I don't have for you, a leaf or
a stone or an unfound door,
no not even
the sound of the gate's
clicking.

Angel of my once beginning
broken,
home, blown down
around my wrinkled feet.

You are not allowed.
The abandonment of a love
affair under your careful
vocabulary, can only but strip
the remaining skin shined
mind.

Where else should I go to,
gently or torn away?  To
dream of better days? To
round the corner empty
after all.

The same birds in blue plumage
sing a little tilted now.  Though the
pattern is the same.

You don't see the war between
myself and you. You see
patterns where I walk in the
garden.  I see the soft brown
of yesterday curl adoringly
once around the house
and fall asleep.

I am out placed. The Angel
in the square told of my
forsaken, washed and combed
recumbent  wisdom turn
to ashes on the winter
Manhattan sidewalk.
.
Will I see you in
September?



Caroline Shank
1.25.22

prowles through my geography.
He is imperious in his flat paws
and dark, voluminous gaze.

His prowl, never the same, twice
around me. Learning the veins
and arteries of memory.  He
walks the rope of yesterday.

Black and sleek, he sways,
the tension oblique in it's
slant towards the cage bars.

I hear his rumbling response .  
He shaves the vowels of his
experience.  Glares like

tomorrow the world will end
With the slap of his jaw.
fhe end of the bars

never meant anything.  He
lumbers into my waiting gaze.

I feel the cold cold stare
of night falling on me.
He smiles in satisfaction,
paces again through my
tears.



Caroline Shank
January 14, 2022

Once I told you not to explicate my life
like this.   Don't tear me apart as when
the grass grows too high.  You mow me
and I am cut to my bleeding bones.

I receive your blades into my sanctuary
of flesh.  A little more of me to spill out
and I run.  There is a bottle of gin
waiting.  I forgot it very well when
you left me.

I don't want to be your friend.  I don't
want to wash in the same cracked sink
as you do.  Wear me on your last

trouser pocket, the blue one from
the New York tailor we could not
afford.  The abortion remains
too fragile to be spoken of.

The crackling of the shutting
door is all I can hear.    


Caroline Shank
January 12, 2015

Your moods are to me as is Mars
in ununderstanding.
You call and I am ready.
You bring the day's strata
of news.  There are layers
to us.  I do the moods as
an animal does clover in
a field unexpected.

I remain here
waiting,
Evergreen and u


Anonymously
I remain…



Caroline Shank
04.15.2l

It's a quarter past midnight.
Begin, here, the dirge.  
The promises of love
are missing.

We danced.
A long time ago
The shuffle, the
slow, rub,
lingers.

I did not reach out
thru the abyss,
to you
on the other side.

I grow old with
briars and cattails.
The winds scream and
the last song fractures the

heart of me.


Caroline Shank
12.31.21

The get together, the
conversation like snowflakes
melts to gin. The baubles
in the cake discarded.
Laughter, like a drunken
fruitcake, soaks in 🎭 ***.

We leave our coats behind.
The owner looks on in enebriated
unbelief and goes  to bed.

It is cold and Christmas contents
scatter behind backyard bushes.
We fall on the ice to gales of
hiccup and yelps of pain.

Our outdated traditions look
out on faces, missed at the party,
***** of belongingness.

Someone said that Christ is the
reason, but the customary
exchange gleaned
in moments, is glaringly
missed and the broken
heart turns over.
The sad neglect
which is mother of
this sadness, is seen
by the enebriate a tribute
to those who laugh.
  

Caroline Shank

To live one minute the breathless
expectancy of life
on the brink of a world whirling
at you with joyous awareness,
is to know that every sunrise calls
the Imam to prayer,

and in you the the consent of
life, the Summer response,
that breathless gasp .  


Caroline Shank.  
12./15/21


Caroline Shank.  
12./15/21