Round little Mulberry leaves. Park green, mean, and shining like a sparrow’s beady eyes. Smooth edges and veiny leaves shifting under a summer gust. Gently tucked behind a blinding white PVC fence in its little terraced jungle world.

You once were here

You'd get unexplainable intuition allowing you to peer right into the depths of my soul

Eyes piercing as you perused aisles of my countless chaotic emotions

Hit hard with words I didn't ask you to say

Rubbed back of my spine like you were waxing a car
Firmly but so carefully

My head in lap but my mind in the gutter

Now hands aren't here to caress my edges anymore

We had moments of weakness but they are overshadowed by the brightness you blessed my dark world with

Drunken songs and Christmas presents and uttered compliments

But always time ends everything good
You were the greatest

the weight of constellations
surrounded by the ink of amorphous sky
slamming into my chest
clearing my lungs of all air
I double over
as the heaviness of sky
sucker punches me in the lungs
They aren't as bright
in my hometown

Leading someone
on
feels
like writing
the beginning
of the
cutest poem
and then
it sudde.......

Come far away, come fly away.
It’s another day in the sun.  

don’t know where to go, just followin the road
running won’t change our fate.
where does the highway go to die ?

We’re too far now
I feel the breath of a gun on my neck
I can already feel the crows staring to peck
all we can do is wait till they come.

Come far away, come fly away.
another day in the sun.

waiting for the crows to come
Time to face what we have done
there’s nowhere left to run.  
How long stands between us and a shot gun.

Come far away, come fly away.
It’s another day in the sun.
Till the crows come.

(this is another throw-back - a piece of writing, from high school, used in my Yale applications)

I pound the pillow, curse the clock and mock injunctions to rest.

The sun finally rises and its rays slantwise fall through the curtains as I dry my hair.

A meal, like a forced dose, we soak ourselves in wasted, nervous time.

Finally! We arrive at the competition...

Tension is here and tireless pressure.

The players waiting stiff as straw, tongues playing over dry lips.

Teachers and coaches unapologetic in their pallor.

Music drifts behind us and occasionally gasps, as imperfections play like daring circus tricks.

The sparkling prodigy returns disappointed, grimace of a smile, stricken, he stares away as we search for words, oh! clumsy, unrepairable prince!

Suddenly, its time and I wonder why we are hurrying, feeling weak, momentarily frightened to go there.

On this stage in this great, hushed hall, enormity suddenly dawns with mass enough to crush me.

At last, I sit before this odd Steinway music machine - my dearest mechanical friend.

A tremble resisted - the reward of mortal afternoons - endless practices fruit.

Eyes closed I prepare my best self - pushing all fear, all doubt, to the margins - and begin.

I hope, to recreate, one note at a time, Chopin's ancient impact - with hands flying, like tethered birds, I hammer out his timeless melody explosions, his streams of crazily exact math exam fiery semiquaver motions.. then, almost suddenly, I'm done.

I stand, joyously, nearly crying.. The world hasn't ended.
.
.
Songs for this:
12 Etudes, Op. 10: No. 4 in C-Sharp Minor by Vladimir Ashkenazy
Part of Your World by Emile Pandolfi
We gather together by Emile Pandolfi

Cruel is the silence after.
the love goes.
The nights when the
breeze

freezes and the frogs
lose their croak.

Silence like the stillness
  of a child's bare footed
  climb into our bed.

Midnight is the silence
     after the rain goes.

I touch the silence with
      my mind.  I map the
      road  to a

tomorrow I don't want,
never asked for.  

The place is quiet.
      There was a stop
       a ways back.

You left me by the Willow.
       I couldn't call your name

You left me by the sand dune.
       and when I looked back

you never saw me

again.


Caroline Shank
11.03.2024

an elderly man in Prague threw out
his Sunday paper, in the same trashcan
he always does--for a sense of order.
a northern mockingbird still lies dead
on the steps leading to our basement
door.
the epilogue of two November nights
tried to convince the third not to show
up an hour early.
the I Am caught a red leaf while in full
stride, then let it go a few steps later.
pumpkins with carved faces are
disappearing--while uncarved pumpkins
may see another month.
the Atlantic now wears Long Island like
a sleep mask--as a Great White draws
elusive parallels under cold waves.
a broken plate was found to
symbolize the connective tissue of
character development, in a bargain-bin
novel.