Failed relationships
Never saw one that
Wasn’t incredibly painful
To someone
Or someones
Most people hold on too long
In this society that loves disposable
We often refuse to throw away
That which hurts us
Every day

May all the sonnets in the world compiled in beauty
lend themselves to your sweet eyes of gold
may every line of of penmanship speak to you of me
showing you that ardor, still untold

and when the moon comes out to serenade you darling
send me kisses from your balcony
and when the moonlight bathes the feather's of a starling
tinted dark as heaven's ebony,  

bring me all your charms and play your castanets my love
rend each doubt and join me over there
where every wingeth bird soars up like a turtle dove  
and plays you music oh so fair

may every sonnet ever written call you out by name,
may every poem ever uttered be your sweet proclaim.

Why is pleasure measured in moments,
while work is measured in weeks or years?

Pleasures are like insubstantial fictions, sweet treats gone
in the tasting or perhaps flowers, that once cut, wither.
So don't be enthralled by fickle snippets of passion.

Work and service have the weight of reward,
by labor's honest toil, we fashion, forge and provide.

Canada is afire and I’m confused, shouldn’t the snow put that out?

The Boston sky is an interesting shade of mustard yellow,
and there’s a pale orange haze where the sun should be.

Lisa, drowsily asleep-walked into the kitchen for her morning coffee.
“So this is Mars,” I observed, “Elon Musk will be so jealous.”
“Good,” Lisa said, “I was afraid it was nuclear winter.”
“There’ll be no breathing today.” I updogged.

We could almost hear the slow, delicate pitter-patter fall of micro-ash.

“There’s aaaa bright golden haze over Boston..” Lisa began to sing softly.
Lisa knows every Broadway score and can easily interpolate a song into every conversation.

It comes from talking too fast.
Words from thought spill through
me.  I am unadorned with
punctuation.  I write in long
lines of ideas switching from
one to another like trestles.

Some thoughts get stuck or are
trapped under wheels. They rub
me clumsily.

I speak only English in a stomach
churning speed.  To tell you how
beautiful you are takes pages and
curls of rushing lines.

I am a jumble of ideas out loud.
A scorch of syllables.  I digress
of course.  I am a stumble of
sounds, a cataract of meanings.

Listen to the scrape of pen, the
words enlighten,emerge, into
conversation.


Caroline Shank
6.8.2023