at the end,
i burned the village
to the ground,
every bridge in,
every road out.

i made sure there was
nothing left, still found myself
weeping in the wreckage

wondering why you didn't
try to save us
why you didn't
stop me -

and the guilt
and the anger
and the love
and the longing

a brutal cocktail
when i was already drunk.

in the years since,
i cleaned up the wreckage,
built a nice little memorial.

i don't visit much anymore.

Will You Forget Me?

I am staring at the jagged rocks,
the dune of age,
The mica gleams,
I am involved with you
in some demon dance.

Your red corduroy is furred  
and plaid.
Tomorrow the world will end.
I will sleep in.  I will not
take calls.

I stutter through
the door into the
sandpits of memory.

Dear Lord,
We will not go gently.

We have secrets,
We travel
alone,

into that

good night.

Each of us
to remember….


Caroline Shank

Among birds
They’re the duller
No need to see color
When none of them
Held within
Arms of a lover
Just first to flyover
Marooned in my closure’s
Erasure exposure
And nobody knows
Of the woebegone
Better
Or soothes me
With moody
Tempestuous weather
For islands of paradise
Caged her too long
Until jungles of concrete
Are where she has gone
And she will fly away
You delusional fool
Or be flightless forever
For some
Shiny jewel

molly
the waitress
at Town diner

wants to be a model
or a nun,
tells me she's a poet

we're sitting on
a couch in her apartment.
molly takes a poem from
a foot high stack
on the end table,
hands me a poem,
"FIRST BRA," by Molly C.
it's about buying
her first bra at 12.
"i was big.
i needed a bra at 11,"
she smiles.

now
she doesn't wear bras.

she tells me
rod mckuen
is the most read
poet
in America.

"what about walt,
plath,
hughes?" i asked.

"no
no,"
she says,
"mckuen is the MOST
popular poet
in American history,
no,
really
the greatest American poet."

molly loves rod mckuen.

i love molly.

"if the public loves
rod mckuen,"
i tell her,
you've got a shot.
you could be the  female version
of rod mckuen."

molly smiles
takes me by the hand
and leads
me up the stairs
to the loft.

she takes the ribbon
from her hair.

i lay her down
on the bed

and bang the hell
out of
the next
most read
American poet

I know I dreamed of you

so shoot me
bury me in an unmarked grave

and in a 1,000 years
archeologists will dig me up
only to discover
a dusty pitcher of margaritas
still cold

the ashes
of a half smoke cuban cigar

and the picture of you.