I Cry

I cry for the new babies.  They
havA thrill for living.

From so small hands the
DAY is channeld.
Tomorrow has not

Yet

determined  the posture
of tomorrow

Tomorrow that will suffer
of Blue Skies and questions.
Long after the rules are

set like spoons
to drunken rules.

I cry for tomorrows
hidden like doors
the feral cats use


No work of small hands
can stop the

Guns.


Caroline Shank
January 9, 2025

Tell me


again about flush toilets and hot
water.

I want you to keep it up,  I
sit and sit and “think about

it.
How good my life is.
.
Tell Me stuff of legends.
How God is good.

How love is to one's soul
as rain helps the Garden
    Grow.

Beat It into my failing
feeling.  The heart is
only prescribed to the



Foolish.

Tell Me Again


Tell me to stop weakening
with each flash of you.
Each belly flop of

your caring.

My turn at sublimation
leaves tears on my vocabulary.

To be Wise for you  is to be
as the lonely clef

under songs.

Daylight drives me cold
into

the
Lonely

Night


Caroline Shank
January 9, 2025

My friend is gone,a way of
leaving, mirrors October.
    
A warning salvo is flat footed

against the failure to bond,
     A Bottle slips.

The Brandy puddles.

Where have all my

  flowers

gone?  Never a breath, never
a sigh even.

My Old is withered.
to wrong turns.
  To those who read
the magazines.

I persevere
the unwritten
untold.

There is Now.

The failure of laughter
at my expense.

I cry unheard.

The Silence.


.
Caroline Shank
January 8. 2025!


~~

She tripped over you in a
final wave of surrender.

You said
   meet me where

The white cloth waves

in the air,
today's laundry.

Time's stretch limp

       unworn

clock’s hands.

Future stopped in the
U.nticking

The lie in bleach is

rinsed .

Love lives in the

shadow....

Tomorrow.will be
a
      concept

w.rapped in a

fantasy.


Caroline Shank
January 4, 2025

Mother did you know I would
grow old alone?

That the crevices on my
face fell into the street

with used syllables?

Tomorrow you said
No
To my first boyfriend.

Mother did you know I
wouldn't care. Your scarred

breast
was not my fault.

The trail of your
Epithet does not hurt
As much as this

Old age
When you
tried to

sell me


Caroline Shank
12.24.2024

You asked me if I had
     Written
a poem today?

No I said.  You could not
have known that you are

     my poem.

My metaphors have changed.
You took my sad attempt’
'
to make of my life

     a story someone might
read, even for a moment.
Tonight I can tell you

     You are the meter
which steers the thing
I call love.

An unusual poem, filled
with all the things you are.

So I will know you when
     finally
we are met
and One.  

Caroline Shank
December 17. 2024

For Kinik

It's as if my life was a package forgotten on the side

of a back road.

The chance of being plucked out and found even interesting,

unconcerned.

The name addressed to Hell.


Battered by lifes footballs
the sunscorched wrapping illegible.
To love so much the
Contents arrive in Hell.
Go on. I am not done with you

So says the
Call of the Universe.
Your tears are large.
The last of my life.
I won't go on. I will
stumble through

the bramble and thistles.

You saved me once
when I believed

In a destiny.
For such a short time

No
chance of being plucked out and found even interesting, unconcerned.
The name addressed to Hell.

Battered by lifes footballs the sunscorched wrapping illegible.
To love so much the
Contents arrive in Hell.

Go on. I am not done with you
So says the

Call of the Universe.
Your tears are large.
The last of my life.
I won't go on. I will
stumble through the bramble and thistles.
You saved me once when I believed
In a destiny.


For such a short time.

Caroline Shank