In your eyes, a delicate pink hue danced,
Like a flower's tender blush, I had never seen,
Yet, I dared to kiss you, craving to understand,
To feel the enchantment that your lips could bring.

As time passed, you blossomed beyond that flowerpot,
Rooting yourself deep within the garden of my heart,
I nourished you with words of admiration and praise,
Expressing the immeasurable value you held, my art.

Your memory, a seed, lay dormant in my mind,
Buried in the depths of darkness, patiently awaiting,
Until the moment it would sprout and bloom,
Unveiling the love that within me was awakening.

I wasn't prepared to fall so deeply, so intensely,
A solitary florist, learning to tend to his own soul,
But with you, my love, I discovered a newfound purpose,
A garden of emotions, where our love would forever grow.

Made your reservation fifty years ago,
we waited 'til today,
at the time,
it was so far away,
now we go,
long, long ago, back to when we guessed

this was where we'd seem today.

So far away, grinning still, happy as
the fool on the hill,
sees the story unfold, a thousand voice
choir of messengers going up and down
and back… this continuity in perifery,
ifery were, and ifery was, and ifery at all

times, songs we listened to high,
in the winter of '67, long before
the Eggman died.

When the band was so young,
when the world was younger,
but not much
we kinda
lost touch, after the scariest part.

It was a trip.
Not everyone found their way,
nobody had GPS back then, few knew
what the Grateful Dead were happy about

and nobody had coordinates…
for Blue Jay Way…
seems, we've been too long coming,
Yesterday is with us for constant review.

Critics believe it all leads here.

A hit before your mama was old,
a long, long time ago…

The tune inspired, da-did-dada, she
should call it all art, and we are
all together
after all these ****** Tuesdays,
assure us now that Fridays come.

Ordering chaos to line us all up,
getting reverb in return for echoes
after all's said now another way,
we laugh along with
jokers who do laugh at you,
to push you through the portal,
taking all your time apart in instants.

Noise of others, noise from then,
puke into this mic.
Black hole of best intentions.
Good bye and hello, across the decades,
did we not meet once on the street?
I caught your eye, you smiled,
a long, long time ago…
remember?

I smiled, yes, as I passed,
you did not notice, I passed, it happened.

I smiled. hey, la, ha-hahaha, and took
Kesey's invitation, goodnight, Irene.

I did do the dive into the sea,
with drowning on my mind, going down
beyond the buoyancy, of anyone in my tree.

Realizing nothing since we lost touch,
I thought you all realer than me,
as my shape lost its original intention,
time distorts from
formative decades conforming
affirmational automation, to corporate
clean machines, still a source of pride.
Meanwhile,

we find it easy recalling toe tapping
impulses, now that you know who you are,
have you traveled
very far… further than any magic school bus?

How does if feel to be,
after all this time, to find today, the same old songs.

Never got rich beyond the satisfied mind
I found in a sack behind the opera house.

Nothing you can do that can't be done, it's easy,
say it true, believe it true, prove it makes long term

sense, after fifty freaking years, the laughing trombones
continue laughing at the simplicity past essentials.

Love needs a better definition,
all together now,
everybody, repeat the mantra,

or grow old and never get famous, rich and miserable,
live on with the will to grow older
still, knowing better and worse, at once...
one more time.

Made your reservation fifty years ago,
we waited until today,
at the time,
it was so far away,
now we go,
long, long ago, back to when we guessed

this was where we'd seem today.

So far away, grinning still, happy as
the fool on the hill, and nowhere man
see the story unfold, a thousand voice
choir of messengers going up and down
and back… this continuity in perifery,
ifery were, and ifery was, and ifery at all

times, songs we listened to high,
in the winter of '67, long before
the Eggman died.

When the band was so young,
when the world was younger,
but not much,
we kinda
lost touch, after the scariest part.

It was a trip.
Not everyone found their way,
nobody had GPS back then, few knew
what the Grateful Dead were grateful for

and nobody had coordinates…
for Blue Jay Way… or Penny Lane it
seems, we' were too long coming,
Yesterday is with us for constant review.

Critics believe it all leads here.

A hit before your mama was old,
a long, long time ago…

The tune inspired, da-did-dada, she
should call it all art, and we are
all together
after all these ****** Tuesdays,
assure us now that Fridays come.

Ordering chaos to line us all up,
getting reverb in return for echoes
after all's said now another way,
we laugh along with
jokers who do laugh at you,
to push you through the portal,
taking all your time apart in instants.

Noise of others, noise from then,
puke into this mic.
Black hole of best intentions.
Good bye and hello, across the decades,
did we not meet once on the street?
I caught your eye, you smiled,
a long, long time ago…
remember?

I smiled, yes, as I passed,
you did not notice, I passed, it happened.

I smiled. hey, la, ha-hahaha, and took
Kesey's invitation, goodnight, Irene.

I did do the dive into the sea,
with drowning on my mind, going down
beyond the buoyancy, of anyone in my tree.

Realizing nothing since we lost touch,
I thought you all realer than me,
as my shape lost its original intention,
time distorts from
formative decades conforming
affirmational automation, to encorporate
clean machines, still a source of pride.
Meanwhile,

we find it easy recalling toe tapping
impulses, now that you know who you are,
have you traveled
very far… further than any magic school bus?

How does if feel to be,
after all this time, to find today, the same old songs.
Knowing I'm a rich man, who never cashed out.
Never got rich beyond the satisfied mind
I found in a sack
behind the grand old opera house.

Nothing you can do that can't be done, it's easy,
say it true, believe it true, prove it makes long term

sense, after fifty freaking years, the laughing trombones
continue laughing at the simplicity past essentials.

Love needs a better definition,
all together now,
everybody, repeat the mantra,
The peace you make is equal to the peace you find...
living longer than children can really imagine,
growing old, never famous, not too rich and miserable,
to live on with the will to grow older
still, knowing better and worse, at once

-------- who are you to ask of me a reason to be?

Run the numbers, inquire costs and benefits.
Rest in peace today,

every child knows tomorrow and yesterday
are not simply more of the same aimless instant.

-------- who are you to ask of me a reason to be?

Run the numbers, inquire costs and benefits.
Rest in peace today,

every child knows tomorrow and yesterday
are not simply more of the same aimless instant.

Let there be darkness
helping us all to see

The light in the night
and the darkness in the day
not just one shade of Grey


There could be a call
that wakes us from our sleep
helping us all to see

The light in the night
and the darkness in the day
not just one shade of Grey

Everyday I put a moment away
believing this to be true
and as I try to think
through the swirling of the ink
something's surrounding me

The light in the night
and the darkness in the day
not just one shade of Grey

There could be a thought
that could change everything
gaining us
strength to see

The light in the night
and the darkness in the day
not just one shade of Grey

If I loose my way
through twisting of the day
colours fading away
I know all's not lost
as I start to see

The light in the night
and the darkness in the day
not just one shade of grey
not just one shade of grey

Ideas in light flow through intertwined wires.
Imaginary fires, light-up a couple of neurons here and there.
Slumpen lumpen forms.
Humans just for a moment.
And in another part of her mind, atop a vast landscape, an alien plays impossible notes on a flute.

Part One - Before we ever met
----------------------------------------
She was a clean thing, but didn't ever scrub herself, or soap herself, like the other girls would.
Instead she’d sometimes slide away from the house and crawl down the side of the valley into the river.

The river that would swell suddenly in the night after some storm, forcing its way violently through the forests in the valley, lifting things and sometimes, someone said, even moving a tree.

And there she'd sit, cold and calm in the river. Naked and shivering in the dark water, neck deep so she looked like a funny little round thing bobbing on the water, blinking.

She wasn’t afraid, anymore, that her past was looking for her.
That great metaphor, swooping through the night  like a Hawk, but with a giant human nose, trying to smell her from some long distance away,
with claws and flight and that giant human nose,
But she knew if it ever did catch up with her, at least she would be clean.

In the coldest months the river really did drag entire trees away.
And facing downstream, always anticipating some fatal blow from behind, she felt just like another winter bruise the river had claimed.

Then in the summer months the water just hung about, slapping cheekily against the fertile banks where the budding flowers were tickled by streams.
Little trickles that raced against the blossoms for who could reach the river first.

Submerged in the water her skin was secretly a beast. And she loved to be in it.  

Part Two - After we had met
--------------------------------------
One day she's suddenly looking at me through the kitchen window waving a saw.
“Have you still got that blue silk smoking jacket?”
…
“I want to skin a rabbit and thought we could dress up and do it together, skin it together out in the disused airfield behind the train station.”

I want her to be my girlfriend, she kinda already is, but without any actual *******, so I say “yeh, yeh, that's just the kind of thing I'm into.”

..and she makes me wear this old blue silk jacket I found in the attic, but inside out, with the shiny paisley interior showing on the outside.

..and she wears a skirt over her jeans and I tie colourful sweet wrappers in her hair. Whispers and Crunchies, and a couple of Mars Bars.

And she's got a dead rabbit roadkill she found already, and we go to the airfield and saw it up.

The trees shadow and
Un bark, our initials flaunted.

The yellow hue is baked
And naked are the letters.

Undone are alphabets of
stories. Tomorrow doesnt
exist. The flaf is torn and
washed.

Spelling is wasted on the
young.

Today sheds minutes on your own words
grave, dappled letters
ride down the sidewalk
and I am forever mottled.


You took away


your name
, written with the wind

and songs


unsung.


Caroline Shank
10.20.2023

Within your phantom hands
I found the noose
Only to die again today

Sweet allure of almost
Can't you hold me tonight?
It's been 23 years since I've felt loved.

Why is my mind like a subway?
Crowded
Filled with every pretty face
That couldn't give a ****

Amongst them the worst
That I would settle
And I, still found less than the tiles
Stained with last nights bad decisions.
Another step upon me, I hope you get to go where you long to be.

I'll be here. Like I always have been.