Have I told you about
the Summer of 74, my
steamy discontent?

There I was, waiting,
like someone waiting.
An empty dance card.
So to speak.

I forget my next thought,
but never those yellow
evenings,

Moments float into a
filled mouth we breathe
into each other, wanting
always waiting.
I keep them in the Chinese box.
Your souvenir of an abandoned
July.

The sweet soft

song lasting in amber grained
wood.  

Your words on my kissed lips.

The perennial intimacy
in the upstairs room you
slept in.

Now the warm night's tango
slides like lotion down
my tanned thighs.

This dance is always,
forever.

Caroline Shank

The substance of our
relationship is the accident
and the spin of
time and the whirl
of this existence is
in the potency.

You are because I am. These
blue eyes are the essence.
The substance of an early birth
in a long tunnel.  Truth erased
by a minute's pleasure.

This poem is a radical
moment. Time stretched to
the limit of potency.
We are or are not determined
by the body and soul of
our essence.  Whether we
exist or not is in the
form of the attention we
each bring into this…

Time together is the soul's
determination.  We can only
form the intention.

Intention without form is
matter without you.

Caroline Shank

Without a Kiss




Without a kiss hello or a wave
goodbye he travels the streets
and cinder paths.  He walks
beside her and never sees
her stained feet and
bleeding.

Tonight the sky is dark,
the crunch of autumn
leaves softened by the
rain of this afternoon
and the last bugs of
night, sings and the
quiet footfalls
remind her of another
lover.  The quiet sigh
from you throws a pain
around her shawl clad
shoulders.

No it made no difference
finally and with her tears
she scrubbed your name
from the temple where
it had been carefully
drawn.

It is said, somewhere, that
the long walk on wet street's
leaves leave only the faint odor

of my cologne.


Caroline Shank

Invariably,
You prefer to come
To me in the dark.
"You're more my temperature then,"
You once said.
I'm not much of a thermometer,
But I am the eurythmy
To each syllable you give
In such settled shadow.
A play of murmurs and fingertips,
You once named this.
Always I see a wreath in your hair,
In colors of Persia,
Textures of night,
And the soft blended lines
Of you I know
Infallibly.

You will never forget that first brush
of love.  The earnest breeze of a fresh
today, as if now were magic and
breathing was beyond explanation.

After which the future cannot  
draw from you the stream of
that song, the bell of a long moan.
For the days stretch on catlike
and clawing.  You understand that
this was the beginning of the
end of peace. A rip in the
fabric of time.

You will never forget the sound
called out by tomorrow that
never takes tomorrow under
consideration.  

To love infinitely is a lesson
beyond youth or midlife's
precarious adventure.  It is
the last bite of all experience,
the quintessential notes
of poetry.

Love itself escapes all the
ink fallen in the glass.
You are writing a
diary no one will
ever read.

The red hair of yesterday
changed into dusk and the
sun sets in perpetuity.

Caroline Shank

You are no one in particular. If I saw you on the city's streets I would
pass you by as the wind scrufs
the fallen leaves on the
***** sidewalk.  
I would not know you
as you were,
a soldier and a king.

You have forgotten promises
and faith.  Life is a sad thing
when the little mention in
the paper has only the
inelegant childhood phrase:
Dominus vobiscum.

People will say How Odd
she was and round in her
years of silence.

Someone will wonder if
I were ever loved and if I
danced in the
dim light of the red room,
with a slot machine and
not much else but the
music and the breath
between us.


Caroline Shank

If you kiss me now our eyes
will close and we will
push against each other
like fruit vying for the light,

In the nightpain of loving
our eyes will slowly open
and your face will wilt
until its cheeks and crevices
dim under the sad symmetry of
our public lives.

If you kiss me now I will forget
the grown repair of skirt alone
in the loud sound of memory
as it slips ever so gently away.


Caroline Shank