I have a head full of bitter
change.  Shake me gently
or it will fall out.  Do you
like me enough to tally
the aged money?

You are a stream where
people go to pray.  The
Ganges of the soul.  Weary
of the candles floating on
the prayers of lesser sinners
you ask only for confession.

You send the lighted candles
downstream.  Forgiveness
is not for the weak, and
shy of life's detritus

you weary of all things that
I leave on the edge of
sorrow.  Oh! River of my
Old age why do you

need me?


Caroline Shank

That song, that miserable song
will never go away.  That night, the dark night of my soul, is not able to sleep. The pounding of the sound of it breeching the television speakers sends be
back in time.

You know what I mean? The
remnants of a teenage memory
is a sorry stream.  I wake up
every day not knowing if I
will be in that backseat, again. The Lion is awake
and my hands shake with
your memory.  

I am all alone in the space
between reality and nightmare.
My toes touch the floor of the
car, my hand disappears into
the upholstery.  I thought you
liked me.  Funny that.  

The Lion slept all night and
when he woke up he laughed.
My throat ached with the sound
of his roar, the music wimowaying on the radio and I was alone in that crowded
backseat.  

The jungle, the mighty jungle,
rained and the laughter of teenage boys circling the
beat up car smelled of stale
beer and the sodden remains
of my fourteen year old's illusions

died.

Caroline Shank

It's always a question of time
in the end isn't it? I mean
"Time present and Time past"
the Poet said, are embedded in
Time future.  No. In
my opinion, not either in Time Now.

Minutes walk away from me in a line of embedded beads,
choices appear like scenes filmed on plastic cameras.  They are cartoons of yesterday gone to the dustpan.  Celluloid clicks
deeply out of hearing.

There is no one to wind
the clock. It lies on the
ground in cinematic pieces.  
Tobey never could mend it.
  
Time future is not
all that eager to be born
only now that you
have exited the scenery.

Listen! the minutes are all
gone.

The wine and the song like
the minutes are all gone.


Caroline Shank



"Time present and time past/ Are both perhaps present in time future/ And time future contained in time past./ If all time is eternally present/ All time is unredeemable." The opening lines of TS Eliot's Burnt Norton, the first of his Four Quartets

To be truthful my life has
been a waste of space. I
have contributed no thing of
value. Not beauty, or trust.

I have shared treasured
moments with friends and
family, all gone to ashes
everyone.  I have struggled
with the toxicity of this ephemeral life and poisoned
myself.  

When I die the clouds above
me will flee to warmer climes
where I was happy once.

Caroline Shank

Virginia stuffed her pockets
with stones. I'm sure you have heard this before.  It was a
gray day.  I imagine late afternoon.

Cleared of all the syllables and punctuations she
was free to lower her so
skinny body into her shoes,
her bare feet covered with
crackled leather.

Another day and she would
have had a party to which
Richard would attend.  Perhaps
flowers, perhaps wine from
their favorite snug.  

The water was her aim, the
fruit of scraping glaciers her
goal.   I think of her when
skies turn purple with tears
windy days cascade
over me.

I haven't got the scenes rehearsed in my soul as
she must have done.  
Leonard heard her skin
call cry.  He found her pale
hand,

but


his tears were not enough.

Caroline Shank

Dance with me, dance in the unmown grass, the gopher
holes rise edges to unseeing feet.

Dance with me, swing me over the moon on a night I will never forget, rise me to the unseen images borne to fruit in Plath.

Daddy come back is the song
played over the sky's speakers.
You only loved me.  No, no one else.  

Dance with me, waltz to the tune of my lately mother's shod torn
feet. She of the crystal heel.
Her song died in November.

Dance with me Daddy, play
your horn to the tune of stars
banged on my dead ears.

It's over, the dance of tears ended in motionless held breath.
Air of pure delight under no one's grave ended long ago.

Quite funnily, so still the
sadness of the night.


Caroline Shank

I learned early that **** was the form
of choice for ***.  Not that the act was
named or the ****** ugly.  

Where in the world are you all now?
you mealyworms.  How like you to
teach me violence as love and leave
me to learn the lesson so well.

I recline.  **** is the sharing of two
faces.  Your face smells of beer and
your pounding hips ground me.  I
lie.  You are a broken bottle smacked
against a building on a hot summer night.

You are the cigarette before left in the
weeds.  I learned from you not to trust
the backseat of cars, to wait for calls
from the garbage man’s son.

Trash man, black car, you hung
on a tree.  All your sperms dangle
in the light of the bowling alley, shine
in the rubber.

Old man, pound on me till you think
I am satisfied.  Old man.  Eat ****.
        old man eat ****
        old men eat ****, grow bald.
        Remember me in the dashlight
        I was the fifteen year old rubbed
        drunk, sunk under the haze of
        horror.  You were the gun.


Caroline Shank