I still don’t know why,
Or if anyone knows,
I was different then,
It was long ago,
It was new and dangerous,
Like a loaded gun,
You asked me to stay,
I should have run,
But, I stayed….
It was easier….
Just to accept,
Boundaries challenged,
Russian roulette,
And that was how you blew my mind,
I think I lost,
But I had a great time!
© BLCostello 2023

~
The name on my lips
is a prophecy

An unsustainable breath of life

It sparks revolutions
both for and against

To say it is to pray it
in a word, a phrase, a life sentence

And it lies scattered on the beach

Put your ear to a seashell
and listen

Listen for the sound of terrible canyons of static

Of plastic birds
decomposing trees

Things we lost in the fire

Listen for the starvation tapes

For the voice of people who eat darkness
and make big fires out every little syllable

Listen for the work of reformatting spiders
spinning social webs to burden and ensnare
naïve reckless hearts

Listen for the heartless aftermath
and the building blocks of sheer madness

Listen for the sound of weeping
at the memory of peace
~

With a hint of death
mingling in the air,
the nocturnal snapdragon is
digging wells,
not just for water,
but also as final resting
places for friends back home,
in the garden,
deep within the soil.

Callous hands and feet
speak of insufficiency
and misery under the sun,
the one lone solace comes
with night,
and the partaking of
her body's delicacies,
bringing her innumerably
to the helve,
as she sings heavenly things
about the architecture
we creatures fall
so easily from.

There are things
I did not do.

I did not  touch
you.  

You
died. Without
a sound.

Your soft brown eyes pierced me.
I saw you go in the quiet
way you did everything.
I knew you were gone
but not before I
knew sadly, silently
that
I
could not hold
you in a final

embrace.

Closeness had run out
so long ago,

though we loved until the end,

bereft of speech,
as we we were bereft of
touch.

I bowed to your
blank stare.

I would have died for
you if I could have.  

but I could not
save you from
this destiny

with the Father

Who

Loved

you



Caroline Shank
2.2,2023

Emerging from the Cave

Sunshine

Blinking
Drops form

Blue sky

Deep breath

Freedom