UIt's not like Dinner where you
Tell the maitre d to give you
a different slice of prime

rib.

You can't slip the pastry
into your pocket this time.

Called out for your writings,
for the chains of thought

You were
heed less in your

Society

Today's the day for
the bells

to ring. The justice.

Please EXCUSE me

I Abhor the convenient
L

To learn is to
scrape the jug.

of

The Grains

Of conversation

s. No. I cannot
marry you

Like this.






Caroline Shank
06.20.20.2

Is it too late to watch the
To see the
cracked burns
of the elderly

the disappointed vocals
of the women in
petticoats


It's a game, Eric
The stringy sounds of
Yesterday. A calliope
Of Summer's by the beacň.

Hold my hand Mr soldier
if you can, take the whisper
of those who read the lips of
those who, like me,
slide it down your pants

To Hell


Caroline Shank
06.20.2024

My Windows look out on the Hastas.
mMy plastic flamingos travelled
     back here.
     Here from Florida

My bolus of early spring
     flowers offer pollin
but no bees arrive.  The
Blossoms reach out to
     the sky.  

It is to no avail.
My hands
shake in anticipation.

The cup of leaves with bite
     holes sift the want
     from my poetry.

I am an adventure.
     Tomorrow I will write
about you. How youth
escaped me and how
the open dreams danced

a little jig, a show of knee

And

The

Last time

ever
    
     you

        called

My

     name.


    
Caroline Shank
6.16.2024

Patterns

The first bell tolls
White noise in the
green dawn.

Are you awake? The daylight
throws up on the rug images
of time refracted.  The
shape of bodies
satisfying a long cry.

Peace slips under the
door, spreads like an oil
stain,  

Time becomes the Apple
Tree.  The future is
truncated.  You walked

away

and I, I lay across the
weather and bury my

head.

Your poem covers me

Like

     a

       shroud.


Caroline Shank
6.18.2014

Today is a mistake, an aberancy
of time. The facts please.

No.

There are no facts when you
love someone.

The day, like a Harlequin novel
opens. The goblet in her hand
falls, the flowers can't catch up.

Think of spilling love like
milk.
You can never save
the white oil slick spreading.

Tomorrow will never come,
There will be only 15 minutes
of night.  

Memories
crawling into daylight

unexpected,

Finally,

constellations
slide across the sky.

The final ending:

“ your appointment with (sorrow) death
was always to be

here.”

Caroline Shank
6.13.2024


Agatha Christe

I found the end where I thought
it was too soon. The vestigal
wrapping of time is in the
dance.  The Nun’s habits
rustle.

There is dust in his eyes.
The sun is blotted out.
My mistaken opinion
forsakes him.

The dish of songs in my
late nights repertoire is
only food for the
neighbor's cat

I am hearing him
Pipe. The trembling
of my heart

Is the only sssooo
uuunnndd.

Caroline Shank
6.12.2024

I can't write when I'm coughing.
The spill of sound from my soured
throat, distinct  as brittle glass
when squeezed, the waiting
martini loosed into the air

Woof of bark and warp
of ice into the long inhale
of winter.

I write while you sleep, the
Soft cotton on my breast,
breath of forgetting denied.

The morning rasp awakens.
Another wasted day filled
With the.
    Loud call of
cough and bark.



Caroline Shank
June 4, 2024