Bard of my reading, no less
the trail to my heart's desire.
Singing in the crevices of
memory I love you.

Ode to the bark and green
you awaken the song.
Sing to me in the spaces
between rhyme and
desire.

I wait to hold the source
of song, the poem of
you driven to the page
to lap the signs of
tomorrow like evanescent
cotton when spilled in
the wind of your
imagination.

Tomorrow the nascent verse
will spill like water on flowers.
Grow to the top dear Poet,
ride the board of memories

which sing in the lines of
your experience.

Teach me, Sweet Jesus, to
Sing.

Caroline Shank
1.15.2023

Tide arrives

Take a breath,
Deep

Engulfed within the Ocean,
Unconsciousness

Let it

Narcissus nods agreement with
Gentle breeze slipping across
An iced puddle-

Winter and the air feels clean
But is not;
Sun shines bright but is dim

As aeons dictate

there is something good
and some light
in this desire
enraging my cells
with divination chanting
sculpting my shape
in violent curves
I don't recongnize the hues
of mornings
because of frenzy:
the new definition of gravity
along the lines
mesmerizing visions of
softness and caring

love is a whirlwind
in any language
a clear water
so you can see
how translucent
nakedness can be

hers is
the bending of space
to smaller and smaller
atoms of delight,
fusion, diffusion, infusion

it holds you tight
from the very centre
(heart&lungs)
when it breaks you
and then these traces
the swarming of photons
in the fabric of skin
sweet radiance,
energetic warmness
an arch, a cohort of waves
crushing everything
like cherries' sense
reality sense
roads' sense

a scarring refusing
to scream/bleed
defiance of stillness
music of laughter
sun raising in your hands

there is something beautiful
for the poetess in me
it just describes herself well
for the never-day
it transmutes
anything:
beauty into horror
horror into despair
despair into words
even thought into
singing birds

This deep night
Dis-lo-cation
Sends tattoos

Dropping on the pane.

Only the Lonely
Discern a rhythm

Only the disconcerted
See full moon
Seep light through

Ocean-full cloud
One eye brimful

One dry as prickle

today
a strange milky light
rolling over the hills
like a blinding blanket
I caressed naked branches
their fragility a statement
plum trees apple trees
peach trees cherry trees
and I a witness
to the dignity with which
they carry their wounds
I love trees because
their shadow is not full
of bitterness.
perhaps
they know how to cry
for the absence of wonder

you see
much is going on
beyond words:
all of me and
this tree
feel
there is a depth
in everything

You, the mountain. But when
I poked holes in you, you spilled out
as a fountain. And the reds all
bled into a pool of liver green that stank

so high and lost the sheen. I couldn't move
myself, bathed in the bath. I couldn't find
my footpath. My skin so wrinkled. The light
dimmed. I lost my twinkle. And my wings,

waterlogged. So, bogged down
the colors caked like make-up on
a clown. I washed them off in the sherry. And
also, ***** just to vary. I couldn't move

the hands of time back to the day
I climbed the mountain with the dizzying
view and threw myself off. I fell. But in the falling
I flew. And in the fluttering my wings lifted me
beyond mountains.