(A repost from 2019)

My favorite aunt is dying.. cancer, quiet and consuming as a flame..

Seven short weeks ago she was easily doing an hour of step aerobics, unaware of this intruder, this murderer within. Now she's lifted from bed like a rag doll.

She is my mom, well, a near twin—only smaller, funnier, serpent sly, more heavenly childish, sapient with sweet attractive grace and modest pride.

I am in total awe of her. We're kindred spirits, two sillies among the dull and endlessly serious.

I feel her, see her, day by day, slipping away like the hastening angel of heaven foretold.

This is too big for me, too awful and too close.

I am struck helpless, nothing moves, I sit, hardly feeling, and watch her sleep. Death's cruel process suddenly made visible.

I silently rage at the loss of it—my loudest vehemence pointed to this ravenous, lurking enemy pursuing her inwardly like a swarm of deadly hornets accidentally composed.

40 and still stunningly beautiful, she lies surrounded by computers, iPads, phones, faxes, intercoms, notepads, friends and care-givers. Her life reduced to escaping pain and making arrangements for her soon to be orphaned children 4 and 6.

Fentanyl and other pain blockers are her nourishment and seem to work better in the daylight as lawyers garner powers of attorney, bankers conjure trusts and estate planners build foundations to protect small children from a mothers loss.

As if they could replace a single hug
.
.
Songs for this (Gospel music):
Order My Steps by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir
Angel by Sarah McLachlan
Jesus Loves Me by Whitney Houston

"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor.
That's my dream. It's my nightmare. Crawling, slithering,
along the edge of a straight razor … and surviving."
–  Col. Kurtz, Apocalypse Now
~

Remember
the golden age, Wally ***?
And the songs
my mother taught me?

We sang about what was.
Or might never be.

Like permanency.
Distinction comes
out of stiff and frozen silences.
Take it with
a spoonful of disdain.
Take it in the eye.
Actors are like breakfast cereals.
They're obvious
and according to taste.
I stopped needing them
long ago.

Beautiful
Tallulah.
Beautiful,
"less to this than
meets the eye"
Tallulah,
dismiss me,
that I may be free
to find Tennessee.

Open windows
and closing doors.
Always a breeze,
but never a way out.
Right on cue
the cards shuffle.

Butter and cotton *****,
tricks of the trade.
I mumble to be heard.
I am legend
to disciples
of the Method.

I wear my friends to bed,
burn them like newspaper.
They call me "Bud"
—cigarettes at dawn
after devouring the night.
And now my song ebbs,
as the stylus hits the leadout groove.

Tomorrow, I'll be better.
Today, I'm just me.

Soak in the bath of pain you
Who brought them

Crushing

its vocabulary of slander
to we with whom you wake
each day

severed limbs of children

Tongues lay spent

Cries To Allah from the
dying Faithful.  

God is good who pray
amidst the betrayed
lay slathered in the
fields of liars.

Who takes  away the good
of this world
while
we

pray

that the sons of betrayal
hang

Hearing  

bombs backfire.

Lives lost is a
dried sand sounds
of choking
down the

*****

Of lies whose brother
Truth

Is Betrayed.


Caroline Shank
April 4, 2025

Above us:
Wrong time,
wrong place.

For now, it’s safer
keeping our secrets.
Tension builds,
and in just a bit
it will all pour out.

Don’t look into my eyes
if you don’t want to share your story.
With every gaze, the gap is closing.

Something unvoiced is flowing.
The pendulum sways.
Is there life left?
Is it still a warm place,
or an illusory glow?

If you don’t want to let someone
into your territory,
please turn your head,
turn your eyes.

Seeing right through, you betray
who you were
and who you became.

the cops are at the door,
open the window,
toss me my running shoes.

out the window I went, left heaven,
down to the narrow street
into the welcomed night.

(my fair weather fade away.)

you have the prettiest eyes
the sky ever knew

so please don't be surprised
to find me one day at your window

some cold december night
holding plastic flowers for you

so love the thief who tried steal your heart,
and plastic flowers never fade.

It has been so sickly
Written, so
slidlingly

Redundant

said

that one is born to
in
the night of

Souls.

The dark triggers the time,
the weather and the
style
of the

Agreement.

The  is a
familiar Address.

Shutters close and
the dressings

notes the time.

Midnight is a fools
Game.

Sleep
Dulls the material.

You are unlikely
to call for, Toast
to

Love.

I watch As stars
Rapel down

sliding,
you so
carefully

placed to keep
out
Songs and poems
that lure

these lonely thoughts
Slipping on
the tears

of your

Indifference.



Caroline Shank
April 2, 2025