I am neither this nor that,
Neither here or there.
I do not talk too fast nor
loud.

My ego rides on me like
a rug. It needs vacuuming.
Today was a pretty dusty
day with lists and conversation

written with the accouterments
of my old age.
I am a fantasist.
It shows in my mistaken
choice of you.

You cannot hear me.  I am too loud.

Whatever I have to say is not
a flower or a song.

I am the avatar of she who
left.  The husk of intelligence.

If there are questions that
are unanswered  ask another.
I have the memory of a
conversation, an admonishment,
a loving reminder from someone
who was wrong.

And the reclining apneic
experience to

sleep. To say

my

prayers to the God of my
understanding


Caroline Shank
4.17.2024

I always choose the losing side

They wear the prettiest silk
Woven clothes
And die

In droves

~
It feels like the anesthetic is wearing off

This circus of machines

From coin-operated hostility

To wholesale apathy refineries

They tell us it's winter down in the subdermal

They tell us the foundation has grown weak

Dislocation is an incoming storm

Mirrors are distorted screens

Placeholders really

In a city without children

Even the statues weep

Snow upon the ground that was once blood

Now an empire without heirs

Even the trees hate us
~

Mighty Oak
Grows tiny acorn

(inspired by Malia’s poem ‘crack the code’)

the unspoken poems
are the loudest
the ones you don’t utter
the times you don’t bother
symphonies of silence
votes of no confidence
trust marbled with rust
what's become of us?