A bluebird came streaking violently out of Central Park,
it blurred over the lanes of traffic towards 220.
I flinched in anticipation of the impact,
but at the last second it darted directly up,
as if caught in a sudden wind current.
“Did you see that?” I asked Lisa.
She didn’t, her phone was jiggling.

My boyfriend left yesterday
He had to leave before New Year’s eve!
he has to work and cannot play
he finally gets to run the hadron collider
go get em’ tiger
but I’ve decided
you can’t fight the zeitgeist
that when the cats away
the girls will have their day.

Someone start the music please,
because it’s NEW YEARS Eve!

Happy New Year’s Eve everyone!
.
.
Songs for this:
There goes my baby by Kelly Jones
Back on the chain gang by the pretenders

Ozzy's not quite the prince o darkness anymore
No more coke no more ******
The road miles and habits
Have piled on the damage
Hardly surprising
The man was a savage
His lower colon
Is now like liquidised spam
Sharon has to deal with
The diarrhea of a madman.

With each step I take,
I am closer to the dark light.
Each heartbeat leads me
to the finality.

Conceived without pain,
I am trying to find the lost moment.
Your naked hands roam freely
over my frail body -
hatred is what
the smallest ones desire.

Painfully cursed, today
I end this wicked journey
for something that no one knows.
I have become lost
to the world.

My condescending tears
are too ridiculous to be of any use.
Your spasmodic whisper
tries to tame the night
that consistently plays with the light,
that asks for
a scrap of its own sadness.

Intoxicated with hope,
sold at a bargain price -
I try to overcome life in myself,
to find pain that will teach me
to yearn so that everyone
will envy me.

Please tell me, is it worth appreciating
the silence
that will eventually replace
you and your crimson breath?

Cured of my iconoclastic longing,
I am falling apart
like a house of cards
built by your whisper.

I am trying to free myself
from last year's sky, but I know
that you are still guarding
my soul.

Locked in my own shadow,
I raise a toast to a happier world.
When the last bell
falls silent, I will renounce
my freedom, I will forget
about loneliness.

An hour will be born
in me that knows neither light
nor penance.
Perhaps one morning
I will understand that victory
is not dedicated to me.

I will open my mouth,
close the window.
I am not afraid of tomorrow's
illusions, of another painless evening.

Mother did you know I would
grow old alone?

That the crevices on my
face fell into the street

with used syllables?

Tomorrow you said
No
To my first boyfriend.

Mother did you know I
wouldn't care. Your scarred

breast
was not my fault.

The trail of your
Epithet does not hurt
As much as this

Old age
When you
tried to

sell me


Caroline Shank
12.24.2024

alright, alright, the records sound good
and the mulled wine tastes great.

everything here is tidied up;
swept, mopped, vacuumed, wiped down
to an immaculate degree

it matters very little though
when your utterly alone
on Christmas Day
in a clean house
without anybody
to ***** it up
again.

all I have are these thoughts,
these tiny flashes,
you appear,
then disappear,
then reappear
once more.

I can only imagine you bringing us a drink
while we laugh at the same movie
we’ve seen for the 400th time
and the kids are playing at our feet
with their new toys and board games
and eating oranges or chocolates
or walnuts on a white cozy afternoon

but looking around now
while dipping into the 5th scoop
of wine from out of the ***,
there appears to be
nobody here.

I add cranberries, an orange slice and a cinnamon stick
as I switch the record to Leatherface or Joy Division
or The Shocking Blue or Black Sabbath or
the collected works of Richard Strauss
but it doesn’t help my melancholia,
only suppresses it
for a while

and as the dog stares wide-eyed
and the cat leaps out wildly
and the gloomy clouds roll by
and the poem writes its obituary
to a silent response,

the music grips my heart
and squeezes it like the
blood of an
orange

and I am
utterly alone
without
you.

A morning of overcast sky in Nevada
Is very like landscapes painted by El Greco.
Cobalt sky smeared with silver gray shadows
In a candy floss tumble of gunmetal clouds
Gives a subtle light that makes things mysterious
And creates a canopy of comfort for a winter day.
ljm