Tonight would not bridge
Two ordinary days.
Her idea would ignite
His imagination and mould
From the raw clay a vision
Through the churning heavens.
The ballet crafting their bodies
Scene through scene,
She whispers,
He listens,
They lay, as spoons often do.
A last glance over
The flowers and the candle,
Out the window through
The rain, wind, and thunder
Lighting their creation’s sight.

Chasing her through the forest,
She lets him, almost catch her.
Dancing themselves into vines
In a canopy hidden from the wind’s
Muffled thunder.
There, in their haven lush,
Ensnaring so deeply, too soon.
And away he turns himself to stone.
Twisting too tight around
The indifferent mountainous statue,
She snaps herself
And by the time he’s felt it,
Soft enough to turn and see-
See another statue’s backside,
Cold clay remolding into stone.
He stretches himself thin to reach,
Her sepulchral touch lays him out.
She sits, straddles, stares him down,
The lightning cracks behind her eyes,
Splitting her stone heart
Clean through flame,
Incinerating their quiet canopy,

Rising into the storm.
Chasing her through the fire,
She lets him, fan the flames.
Two dancers' violent rhythm
Raging with every touch, until
A tear, or two,
Undo the flames,
Dropping with the rain all in everything,
They fall, fall, fall
Flooding down the mountain
Rushing through the cracks
Left behind in the stone,
Flowing together a river
Through the trees, out to sea.
As two make one body their own,
The currents churning through.

A spiral sparks the children’s learning,
The whirlpool to the maelstrom
Surging their liquid body up
The column that would
This time reach the storm.
The lightning cracks behind their smiles-
Their love undoes gravity’s condensation.
Drifting,
Through the clouds,
Stars,
In each other’s arms,
The ballet crafting their bodies,

They lay, as spoons often do.

Been off stubbing repeatedly,
my toes,
on the raggedy twisted
sidewalks of a sinking city, not mine,
where here, my own metaphor,
is being hand delivered,
to me, for me, by me

too many cayenne creole paroles,
none of them getting me any freer
none, as of yet,
making me a free parolee

been off studying some
of what I cannot yet do,
parole in libertà,
a language cosmopolitan
of creation, via creative writing
remolding all of the dix senses

been drawn and french quartered,
drilled down, found no unknown
solace deep bedrock grown,
so doing a redistricting of the map personal,
exposing my gardens, my Doric columns,
to any passerby with the
audacity so sheer to look me
in the face direct and say
laissez le bon temps rouler!

looking to liberate my words,
looking for liberty in my words,
in a different melting *** where here
I am a semi-low semi-free
person of color called
Old Fashioned White,
looking for a seasonal hurricane
to move me along,
push me to write in a new style,
developing cayenne words
smothered in jazz à la mode

multi-flirting with multi-fluency,
searching for Experimental
mellifluous words
stolenlen from, and built upon
a thousand years of languages,
river wide delivering its mountain deep
cargo of silt, a city of words, upon it built,
just like the great Mississippi,
changing course every one
                                               thousand years

my mouth, a river opening wide,
catching both salty and fresh,
god's love delivering,
doing the best I can,
writing real fracking poetry for poetry's sake,
not text messages of asstags
kissing nobody's ads of sad dead #hashtags,
following nobody noticeably,
but thrusting your good stuff into my orifices,
most pleasurably deep
                

but never parrying,
                   

      I am a poet social only in this:

my devotion to my crew
                                   stronger every day
for and
                           of that particular poetry,

           I can write better than anyone,
              so big,
                                    sooooooooo easy,

and that's, Steve, Bala, y'all,
how and what I'm doing
and by the way,

Putain Zang Tumb Tumb

you could look it up

Sometimes ...
Its best
to let go
to fall apart
to shatter
to brun down
to ashes
but
then it's bestest
to rebulid
to rise
to put things together
piece by piece
beautifully
removing the ugly bits
remolding,
reconstructing..
to make melody
out of sorrow
and
smile out of pain !!

splendid anticipation twisting sapling towards skyroots again
porous attrocities  absorb all happenstance toward equilibrium
prance in trance, dance enhance
the words are subtle still and vague
privy to thoughts portrayed by strays, mainstays frayed by microwaves
this cancer causing communication, new information trending towards midlifestations
I still see the spark, still taste the quark. yet improvisations on the fly are hindered
loquaciousness is all a hoax, jokes and folks hold this shaky oak
some still breathe for the trees
most still wish only to seize
but the smiles ring through all these trials all the whiles no reconciles
flies are gathering on this **** and still my feeling wont equit
where is the man from the sky? the one who wont shell our eyes?
was it a woman within the weaves, the stars unfolding
remolding us as lumps of clay and changing the meaning of the word geigh
sleighride with me onto the seas, now frozen by your cold wilting weeze
rhymes and verses traverse like hearses picking up where my thoughts stop short
clicking and twisting, familiar sorts sing songs of us between retorts
it all points to that familiar end, when i cower away and wont defend
the points of light in pupils stares
between this line nothing impairs
tear away the peeling, reeling and the chewey center within
its not a sin to mend the seams and come forthright
steal from my mind just one last kiss, an idle embrace you've never held, grasping
at least that's what the clouds are hissing, evaporating what ive been missing
mix it all in one big ***, stewing all the things that i am not
you label me a fool in vain, for i have danced between the rain
impossible sorts of things i've felt, callussed noses refused to've smelt
whisper all the words in pairs, double the potency of stares
climb up the rungs one by one and suddenly the songs i've sung
will bellow in through the wind and you'll wonder if there's time
to find the reason within this rhyme

Oh, her sad siren songs
How they take me away

To the vast loneliness
Ocean blues I convey
Through the words that I write
Just to keep her at bay
Only cast me asunder
'Neath storm clouds of gray

As her sad siren songs'
Melancholic array

Resonates in my veins
Serenades me astray
Remolding my heart
To this misshapen clay
Distorted blood vessel
Sets course for dismay
When my solitude sails
So reluctantly sway

In her sad siren songs
That still seem to outweigh

My anchor left rusting
In sunken decay
And bottomless depths
Of awaiting someday
I'll drift back to her shores
Once more to fall prey

To her sad siren songs
How they steal me away

I sometimes pull heartbeats out of my chest and turn them into poems
Because I get sick of listening to this ***** inside of me like a drum, reminding me that I am still alive  because frankly I don’t care
It seemed to make no difference if my lungs suddenly forgot how to fill themselves with air
Suffocated shrunken up cavity, vacant of natural skills we develop from the womb
It wouldn't matter if I drowned in this void
I could manage anything after losing you
You see, in life we will experience droughts
Times where emotion runs dry, the sky cracks with a sunset and all you can see is orange
Your disposition is confusing, you are distant from friends, humble in insults, you have accepted your fate
You are going to smother eventually so be patient in this dismay
You have accustomed yourself to the spell of darkness and wonder all magic is black magic
You see I am sinking in this concrete, mental blankness, unfolding remolding
I do not want to love again, I want to but I know I won't be able to do it right so I do not want to love again
My body does not take well to being held, my heart racing does not comfort me
Butterflies are just insects that look pretty
I do not want to taste another's lips, I do not want you to tell me I am beautiful
There is no cure to this disease, it is malignant and vicious, it is determined to see me to my grave
Hardly anything comforts me anymore because there is only so much you can do with something that is broken
My skies are painted grey and my walls are painted white
Everything is ordinary, plain, mediocre, nothing excites me quite like you used to
So I sit patiently in this room where the floor is slowly rising up and he ceiling will soon make friends with my brain
I do not worry, the sky is the limit and I am almost there
I hope to greet the stars with a faint smile, weary and worn but authentic enough to join them
Look down upon you and assure that you are alright and then I fall
And maybe you can make a wish on me in her name

Remember sometimes the evil one can and will deceive us all.
But it will not last long then the Christ shall reveal to you the truth.
For we all have our insecurities, that will some days hurt us.
But always know that God is working on each of us in different ways.
Remolding us transforming us into a likeness of him our God.
So allow him to finish the works that he has already startled in us.
Remember you are not always going to make everyone happy.
So try and reach out to those that are put in your life to encourage.
Still love those that are rejecting your friendship by praying for them.

Out of the fire he called me, as I stand the ashes fall off of me.
All that is left of me , is what was not burn in the fire of cleansing.
For he is at work within each of us, cleansing with a Holy Fire.
Transforming us, into his Perfect likeness, remolding each of us.
Molding , transforming us reworking us into a Holy Child.
For he uses circumstances, situations, and people in our lives.
To create an race of Humble, Holy Race of soldiers that belong to him.
For he take an group of nobodies and make us into his somebodies.
That he shall use to reach a world that is dying from our sins.

Women are not made of stone;
They melt too easily.
They are made of wax.
Use their scent as it often detracts
From the deformed soul of the statue queen.
They pray for remolding;
Men pray for a dream.
And amidst all this prayer
I’m caught in-between
The scene.
A righteously immoral race to climb through the bars of the dungeon,
Speeding, needing, until it feels safe,
A finish line waiting—no shifts, no return.
A candle, it brightens without its first burn.
Behoove me, please. Behoove me and
Remove me.
I cannot take this scene.

Kyrie Eleison

on my old and fractured
existence. May I be
released from the slavery
of old loves that pit me, that
pock me with the dregs
of all those memories.

Christe Eleison

on my ignorance.  You
who loves as the birds fly,
wildly propogating life from the
grasses between the sidewalks.

Kyrie Eleison

on me as I find the way
home away from the dome
of my misgivings.
Make me a potion, carry
me for Your refraction.

I hold onto pain as a
refusal to my remolding
soul.  Model me to an
abundance of joy.

Caroline Shank