Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 
~
She smiles only in pictures
Her hair is growing long

With eyes closed
Au coucher du soleil
Her voice is dulcet
Her laugh is nexus

"Take me with you," she says.
"We'll make kites, we'll steal land."

The gentle arrival of rain
In the blue hour of
The portrait gallery
Makes her qualified to dream
About a serenade of water
And the blueberry boat

~
 Jan 25 Caroline Shank
Emma
The weight of my truths
presses like stone—
no flood, no release,
only this grinding ache
against the sharp edge of language.

Each word is a wound reopened,
a splinter of myself
held to the light.
Silence is complicit,
it does not absolve,
only deepens the scar.

If my darkness stains you,
if the truth catches like barbed wire,
tear your gaze away—
this is not a plea for witness.
This is survival,
the slow unraveling
of a story that refuses erasure.

Do you doubt my suffering?
Do you doubt the sediment
of years pressed into me,
the residue of what I was?

What more can I give you
than this blood-inked offering,
this heartbeat fractured
between words,
pauses,
and the spaces you fail to see?

Let me remain unwhole—
not yet healed—
but forging the threads
that might someday
bind me to the surface
I cannot yet reach.
A reply to someone you know who you are, who made me feel terrible about being still unhealed from my past abuse and yes my trauma is very real.
Two decades and a year
I come back to Darjeeling.

The blaring horns
have snuffed out
the pines' whispers,

and the glorious hilltops
retreat beyond
the many hilltop hotels.

Richmond hill is rich
with structures
that have made men richer
and traders have ensured
Nature here has no future.

The once magnificent Mall
has grown so small
you wonder if it's there
you laid your soul bare
to the woman of your love.

Darjeeling,
once where
she rode a wild horse
I would never come back.

And I will have no remorse.
'Filled the hummingbird's font, once more.

The one old ruby head that stayed the winter,
assuring me and any watching, winter

this year shall be sufferable, dry, little
or no snow… in Southern California.

Though fire from wires routing lightning
to enlighten the night may respond
to prayers from stargazers,

after the smoke clears,
leaving night as dark as death, yet

the prognosticating humming bird,
remains a joy to feed.
Darkest night in Malibu, since one as old as me remembers.
 Nov 2024 Caroline Shank
Dom
conflict is a woman
I can’t stay faithful to.
She makes a home in my eyes
wrapping herself in the lies that
lay crumpled on silk sheets.
Truth over harmony is the poem
she hums to me
yet
I still run to sing melodies
in the other beds I’ve made.
Only you can take
Me out of bed and
Get me through the
Dullness of my day
Only you can give me
Energy enough to keep
All those intrusive
Thoughts at bay

No need for sugar
No need for cream
I like you dark
Bitter and true
I believe we make
Such a perfect team
When we're together
I never feel blue

So call it love
Call it addiction
I couldn't care less
If I have a cup of
Hot strong coffee
I won't fade to stress
Just one cup will be fine... or maybe twenty.
Next page