We are all  walking,  wounded.
Pedestrians on a planet we have
never been to before. I read that
someplace.  I don't mean to
place myself outside of literature
but rather as a note on the follicle
of philosophy. Entropy is where
I mostly find myself.
"the rest is not our business"

Do you remember who said that?
Another abstruse literary spot
on the book of where to go next.

I will write about this again in
some other poem. I do believe
tomorrow wakes us up to
new pages turned by some
gasp of wisdom.
Tomorrow and tomorrow….
is the cats contribution

She licks herself clean.


Caroline Shank
2.13.22

The pale face of morning
has not arrived yet.
The gloaming penumbra  of today
will break through and scatter
syllables of this dream across the
last face of today

I am going to try to write the haiku
I promised myself I would to
complete the seasons cycle.
It scares me to think that you
are going to see this attempt
to reach into tomorrow
and find in it the last vestige
of a psychiatric embrace
of all things Eliot.

Bring forth this
smothering  mother
of a morning,
The poetry
correlative of the condition
of this myth is a blessing.
This is a good thing
and lives in the sun's
bright chambers.

The grace rendered in the
skew of this is

a light that shines

in our imagination.



Caroline Shank
2/11/22

Spring

Clouds form.  Cold north winds
roll in.  We run toward Spring.
Slide.  You warm in me.


Caroline Shank

Winter stands on flat frozen feet.
Cold circles swirl, move and in
daylight masquerade.I am
blinded by the stinging swirl.
Here, near my window,
the cat's bowl rests
on the dark plank floor

This season's Specter, the
Ghost days wipe all memory
of high soft summer winds,  
a deep water, strong
and free summertime songs.

May I be patient with this winter
cold mutt of a gun down on the
wide hipped grey trench which
in summer feeds my poetry.

You may ask why I seldom write
these days.

I wait for you. I warm  
that for which you are
not responsible.
But like Mable in my poems

you sing.


Caroline Shank
2.10.22

You scorn the soliloquy
of my sadness.  The
ubiquitous wind of
Poetry.

But
I always thought the person to
love me would occupy
the spaces between  breathing.

That there, against words,
would be warmth and solace
from the years of loneliness.

But you did not risk my
poem's breathing.

Tomorrow I will go away to
where the disturbed vowels
tell of my reason.
I am the author
of my destiny.

You cannot bear
the blur of my tears
the cry of my years,
the sound of  broken
clefs,  
where once we sang.

I will trace the
notes of this diary,
across the pages of
time.

Alone, again
naturally. 🎼.




Caroline Shank
2.7.22

Are you sleeping up there in
the stone parapet in which
you spend your time writing
letters and showing how you
can trip the light fantastic

with no one watching. You,
where you retreat to listen
to music. To read your books
and with wine dream,
like Miniver Cheevy, of the
days of roses.

Do you think of me? My
perfume you were so fond
of.  Oh, how I adored you!

I am not allowed to climb
the steps to your so private
sanctuary.  The locked door
reminds me of your pledge
to God to leave me and the
child.  

We are not yours, not anymore.
You with your hunched shoulders
crying "That is not all, that is
not it at all."

Your dead heroes replace me.
I should have gone away before
I knew you loved me.  But how
could I?  I will tomorrow shows
me a new place to hide away.

Think of me when you are
inside with your plans and dreams,
and I am on the outside scrolling
across the long years in which
I am stranded.



Caroline Shank
4.29.20

I'm in a room without recovery area:
a room of intermission, a room
of collapse. Where are
the convenient little windows
to release a wicked bird of thought?
The quiet there is monk-like,
rogue, and slightly unpleasant, guilty
of moments spent with shadow.

I want to build a clock
that ticks once a year
—more dark than shark,

my confessional capacity
—time-stretched,
like the heavy intoxicated *******
of the witching hour. And I'll
make soup from the leftover prayers
of the day before, all in hopes
the rooms of me, then so clear,
will one day be faraway suns
in the temple of heaven.

Time Chimes

I call to you
from out the mullioned
window on the back
of my house.

Windows open to recent rains.  I feel the
soft air of yesterday before the crepuscular
failure of today. (I know, you hate that word,
crepuscular. You hate a lot of words.)

The last light of day lay like velvet
on my doorstep. A signal
to shake the lace curtains.
Wave to far years gone to
other lovers.  The vibrations
on my skin reminds me of you.  I am
old now.  These are memories of
when we were young and tan
and satisfied with a bed and a beer
and a joint shared in the upstairs room.
Now curtains slow as my breathing
slows.  I am comfortable in my
old chair here by the light.  The
mewling of feral kittens is music
enough.  

Night surrounds me.
The ocean is my song.
I am completed in my time.
You, my muse, are aware of
my souls quiet caring. The
sun sets where once we saw the
sky with blue eyes and shooting
stars.  Our destiny is a psalm
to missed timing and unlit
cigarettes.  

Hear me in your deafness
calling on the memories we
made like Michaelangelo.

Art is never a vehicle for
humans last only a
minute.

Time chimes in the
downstairs room
and I sing to myself.

Caroline Shank
2.1.22