I am an Elderly woman fit
Only for the company of fine
women and the occassional
fake Mimosa.  My hair is
white, the before longed for
auburn is past.  Bottles in
a old shelf

Today is the dreamed of
moment lived like a zoo
animal in the back cage.

I will eat cereal from a cake
cone thrown to me by those
without the wrinkles of my
experience.

Not given the dignity of a
place in the sun. My youth
mispent. I spend my time
cleaning which my dead
husband thought amusing.

I only smile when I think
Tomorrow will come to

Everyone.

Soon.


Caroline Shank
12.23.2023

It ain't gonna happen
no more

Ain't gonna be no kissin'
No nor maple tree.

Tomorrow ain't gonna

tell my story
'cause I ain't gonna
see no love'n

Cause you gone and
died away from

me.

There is a favor I called
in, a moment before

you died and the glass
covered your eyes.

I am not singing in the
Chorus.  The Angel's
practice better and

the music calls

your sacred singing
Baritone

No More


Caroline Shank
12.14.23

I Prayed that I would love
someone
again in this lifetime.

That he would
recognize
me in my selfness
and be glad.

Glad as primitively as a
single
glimpse
regales the saddest

crying echo of my
name morphing into
Song.

Have I found that
ecstatic moment?
Have you in the
moment's recognition
sung with me

tonight?

No The End is not my
Beginning. It is the

World

Which breathed our
names

Together



Caroline Shank
11.19.23

In the underbelly of
the greatest declaration,
a small observer
watches

The hills are
covered.

Burning bushes is a painting.  
Moses never even knew.
The gold in the
packs is where the

party hid. Weighted.
Brilliant under the
leather
covers.

Looking out now are the
memories that
live for a short
spring,

Look out back
The unwovem sorrows

of

No news spoken.

As for me

I buy the cereal

before returning.


Caroline Shank
11.5.23

262 555- 5555 and i
can see
well enough to drive.99 pages

I am swinging my arms.

I take my white hand
and in your freest moment
I will
dress wounds whose polar
regions,

like my heart, sigh with
slogans.

Be mine says the moments
transcendent.

Catch me through the rye.
You will hear the singing

Grass Harp telling you of
love and growing things.

"Love is a chain of love"
wound around the
farthest star.  

Listen to me.  December
Is a stone's throw away.

I fall and there are
little kindness especially
holding me. Precariously

I wait for a season's
diminish.  A cry of

     sadness
in the face of
Winter's approach.

         Stay me then
into June …

and. Beyond.



Caroline Shank
10.31.2023

It's not the fault of the stars,
literature or my mother,
The vague statues
The crenelatted fringes
Of half remembered
conversation that rest
in my imagination .

I look for, in you,
the long shadows of
memory scrolled on
the sands of literature

This
poem,

These choices,
       unfold.

         Love

recapitulates.


Caroline. Shank
10.28.2023

The rippling of the sand in a shoreline
pool is the shallow response to the

waves.

The sunshine's answer is to the dark.
Tomorrow always unfolds in the
prism of today.

Love unrequited lies on the heart like
tears on the page
Shiny shells

     Lie. Your hands
hold your face and
Wait.

You will find the
   Shift of my love

Onto

   Your beautiful

timeless moment.

Context will show you

The Way to my

      heart.


Caroline Shank
10.22.23