when the last wear has withered
and the wardrobe echoes
cold memories of empty metal hangers
like falling rain
know you are not poor
undignified or old
rejoice! in the bareness of your porous skin
not hidden by the dead folds
of material—
your soul is a prism
splitting light into threads respun
by God;
every dawn you are rewoven
as the rays of a new sun

Paupers may ask the Lord for wealth
(The Gospel might inflate their hopes)
Protection, blessings, mental health
Beyond what mullahs, rabbis, popes
Offer as guidance through the strife
Within this filthy maze of life.

Others hope He’ll stack their deck:
Bring in those thousand years of peace
One king short of Melchizedek
When nations merge and borders cease:
a prolonged global swoon, like Babel--
Partying with ******’s rabble.

Poets ask for Inspiration
Or just a spike in reader-stats;
Gold paid out in revelation
And sudden-death for bureaucrats—
Even the fleeting hope that wit
Might pay for some or all of it.

To sharpen dull poetic gifts
A mustard-seed might be enough,
Until the veil of Maya lifts
exposing the Satanic stuff.
I’d be content with what He brings:
The Restoration of All Things.

Are you sleeping up there in
the stone parapet in which
you spend your time writting
letters and showing how you
can trip the light fantastic

with no one watching. You,
where you retreat to listen
to music. To read your books
and with wine dream,
like Miniver Cheevy, of the
days of roses.

Do you think of me? My
perfume you were so fond
of.  Oh, how I adored you!

I am not allowed to climb
the steps to your so private
sanctuary.  The locked door
reminds me of your pledge
to God to leave me and the
child.  

We are not yours, not anymore.
You with your hunched shoulders
crying "That is not all, that is
not it at all."

Your dead heroes replace me.
I should have gone away before
I knew you loved me.  But how
could I?  I will tomorrow shows
me a new place to hide away

Think of me when you are
inside with your plans and dreams.,
and I am on the outside scrolling
across the long years in which
I am stranded

in.


Caroline Shank

The flower of Hermes is a risible thing,
Furtive, uncircumcised in flesh and race;
But who the petals of that flower shall trace
Which a bright People in darkness can bring
Or smell, at will,—for freedom in sniffing
By just revenge inhaled? No nose can face,
No pig can wallow, to a miry space
That flower, you dig it, whether hung with bling
Like insect, pinned, or farting like the wind
Outside its awful caves.—From rear to ear
Springs this pestiferous product dull and drear;
No cure this subtle medicine can find,
Rising like water to a boil, unkind
To every bar a bitter pint of beer.

~
In her sulking-place
alone and naked

framed in soft sepia
—the vintage, harlequin hue

at this supposed faded hour
she sits looking back on memory

she sits and stares
into the boudoir mirror

at herself
at her embonpoint

yes, at these *******
—at their landscape

how they fall
(like Niagara)

where they point
(like a compass)

what they tell (so fondly)
when pressed together

about their time
—their work and play

towers on the precipice
of judgment

both callous and
uncharitable

if the mirror
truly be her reflection

her vision is turned around
as illusion

—a study of tonality and tolerance
for one's own flesh

the room
an invitation

or perhaps
a lockaway

where she even keeps secrets
from herself
~