Empty ride
My heart sits in the passenger side,
While my soul drives
Passing deserts with the occasional swath of life
My mind navigates while my emotions tune the radio
Sometimes it's just static and there's nowhere to go
I watch them from the backseat,
Like a child with no concept of distance or time.
They speak of an ocean not too far away
A place to bathe, Baptise some would say
I've never seen the water but I've heard the waves
Terrifying in their never ceasing might,
Why we drive to them I don't know
My soul knows why, always telling me it'll be okay
While my heart beats away,
Ageing with each pulse and quiver
My mind is busy calculating, though someone should give it a break
While emotions can't be satisfied,
They know why we need this drive
Peace in the journey, we were never meant to stay
In the rearview mirror I see all the cities we've passed by
We never belonged in them and they let us go without a goodbye.
The water awaits
I know it'll be my final fate
A breath to end all days
Flood waters to fill my chest
This body of mine, it follows
Even to its demise it knows
My soul will lead us home.

I’ve knelt to these blows

Taken my lumps of coal

It’s hardened my bones

Scarred my soul

Now they say it’s time to go

Rise above the smoke

Though my fire burns cold

The mask is gone that hid the old

Wet slime under my feet
Mud in my teeth
On the jungle floor
While you sit in the canopy above
Watching over me
As the stars circulate

I'm lost below
Searching for a path amid the vines
There's too many trees
And I can't take this **** heat
Eyes glow as the only light
Sounds rage above the quiet night

You know I'm lost on this plane
I don't remember the fall
But I recognize the jungle sounds
My body aches and my blood seeps
I crave those lights at night
Peaceful empty skies

But here I am
Roaming the jungle floor
Looking for my place
Though you wait
I don't know how long it'll take
Before I can leave this dark place.

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

Drop the beat
Whistle that final wheeze
Blow the ram's horn
Strike matches on three

Hangman's knot
A fine collar for mortal decor
Ends hanging those ****** cords

Heaven above
Watching as soaring souls are freed
Lifted from mortal coil
At the hangman's drop
Chanting gallows horns
Deep chords of aching hearts

A dead man's walk
A final trudge
Whether sinned or not
Fate has been ordained

If I hang from that noose,
Will you meet me one last time?
Under dark skies
Before my gallow walk?

It's better this time,
Last time they set me alight.
I still smell ash,
The sickly sweet burning flames

Kiss me one last time
Before my drop
I'll carry our love to the final swing.

Don't look when my eyes turn grey
Glazed and faded away
I'll have left,
Freed to the skies
Where I'll roam and breathe free
Waiting for my captors,
So they'll see they could never **** me.

Silver lines stretching infinitely
Atoms of dust
Stars crushing themselves alive
Checkered across the plain
Webbed waypoints supporting the tapestry

Life among the stars spinning fast
Fading brilliant lights
Scattered dust among the skies
Pondering an infinite cycle of why
Oblivious to the Weaver's gentle nudge
A cosmic string intertwined with dusty lives
Cradled by gravity to keep stomachs tight

Stories of old
Creation's magic and a socerer's stone
Fervent prayers of desperate souls
Each cry an echo vibrating a string
Of the untold and grieving nights
And heroes and villains of the heart
Empty throes if only known
The pain would surely go

A Weaver of majesty
Knows her tapestry
Each fiber taut or loose
Is a making of her own
If gravity should let us know we aren't alone
Our stories will never grow old.