Jack-o-lantern love,
stabbed by the autumn leaves;
bleeding all burnt orange and sienna.
And it smells like
cloves and vanilla,
and loneliness. Kaleidoscope confusion,
that dog bite pain
in my soul.
I don my navy blue corduroy,
as I bundle up for
the great void.

~
Sun drips
on leaves

not the backyard variety
but the trembling kind

the kind
that weld night-time
intermissions to
the roof of the mouth

sonnet-filled
evaporation
reveals
the timely concealment of
a very, weary
inanimate object
at the brink

just enough hip
to be woman

just enough wild
to be frontier
~

I too will go to you, says the son
to the face of the father.

He broadens his smile
thin and gathering dust for long
as if to acknowledge
he always knew
one day his son would stand before him
resigned and weary
willing to join on his route.

The son sees his father's lips
move in the briefest prayer..

Welcome.

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

Join me, in this tumbledown
brick palazzo ruled by the bones
of a queen singing and swearing
that we'll never walk alone.

We can read in the oak pocket,
order ale from the cellars,
watch as the hanged man
steams with oily nostalgia,

well-waxed stories blossoming
& shrugging from his trolley tongue,
tales of silver-roaded loves he's had,
back in a lawless youth.

Love is a game you can't win,
insists the hanged man,
but if you're oh so careful
you can lose very slowly.

words moved me, and
God
i wanted my fingers to blister and my
bones to ache
but my mind withers and my heart breaks
i swallowed ink and still i couldn’t
make the words flow like they used to as if
almost as if
they refuse to

flannel shirt and torn blue jeans
she always held her cards close
to her fragile heart
her wild heart

(a heart not for me)

and she fades into a cold wind
whitens into snowflakes
and wild infatuation

i'm faded

the torn page
from a list of lovers
broken and sad

my love is moonlight and mare's tails

the night's stars
shot full of lost tomorrows