When the years are more than
77 I will have the God of old
age come over.

I will ask him what he can do
when the battles begin. My
brain staging a fight between
the god of old age and the
god of remembering.

Will I serve tea? or scones?
'Will I walk upon the beach"?
My notes fly everywhere in
the melee. And I think of

You.

Not the new you
But
the you of notes and
tablets.

I am torn.  Like school
Notes in a poem or a

song.

I am not old. Younger
than a fresh catch today.

Big mouths gathering for the
Benediction and the

Blessing of the quiet and
Softly.


But not soon.


Caroline Shank

When I die I will not notice
you by the book in the room
where my ashes lie.  You
never took up space in my
life as I lived it, for you.

When I die I will not see
you not weeping for me
as you stand by the shelf
that has my name written
on it, too soon.

I will lie over you, invisible,
a scatter of memories
you won't recall.  You
left me to live without the
musk of your once,
love.

I will whisp around your
beating heart. You will realize
me in a moment.

You reach out for me,
the air, the stillness, the
forlorn echo of a
memory.



Caroline Shank

Now you are there where
the time turns out to be a
mixture of fear and joy.  
You live between the lines
and spaces of my mind.

We root for all the people
left on the battlefields
of this ****** war
on which we will either
sacrifice or lose to make
the last days of memory
and the dance of the day
our hymn to the silent
future.

We suffer, you and I, the
days of darkness and
strange things that are
coming at us like leaves
twisting off the trees.  We
arrange ourselves between
the dates that crawl from
the calendars. You say
we are going to get, in
the last days of autumn,
the first rays of Spring.

When I Think of you
I pray.

Caroline Shank

When I was a young girl I wondered
If I would find you.  I looked in the grass,
on the horizon, where the land woke
up each day.  I dreamed of your darkness,
of your hands sculpted by David, your
laugh.

I was younger then than I wish I had
been.  I saw your curls in the glass
of my future, your amber eyes stolen
from the Baltic. You guarded my time
telling me that of course I was happy
once but my mother took me
/
away.  She watched me for you on every corner of Chicago. Looked for your blue
eyes in the stranger she finally
married.

But he wasn't you and the penalty
was high.  My youth was her batter
which mixed with gin and
codeine she drank daily.

I found you in a hallway walking
toward me.  It was on a holiday
granted to me once.  I knew you
before the world was made.  The
glimpse of your silent betrayal
left me envying younger women
Before.  I knew you
In the hours of my life at last,

When I was a young woman you
found me. I was braille, you were
soft.  You left me in the tears
of another waif the dust blew in.



Caroline Shank

When men love they move slower
than dawn rolls onto day. Arms
turn toward each other as if to
grasp their beloved as raindrops
grasp the stalk of a flower,
melting around tender shoots
like silk wrapping. They whose
feet have always left sound
behind them, their prints
evaporate in whispers.

Men gather in bundles the
persons they have been, select
the best, the finest moments,
to plant by the porch of the
adored. They go through the
weather of their passion focused,
translated into a language as
sharp, as clear, as cries in
blue sea-gulled air when
nothing but nothing stands
between nature and desire.
The goal of movement is charged
across a world lost to all
desire for choice.

Men love with a kinetic so deep,
so intimate, it is movement inscribed
on every breath.

If then the moment should
come of the crack in the bell of
the heart, when daylight rips
the landscape, they fall, as a
rock falls, to crash along a
beach utterly void of life, to
become trilobite in noiseless
water, moved by the purposeless
shift of time and stone.

Caroline Shank


(This is the best I could glean about men in love. Being female may not have helped.)

When the Universe lies
once

the vellum
of the Book of Life

fades.

The ink (always there is
Ink)

Sours.

You are my Page ;
play me.

You are the

Voice in my sleep.

Crying.


Caroline Shank
10.26.2024













⁹)

Hope, slowly pathed in the
clear smoke of a joint,
gone.  

Caged aspirations.  Who
gave permission to stoke
the mourners,
to increase the music?

In the wake of his youth
he said No to the sight
of lost doors.  Thrown
stones.

Where were you when
the dancing began? The
title of the sermon undone
in the

Church

Of

Insanity.


Caroline Shank
9.1.2022

My friend is gone,a way of
leaving, mirrors October.
    
A warning salvo is flat footed

against the failure to bond,
     A Bottle slips.

The Brandy puddles.

Where have all my

  flowers

gone?  Never a breath, never
a sigh even.

My Old is withered.
to wrong turns.
  To those who read
the magazines.

I persevere
the unwritten
untold.

There is Now.

The failure of laughter
at my expense.

I cry unheard.

The Silence.


.
Caroline Shank
January 8. 2025!


~~

Who Will Miss Me

Who will miss me
anyway?
The Autumn’s imperative
signals the
long division of my
mind.

Under the geography of
Love is a fear that
nothing

Matters.

Longhaired dreams are
features of the young.

It's the Emblem of the
70's.  The crusts of the
untried. No matter
tears on the rheum.

Why wait for love?

There is a
whisper
in the

afternoon.

Only the sad
know

Literature.


Caroline Shank
August 31, 2024

Why should I stay?  I can
find no existential reason
to do so.

Family?  That is emotional
blackmail.  I cannot defy
their reason, but I can't
make sense of it.

I see worms in my soup,
snakes in my dresser
drawers.  Everywhere I
look there is putrefaction.

I am to be cremated.  My
Urn waits with it's label
already in place.

But! Hear the reasons
why I stay.  My God,
my soul's supporter is
not ready for me.  This
I believe.  That when it
is time for me to leave
the violence of this place
I will be shown the way.

This I believe.  That my
family is succour to my
pain and I am grateful
for them.  My children
are made of the same
stuff that gods are made
of. My grandchildren bloom
with my vision of purity.

The worms will not have
me as long as I have You
to listen.  You who are my
soul's radio.  I turn the
hymn of Your life on

and wait.

Caroline Shank

Why Should I

Love in you your crumbs,
the
humor,

the drip of tears from your
moist eyes.

The retro lip with which you
Spew your vision amongst
      pearls.

The climb to you began
early in the morning,

wrapped around and
  Called me

out loud.

You were Jesus
to my
mutiny.  A Promise to
carry me on wings.

There is no ******* Garden.
The reference
only works on those who
are too drunk

to stand up.

In your day I partied
beneath the walls

of Gethsamane.

I wore leaves and
saw

your name

Victorious.


Caroline Shank
10.21.23

Will you be my Valentine?  Next
year of course.  When the red and
white polka dots star out the
night and I am confounded
with your beauty.  

Why haven't I written, you ask?
I have dumped my life's colors
onto pages
and into notebooks for you.
I am a woman of many words.
I describe events in the shells and fossils along the beach we walked when we loved each other.

I am engraved by the events
of your stone hard meanings.
I wrap your adjectives in the
filo dough which lines me and
through which my delicate
remembrances filter.

You are the spoon with which I am measured.  Myself into your coffee and cream, you into my death defying
dare to life.


Caroline Shank

The birds are back. Little leaf sized
flutterfings of brown refracting
movement to some rhythm heard
from beyond the canopy.

Today is a whisper from across the
yard. The daylight folds into evening.
Tomorrow waits under the sunspotted
green leaves.  Will you be there
when the day's linger or race into night?

Caroline Shank
3.15.22

Will You Forget Me?

I am staring at the jagged rocks,
the dune of age,
The mica gleams,
I am involved with you
in some demon dance.

Your red corduroy is furred  
and plaid.
Tomorrow the world will end.
I will sleep in.  I will not
take calls.

I stutter through
the door into the
sandpits of memory.

Dear Lord,
We will not go gently.

We have secrets,
We travel
alone,

into that

good night.

Each of us
to remember….


Caroline Shank

Will you make love to me in sunlight
and in the rain?   Will you sing to me
when the hours go by? I will be in
your voice calling.  

Will you make love to me in winter
when the pale day is soft
snow against the windows?  Will
your warm breath leave patterns
on my skin?

I will be your landscape.  My love
is an echo.  You will hear me
for years.  My soul is the perfect
moment melded with your kiss.

I want you to run with me toward
the early spring of our youth. To
remember beneath the kiss lies
love unparalled in literature.

No, not Tristan and Isolde, but
the coupled clutch itself opened.
Where they were unrequited we will
soar over wars and peace.

Will you love me tomorrow when
I am rubbed with age?  I will
be the first one to go to the
stars.  I will be brave today and
you can take my soul to Heaven.  
Will you still love me tomorrow?

I will love you after you are gone.
The tears of my memory will
outlast ever your casual goodbye.

Caroline Shank

So it all ends not with a
bang but

With

A

# *******

Whimper.

Sad night's in prayer.
Shriven of guilt.
On the freshly vacuumed
Floor.

Not the sounds of sad
crying but the whoosh
of stifled prayers

Of course. Penance
For crossed lines
In the ashfalt of
propriety.

Lord I know not

What

I have

Done.

Posters say travel.
I will crumple my
Not so sea-worth
weighted with
Soul. .

Whisper

Will you still
love me

Tomorrow.?


Caroline Shank
07.10.2024

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

Tree limbs spike the
air.  Fingers
shred summer skies.
Wind is the
sliding movement
realized.

Life is rhythmmm.

Wind storms sand.
Red is the color

of skin.  Touch
forshadows response.

Bodies remain.
Awareness
regained.

September's shreds,
tears, shells.

Tomorrow hides
in snow.


Caroline Shank
9.25.2022

wind wraps around me
I breathe in the winter air
the cold ice crack snaps


Caroline Shank

Without a Kiss




Without a kiss hello or a wave
goodbye he travels the streets
and cinder paths.  He walks
beside her and never sees
her stained feet and
bleeding.

Tonight the sky is dark,
the crunch of autumn
leaves softened by the
rain of this afternoon
and the last bugs of
night, sings and the
quiet footfalls
remind her of another
lover.  The quiet sigh
from you throws a pain
around her shawl clad
shoulders.

No it made no difference
finally and with her tears
she scrubbed your name
from the temple where
it had been carefully
drawn.

It is said, somewhere, that
the long walk on wet street's
leaves leave only the faint odor

of my cologne.


Caroline Shank

Witness

I don't remember the last
kiss
that swept me away
arch of my back
slip of language

Kiss

The aged are forget,
are watched.
The threshold of
the past

is never crossed.

Wrinkled  like
yesterday is blown.
is

fallen.
The floor
is

scraped across
planks of
blond colored

dreams.


What you see is the
Last dance,

of the  only
music

left.


Caroline Shank
6.26.2024

Work in Hell

Another Gaza poem

When you work in Hell,
children killed, mothers
stunned.  

No screams
allowed.

Red daylight is
a way to see the
ruts the trucks

leave.

There is no curtain
to raise.  All the
players are

victims

Red shirted people
rush to the cries of

despair.

Your life sanctioned
your participation,

you hold to your

mind.

Irresolute anger toward
God to do

something.

I knew you then in
all your determination
to

help,

show as you can
the ways

Out.

Caroline Shank
10.6.3024

KK

I remember prayers
from long ago
suddenly sounds in
the

Air.

Your guitar brings
music to safety,
always
calling the way

out

I have a lot of stories but you are the truth

Faces in the dark.
All the same now

I rode the years with paper wings
The songs changed but the men didnt

I was along a dark path. Looked for the light

Strangers even after I should have stopped the wrestling

There Was only this
today
a perplex of pain and
searching.

You are my Knight of
Shining

The days of pain are
behind the trail of
memories.

You are my wind
and my salvation.

I Honor you.


Caroline Shank
December 10, 2024

I am Pandora. I have let everything escape.  My days are filled with searching. Mostly I look for you.

I can't gather the misguided
objects which surround me now. I
need to fight for the mountain
tops and silver lakes I knew
when we were young.

Are you still among the reeds
and shells of lost nights and
trodden days.  Memories dip
around me.

Say it isn't so, that you have
shorn your curls, pantsed your
youth and wiped the shy
calendar on the grass where
we talked into the night.

I try to return hope to the
broken  container but
it cuts my hands.  The
contents dive at me
like yellow birds in
a banana tree,

I am alone among the
troubles.  I am wrapped
in the moods of
silence.

I curve around the center,
gather your image
in my graying
locks.

Caroline Shank

I heard, the other day, a small
sound, a piece of gravely
noise.  To remember you
in the voice around the corner,
the right turn into the bathroom

where memory lay.

In the depth of a minute.
you came back.  I looked
to where you last called
to me.

The dementia still rooms away,
Your slanted smile lingered
like the Cheshire Cat's did.

All dressed up to cover the

bruises.

I began this poem to hold
you where the phantom
calls began.  To see eternity
in an hour and laughter has

it's own cry under the
lonely mask I wear.
I scan the room to
capture something as
ephemeral as yesterday

“When I was

young.’


Caroline Shank
4.4.24

The neon sign writes
against the dark.
Let's stop for a beer.  It
has been a long time.  
It's crowded
in here tonight
crushed with the
sketches of people
we once knew. ..

Just a quick one
before we reescape into the
dream. I will wait for you
at the table by the door,
watch you bring again
the ale of our last
date.  

Little did we know
the years would be so
cruel. We will reach,
once more,
each to the other, in this
smoky bar. ..

Y Not?


Caroline Shank

I go where you go.  
I am  in your pores.

I am woven into the  curls
of your red hair.  I push memories
daily through your substantial
mind.

You are host to all the

years of our exile.  I am the
itch you wake to in the
long night.

I will be with you and
when you make love to
your wife I will be beside you.
It will be the secret you can
never tell.

We are the dreams in which
we play when night comes

and the cigarette smoke twins
memory forms, ephemeral
as the love which wraps the past
into the omnipresent

We.


Caroline Shank
12.3.21

You breathe in my heart a
song so sweet that I
swing on a cloud.  You
dance me around the
daylight and lay with me
during the night of dreams.

I will be on the side of your
red pleasure as you call
to me to be blessed by the
flavor of goodness.

We swing on a star.
You make me glad to run
with you, the wind, and
our song.

Together we fly over
mountains and lakes.
We grasp the promise
of tomorrow.

We are in the tumble
and the flight of wind
upward.

We are unflappable. Together.
we lay upon each other's heart
a solumn moment. The eternal
fabric of time.



Caroline Shank

The rhythm is whoopsie daisee. The
moment of the first bounce sets the
pattern of the wave.  It's like talking
to him when the rain poured on the
window. Up and down I tried to see
his face thru my tears.

It's like failing first grade and your
mother slaps you so your head goes
up and down and the wet drops on
your face are not enough to help
with the rocking motion.  It's later
on in your life that the attempt to
have *** on the water bed reminds
you of the day Aunt Ceil was there
and never a thought about why
my mother felt her world cracked
at my failure to please her. Their
conversation in French made me
dizzy.

I walked to the edge of the bed and
there were no dragons.  The waves
of the waterbed tried to hold me.
My back cracked and I rolled over
to try again to get up.  But you can't
have *** on a waterbed, in the
light of a single candle, The Eagles
playing in the other room.

I sank for love but love threw me
away.  My dried body simply was
no brace to the ****** of your moist
intentions.

The radio played on later in the
night.  Sleep drained me
and the announcer
played Claire du Lune…..
Through my sadness and my
loss I lie on the
bed waiting for you to come
back with the
****** Mary's.


But that was long ago and you
and the struggles in the night,
of the songs and the waves

are

gone.
.

Caroline Shank
5.20 2022

My poems fall flat
like a slap on a
warm winter night.

I'm an old woman
in a dry season.
I tally the years on
prayer beads.  The
clack doesn't help.

I call out "Dr. Dr. Take
my breath away. It's
all I have left to pay
the toll."

I try and try to call
you but my hands
fail.  There is
nothing left of
me.  I lay my
crackled hands
on a picture
you might

remember.


Caroline Shank

You placed a flower in my
hand. We looked at each
other in the haze.
I gave you a long poem written
with the heat of our breaths
last bloomings.

It was in the days of our beach
that we walked through to
the last door. Time
burned where the ink
of my song, snug in the
bend, sang its last
goodbye.

"Time was, red was the color
of afternoons pressed
against us. " I wrote that to you,  
a tribute to love and to laughs,
and to syllables.

I am 75 now and read with
the cat on my lap.  She
knows the art of songs
sung in the wind,
with every sigh of her lovely
brindle colored breast.

Tomorrow she will bring
me no nearer to you
who sang, once, to me
in the

russet sand.


Caroline Shank
1.29.2022

You're Doing it Again


You're doing it again,
that habit of pulling me over, the
kiss behind my ear where you.know
I will never tell. I watch you
as you try to lift me.

Uunwritten and unsung the sound
of your one hand clapping, my nod
that tells you to fire the cannons.
I am deaf now. I watch as
your familiar hand reaches away
for the face you tried to draw
so many times.

More than that it's the daylight's
fading fingers at my throat.
I whisper a melody you recognize.  
Tomorrow walks in on time every
morning and I wait to see if you
are willing with me or if your stroke
on my face will be the last mewling
at the edge of a lie.

Caroline Shank
April 28, 2022

Your epiphany renders my life
mute.  You walk through a
cloud of happiness I cannot
share.

I don't want the remnants of
your friendship.  I pick through
your past digging for you.
You left me alone and I can't
dance to our song today.

Life was wrong to plant your
belongings in my torn house.

I will forever disremember you
as if you were a song I never
understood.  You are ephemeral
as smoke on glass.  The sun
no longer streams from you.


Caroline Shank

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

You, Still There.

Picture me if you will,
like Minever Cheevy
leaning against the wall.

I thought and thought
about a kitchen you have
never seen,  my creamy
coffee, and the cat.

The blur on my face
is you. Your brown
beard streaked with
white..  No one can

make out the riddle
of you.  I keep singing
This is the dawning of
the age of asparagus.

You laugh and my face
crumples with the memory
of that, now nearly muted,
dear sound.

When will you be gone?
I scrub to no avail. I look
At myself, lost in the memory
of your death, standing by
for you to tell me something

about coffee.  

The blur
gets bigger as I rub

harder.

Your face clings to me
and I am lost

In the magic of your

song.


Caroline Shank
03.28.2024

You will never forget that first brush
of love.  The earnest breeze of a fresh
today, as if now were magic and
breathing was beyond explanation.

After which the future cannot  
draw from you the stream of
that song, the bell of a long moan.
For the days stretch on catlike
and clawing.  You understand that
this was the beginning of the
end of peace. A rip in the
fabric of time.

You will never forget the sound
called out by tomorrow that
never takes tomorrow under
consideration.  

To love infinitely is a lesson
beyond youth or midlife's
precarious adventure.  It is
the last bite of all experience,
the quintessential notes
of poetry.

Love itself escapes all the
ink fallen in the glass.
You are writing a
diary no one will
ever read.

The red hair of yesterday
changed into dusk and the
sun sets in perpetuity.

Caroline Shank