dream of a dark
sky, where the ocean
with its gentle pull
gathers the mosses
of the waves, unravels
and drifts in gold pools
full of moon and love.

Let Us Go

At great risk we go
through certain half deserted
streets.  The lights burn holes
in my contemplations.  The spine
of poetry is fallen and lies
spattered on the ground

Go with me. The vocabulary
inspired by the sea air will
carve runes in the granite.

We travel light. Our skin, like
canvas ingrained with words,
bleeds.

We drop to our knees in
silent supplication.  Sounds
paint where rhyme
leaves
trails.

There is no tomorrow.  


Caroline Shank

My life, then, hung like a
sun-yellow mobile that spun
in the heat as I flowed from
one end of summer to the other.
The songs on the radio were
my island.  My life as a girl
in the years before fences
appears in memory slides,
dressed in the beaches of my
youth.

I grew from seeds to roses in
the ground of my childhood
summers.  In the calendar of
my life as a young girl
every date prefigured you.
Day by day, in the years of
growing I bought, with the
barter of my soul, all the
heat and all the music.

Battened by the times before
you, strengthened by long
storms, hot suns, cold winds,
this, then is what I offer
you:  deep beaches, thornworn
roses, summers that flow
from one end of your life
to the other.

you run along the ledges
walk the wire
have a touch of larceny
in your heart

and  I love it
like a ****** who
pretends to love you
every time
and you believe it

madness is like pouring rain
on the wet street
at night
reflecting through headlights
making a never ending waterfall
hot and white that s
dancing madly backwards
when you crank the Harley
and fly
over the cliffs of perception
into endless night
or star dust
or
into clarity
lore or god realized  

this world has gone insane
and this is where mad men belong

madmen belong in your arms