between us and is the
moraine we travel daily,
barefoot and calling.

Echoes fall with a
dull thud, our lives
immemorial, our
love Jurassic.


Caroline Shank

It was not important, what you said.
It was not really the end of life
when you were leaving.  You took
all  sound with you.  But the rain.

Drenched and bone cold I
called you.

You hid in the tall bushes.  Tied as
you were to my voice you still
broke free. I was untethered
and alone.  I cried
as I left you in the dark.

You are silence leashed to my
last memory.  I was untried and
I lost.

I breathed your air.  You inhaled
me.  I told you I wouldn't hurt you.
But I killed the first fragile filaments
of touch, of kiss.  You folded like
a cloth in the night.  I ran to God
who didn't want me.

I have written poems with
the ink of time's pallette.
Colors I remember.  Did you
cry that night you left me in the
rain?  I died for three days.

You can find me, if you look,
behind time's trickster.

You don't like heartbreak poems.
I know this much.  Your impatience
defies reality.  I melt the ink
with which you scoff.  I am
not heartbroken.

I am become death.

I linger alone.

Caroline Shank