I'm oh so far away from
where you are.

I have climbed your mountain
and found only scree and granite
at the top.

Others have been here and left
a stone.  I have nothing to leave
you but an empty dish. A cold
meal once eaten is like a frozen
embrace.  Empty is empty.

I am walking away from your
promise like a cat leaves a
deserted dish.

No! Do not touch me.  
Touch only the breeze as
I leave.  Do not speak to me

I lie
in the air,
crying with the
gulls.


I mourne
Kaddish.



Caroline Shank

It's the wartorn pedestrian
whose  tears fall on the
heart's side streets.

Veins of regret that curl
the same pain.  It's not
the sorrow that hurts, it's
the gullibility of time's
unlearn-ed lessons.

The old suffer
most.  The pandemic
of hope again in
the release of
lyrics left long ago.

The letdown lisps
it's own goodbye, prefigured
in the drawl of soft sighs.

Goodbye is muted
and falls to the floor.

It sinks to the power
of your poetry.



Caroline Shank

She could not abide the
accolades.  Every syllable
scratch and poked through
her.  Layer after layer the
thorns of praise tore her

until one day she stowed
stones in her pockets.
She walked along the
side of the water, not
thinking now, not even
the recitation of reasons.

Thousands of words
behind her and she
did not think they
mattered.  She walked
along the bank and
gathered pieces of
granite.  She hoarded
these like treasures

until she had enough.
The first step was
cold but unnoticed.

She walked into her
death like a nun who
no longer feared the
confessional.

Her hair floated around her
like seaweed, fingers
like fish.  She stopped
the flowers of language

until there were no
more petals.  She died
consumed by a
brownness welcomed
after the lighthouse
darkened.

Mrs Dalloway
never gladly held
another day.


Caroline Shank

You are the wind.
You are the words.

Down in the hollows of
my throat you are
the songs I hum.

Your growl sounds
take me out of me.

Lay me down.
Ta dumm

Strum me.

I am the riff from
your guitar..
Play me now.  

Turn up the radio.
"It's been a long long
time."

"Play me."


Caroline Shank


Conway and Neil
and me.

I don't have anything to hold
you to me.  No picture or voice.
Do not go, but turn
if you feel the draft of your
name brush against you.
Know that it is I who sent it.  

I am a listener these days.
Listening for your voice
that called my name.

I do not publish you but
gently unscroll the days,
those summer days, so
short, when you said

forever.


Caroline Shank

My poems fall flat
like a slap on a
warm winter night.

I'm an old woman
in a dry season.
I tally the years on
prayer beads.  The
clack doesn't help.

I call out "Dr. Dr. Take
my breath away. It's
all I have left to pay
the toll."

I try and try to call
you but my hands
fail.  There is
nothing left of
me.  I lay my
crackled hands
on a picture
you might

remember.


Caroline Shank

Did you see the one about the
serial killer?  Or the making of
Die Hard?

Laying back in my chair the TV
drones on.  The world as I
know it spins out of control.

It's going to be a landscape
of empty restaurants and
breadlines.  Of bad hair
and toilet paper.

Don't feel safe in the
tribulation.  A white horse
is about to wait at your
locked gate.
.

Caroline Shank