lady on the bus told me her sister kept lots of soap and what did I think.

I says she sounds like me.

robot is both

a wood block
some stickers

you know how it goes

then batteries are a thing
with their unexpected deletions

or should we mean depletion

i imagine is nice out cycling
with another

sharing experiences

I will drink loneliness in my
coffee. The sweet is turned to
sorrow, the cream is the stir
of tears.  

I will not last this.
The table was set when you
strode into darkness.

I will pin loneliness on the board.
The same letters unwrite.

Half a century is not enough
to unbelieve.  The scattered
seconded invitation is
laid green and turbulent.

I leave loneliness a song
to the unbeliever.

You fold my intention like
a glove broken in.

Winter is always the last
cry in the dark sound
under the stairs.

I leave the sounds of the
wheel under my
shoes, in Winter unsounds
tears that dry in eyes
of the unbeliever,

you, walk like steel cleats
over my poems.


Caroline Shank

Addict

I am tired of living
with your splayed try to
foist the spines of addiction
away

from me.  The weather
of your withdrawal is
unpredictable.  It talks
to the walls of silence
muted to the unfaithful.

Tomorrow is a deflated
balloon.

You fall on your knees in
supplication to the god
of *******.  There lies
missed opportunity. There
is your unmade bed, cracks
of daylight

in the seams of
misunderstanding
You, whom God made
is the unformed image
of life that lies on the

bed of unlove.


Caroline Shank
11.22.22

fear

of this and that
of nothing in particular
that no one else  will
understand

On this day of gratitude and thanks giving,
I want to say that I'm insanely grateful for
Hello Poetry and all the poets who share it
with me.  Knowing I can write my feelings
and emotions and share them with other
like-minded souls has been an almost religious 
 blessing in my life.  And I want to thank you
all, each and every one of you.
And wish you a very
                         HAPPY  THANKSGIVING

I saw an old man crying at
the precipice of his sanity,
ten stories above the sea,
and the world at his feet, a helo-deck:
a principality that had the worn out lay of home.

So trivialized.
So fantasized.
So immobilized.
Transmitting pirate-radio-waves eternally.

Seized the tower.
Hoisted the flag.
Crowned the queen.

"I've no blood right, only a passport," he said. "But do have the right mindset: I can't leave, we're so dangerous. Don't be a stranger now, we'll never be this dangerous again..."

Ebony birds with damaged wings
Fling themselves
Towards the darkened clouds
And find no draft to lift them.
Screeching in despairing cries
They slowly circle back to earth.

Second verse of same sad song
Echoes and reminders catch the light.
Unexpected findings ring the bell
That calls to life the waterfall.
Help is proffered by empty hands
To heartstrings that no longer tug.

And the clock goes round and round
And the Sun goes up and down
And the Moon grows somehow dim
On a path that only circles back
Into a room that has no door.
I’m home again, it seems.
ljm

let us look at things, differently.

often, we do things, no one ever sees.

that is you and me. two of us
dancing in the dark. it came
and went,

quickly.