There’s a novel in which I’ve been caught
But my storyline’s tied in a knot
Come villain or lover
I’m drawn to discover
The author who penciled my plot

ONE IMPOSSIBLE THING BEFORE BREAKFAST

Alice in Wonderland
rests upon a table
in a ray of sunlight

"When is a book
not a book?"
the sunlight asks itself

I answer it
by opening
the book

it is empty
of words
only an empty space

to place
a bottle of whiskey
in

yet its emptiness
is packed
full of time

the memory
of hands
reaching into it

some of the time
spills out and becomes
now

*

An old guy I used to look after and wasn't supposed to drink. He always had the book at hand whenever I visited him. This time it lay upon the table and I picked it up saying I didn't know this edition....loved that book all my life and...a small bottle of whiskey fell out. After he died the 'book' was still there on the table empty of any words and empty of drink.

It's as if my life was a package forgotten on the side

of a back road.

The chance of being plucked out and found even interesting,

unconcerned.

The name addressed to Hell.


Battered by lifes footballs
the sunscorched wrapping illegible.
To love so much the
Contents arrive in Hell.
Go on. I am not done with you

So says the
Call of the Universe.
Your tears are large.
The last of my life.
I won't go on. I will
stumble through

the bramble and thistles.

You saved me once
when I believed

In a destiny.
For such a short time

No
chance of being plucked out and found even interesting, unconcerned.
The name addressed to Hell.

Battered by lifes footballs the sunscorched wrapping illegible.
To love so much the
Contents arrive in Hell.

Go on. I am not done with you
So says the

Call of the Universe.
Your tears are large.
The last of my life.
I won't go on. I will
stumble through the bramble and thistles.
You saved me once when I believed
In a destiny.


For such a short time.

Caroline Shank

To love is to understand
a whole new world opens
everything else was dim
and dubious then