Prevost

Feb 2022

Caroline Shank

You placed a flower in my
hand. We looked at each
other in the haze.
I gave you a long poem written
with the heat of our breaths
last bloomings.

It was in the days of our beach
that we walked through to
the last door. Time
burned where the ink
of my song, snug in the
bend, sang its last
goodbye.

"Time was, red was the color
of afternoons pressed
against us. " I wrote that to you,
a tribute to love and to laughs,
and to syllables.

I am 75 now and read with
the cat on my lap. She
knows the art of songs
sung in the wind,
with every sigh of her lovely
brindle colored breast.

Tomorrow she will bring
me no nearer to you
who sang, once, to me
in the

russet sand.

Caroline Shank
1.29.2022

Feb 2022

Caroline Shank

Soldier

Soldier

He was perfect at loving me.
He knew the sweet spot.

He walked with me and
He talked with me.

That's a song.  I forget the rest
But i didn't forget him.

He appeared
like A Grace.

He took

A longtime
going away. .

He left in the
rain.

I am invisible now,
by your side.

Tomorrow i will write him a letter
and i will Trust.

Tomorrow i will do a lot of things.
Alone i watch him flailing in
the wheat's crease where it

spreads itself on the road.

Love is a sorrow to my
soul.   He is missed
by the flowers we planted.
His memory blossoms,
The pain of this soldier's
retreat opens every night.

Alone

I wear his medals and

rub the shine

of the

gun.

Caroline Shank

Feb 2022

Carlo C Gomez

Coachella Girls

Have you been to the City of Eternal Sunshine's
navel academy?

Belly buttons in the sun, sparkling and shimmering:
crescent moons like deep wells dug by
the callus hands of Woodspur's
first settlers.

They belong to desert roses, Coachella girls,
where wearing a bikini is not a sin, but a means of survival.

Clothed in eensy triangles, they've walked
with farm workers, reveled with festivals,
and prized the glory of Pueblo Viejo.

One can now better understand how this place
was nearly called Land of the Little Shells.

To the city of Coachella.
Inspired by the poem "Give Me Pretty" by fellow Hello Poetry writer, Bella.

#bikini #navel #tribute #coachella #desert #girl #city #history #california

Feb 2022

Traci Sims

History (political haiku)

Fourteen state-wide ban
One history is valid
Welcome back, Jim Crow.

While I understand that it is wrong to teach that a group of people are "evil" and that the entire country is "flawed" due to this group's "evil nature", some serious questions have to be asked at this point:

1. Why should we blindly champion a history that celebrates near-genocide of one group of people, the enslavement of a second, and the marginalization of a third (Asians not being allowed to build or own housing).
2. Why have we reached a point in our collective history where we are afraid to bravely examine our past and use it as a way to understand our present and move towards a brilliant future?
3 When did "exceptionalism" come to define only one group's dreams and accomplishments and to hell with the rest?

Sorry, I can be silent no longer. And if Hello Poetry bans me, I will shout elsewhere. Let freedom ring!

Feb 2022

Carlo C Gomez

Remain in Absolution

I'm in a room without recovery area:
a room of intermission, a room
of collapse. Where are
the convenient little windows
to release a wicked bird of thought?
The quiet there is monk-like,
rogue, and slightly unpleasant, guilty
of moments spent with shadow.

I want to build a clock
that ticks once a year
—more dark than shark,

my confessional capacity
—time-stretched,
like the heavy intoxicated *******
of the witching hour. And I'll
make soup from the leftover prayers
of the day before, all in hopes
the rooms of me, then so clear,
will one day be faraway suns
in the temple of heaven.

#forgiveness #guilt #past #present #future #absolution #time #relationships

Prevost Jan 2022

Shed the Skin

disjointed

the heart thuds in a distance
that keeps this unreal
the pain and doubt
are too real to breath
to feel

what lays on the other side
is this whole again
a soul that breathes
in morning and night

shed the skin
shed the touch
shed the tears
shed the dreams
shed the fight

#breakups