Willets cull the seawall
snapper on the grill
rock ***** swoon
in shallow lagoons
long boats pass
under quiet
palm shade

Plovers dance and flutter
handrails frayed and torn
graffiti spots
at lovers rock
frigate-birds fall
from a high
noon sun

Thatched roof on a mud wall
fish flags settle score
anchors arch
in front line march
pillar cracks form
under rust brown scars

Elegant tern and grebe
watchmen fall in cue
children play
on crested waves
whimbrels and notchers
perch above Tentaciones

Striped pelícanos
the bandits of the sea!
merchants grow
in steady flow
siblings jostle
in a tide cooled sand

Heerman gull and boobie
durango smoke in yurt
boiler shrimp
and puffer blimp
castle buckets and scrapers
under a dusk light cheroot

Six pulls on a lead line
painted toes in sand
shearwater run
in a rainbow sun
the portly mexicano
flaunts his tacos
and wares

Rooster house for swordfish
bamboo shoots and sails
broken shells
and ocean swells
rise
on the
perfect
La Ropa bay

stacking the arrows in piles
a triangle of fuego
furnaces blaze fire
infinite reminders
of the morning after
shafts of light
drift from window panes
remake our names in
god’s slumbering veins
from here to there a whisper
or was it a word
fellow companions
have you heard
the threadbare sisters
took their turns
climbing mountains in order
that we could learn
the ways
of green hearted sun-scrapers
sweet little dangers
fellow death chasers
full of music
givers of blooming veils
bouquets of snow and hail
almond shaped eyes
resplendent thighs
and a mind as pure as a lake
during an alaskan winter
in the frozen splinter
trees are taken from their roots
the women are bleeding
weaving you the meat and the story
outsiders are cast from clay into statues
with feminine bodies
curving like cotton candy
i choose to impress you
repeat the compliments
that land on empty stomachs
string together words
like a rosary of sweet nothings
simple deeds give thrilling feats
a chance to restore their honor
purity is unwashed in ***** soil
as i am cut from the cloth of the earth
our shirts are pressed at birth
white light forming fellowship
dimples in the cheeks of the mother
the earth’s bones torn out from under
the way we made ourselves invisible
the minute we realized our accents were noticeable
our actions were abominable
how could we ever repay
the generosity we were treated to
our ultimate needs are met by poetry
upon a ridge a silent figure wept
and held his head upon a bed of cement

Scrapers will no longer scrape.
Fighters soon to lose the short fight.
Pilots are forced to surrender control.
Snakes on a plane will bank into a roll,
a scene that really no longer is scenic.
Leaders still read while getting a scare.
Huge landmarks that I swear were once there,
bridges in shortage are counting the tolls.
Dust that eventually will never be settled,
liquid support that used to be metal,
big bad crude that never was good—
things impossible suddenly could.
Answers quickly try to be drummed.
Future conflicts guaranteed to be won,
particles blocking our UV death sun,
days become decades and turkey is done.
Brave individuals are no longer bold.
Families’ histories are quite often told,
a baby’s bottle empty with no one to hold.
Government figures tilted but somehow sold
parades in protest with a circus in town.
A tiger got out, but why can’t he growl?
Seems that the cat’s got somebody’s tongue.
Another channel covers son after son,
numbers mounting, but not the right ones.
Cabbies still nose their thumb after thumb,
training centers destroyed one after one.
We should’ve just played “Drop the **** bomb!”
Fear is good, and of course good is feared;
it’s the only thing that drives us way over here.
Just like the Bible, it’s mostly made up.
The supersonic jet has just hit a rut.
The dirtiest of bombs versus our Smith and Wesson.
“Come on gang, why would you even question?”
Like death and taxes—there’s none that’s more sure,
but then there’s the free upcoming history lesson.
“Ain’t gonna do it” acting just like his pop.
This rancher really means it when tossing the slop.
“Still can’t find him—he’s with boys in Brazil.”
What’ve they done lately to lighten the till?
It’s time for the Allies to storm up this hill.

pulling you through the needle eye of time

over my shoulder the dawn,
and the city’s scrapers sky glass have turned pastel

the sun has had a great time
being an agitated red eye
infected and watering, pooling and flooding and
drowning

blinding
indifferent
life-giving
same-time

the people asleep and the memories stain
with spells
promises and prayers

all infinite, and finite
wary of sentient
and one

drowsy hive mind
reoccurring dreams- a drive thru memory
passing through with
intermittent lucidity

Black bombs fly
religious people lie
sky scrapers cleric capers
THOSE!!!! archaic papers rise
here human dwelling must crumble
and masses must die.
WHERE ARE THEY GOING TO???????
in this barren space of Arabic land
feet aimlessly plod
the elderly pray
widows wail
orphans weep
and babies cry
on the order 1947
sacked from a place called heaven
waves in a sandstorm
40 nights and 40 more....
THOSE!!!! ghouls are rotten to the core
killing innocence
and much, much more....

Old memories preserved in black and white.
Reminisce of a time less contrite.
Seen through the lens of those without strife.
Young and free with a passion for life.
Replaced by wisdom, fear and guilt.
For the life one has methodically built.
With walls and doors, and windows to see.
As the world passes by this absentee.
Surrounded by frames of the finest wood.
Of snapshots of the potential that someday could.
Climb the mountains unreached by the hands of our time.
Instead stuck walking for fear of the climb.
For fear of the fall and all it might bring.
Fear of the inability to rebuild his wings.
Compliant with gravity, compliant with normality.
Unfamiliar with the rebellion that once filled his soul.
Defining his life where their now is a hole.
Replaced by a scar and filled with his tears.
As the joys of his childhood continue to disappear.
Chased away by the light of reality.
Youthful dreams replaced in actuality.
Ambitions refocused towards sensuality.
Mind made up of generalities.
Soul defined in spirituality.
As his life moves slowly into irrationality.
And though the colors here are always bright.
They are most vulnerable in the absent of light.
Replaced by the darkness and a mind numbing truth.
One we all have forgotten from our youth.
That the potential of life knows no bounds.
And that which we can create will always astound.
Those who come after us and those who continue to follow.
Will continue to fill our world as if it was hollow.
In need of filling with that which they create.
Building from our ashes on a brand new slate.
Their artistry challenged only by those.
Who have left footprints in the sand with their bare toes.
So which life do you wish to live.
One of solitude or one where you continue to give.
Give your time, give your energy, give your heart and your soul.
To the child in you whom you continue to out grow.
Continue to neglect who’s dreams have yet to be filled.
By the world you once dreamed of with those Legos you use to build.
Dreams filled with sky scrapers all in black and white.
Only to be interrupted by mornings first light.
Life’s colors seeping in as they begin to fill your days.
Your youthful ambitions still here in many ways.
Still clinging to you through those memories of yesteryear.
Captured in your childish smile radiating so clear.

i am wearing a kimono,
this sheer, garish, floral shred of fabric that wafts about my frame.
the cafe people snip at it with their eyes full of sharp edges.

ive been here all day
the view is terrible,
the music
is like the sound of a snail in seasalt.
little
crackles
of wet flesh hot and retreating, no, burning.
but i am so tired I cant move.
maybe it isn't so bad,
maybe I am just being difficult...
everything,
even the kiss colored leaves that
toss themselves down the boulevard,
seem shrill to me.

all i can
think about
is what you said to me last night

"a pretty face is a loaded gun"
tearing holes into me with your angry eyes.
you know
the line itself is crap,
a splinter in this thigh,
it is snapping, that line, under all the meaning
i gave it  in my drunken storm.

i walk along that line,
as though it is stretched between sky scrapers,
high above like a tightrope.
today all the great buildings that surround, give me perspective on my size,
and they hiss
as great, hollow objects seem to do sometimes.

now that iam awake
i see that it doesn't make sense
when you said it
you were swimming in a gin bath and
playing the poet with a shredded heart
but iam trying to give you credit
and find something other then an image
-image of my body
with a heavy, black barrel protruding from my throat
and a tantalizing trigger, curling like a tongue taunting you
to pull it
and blow your ******* skull apart-
you were just trying to offend me thats what i see.
dont blame this face, you are just angry.

goddamm the music here sounds like nails!
that man over there with the sloppylips looks like he might disintegrate
in worse shape then me I think,
I hope.

anyways i was saying dont blame this face
thats right i say iam beautiful,
you said it first though.
though you only said it, in search of the trigger.

christ,
we all need to get up and go,
this place is like a horse's mouth
lets all get up and walk out together in a thread of gorgeous bodies who just
wont take it anymore. lets go.
forget it. wait
what was i saying?

Hypocrite,
Hypocrite am I.

Cruel nature
plays the harshest games,
the fire-on-the-Cuyahoga,
****-splatter brain busters.
The city is cooled by her
harsh and horrifyingly
Maternal touch.
Snow falls attractively
on the dying city below,
picaresque and perfect
in this last-winter scene.
The two sky scrapers
pierce through winter's
frozen cocoon,
though envelop will be the
less threshed land.
Slums are ravished in snow,
spoiled by the cold
cold cold crying
of a maiden not warm.
I am buried beneath
layers of snow,
reddened when paled,
angered by my cooling.
Numbing comes with this
frenzied freeze,
like the kids down the street
who grow out their beards
even though they can't
grow their *****.
I am numbed
despite the fact that
Feeling is fruitful;
cruel nature does not wish
for such connections
to fall upon me.
Perhaps it is love,
and I would love to believe so,
that causes her to covet-
no, hoard me so.
Perhaps it is love,
and it so clearly is ringing in this numb numb numbness,
that causes her to bury me
in mountains of snow.
I am counting down the time
til my melt down,
as spring is not so long away.
Perhaps it is love,
and the rising flowers whisper it like jealous children oft do,
that she has always been
so deathly afraid of.
This is the spring of our love,
But we are not as springy as we should be.

Hypocrite,
Hypocrite am I.

Mid October takes its end of season's leap
into the solitude of post-tourism autumn.
The landscape shows its truer face to celebrate
the reassembly of local solidarity.

Tat and trim tucked into hibernation,
chalkboards erased,
scant takings totaled,
inflatables deflated.
Unsold crafts packed between pages of yesterday's
'Correio de Manha'
Shocked freezers stand open-mouthed
their diet of ice dwindled to a thin trickle.
Sunshades collapse in deep south style,
redundant loungers relax supine.

Kids ***** back to school -
a mule-train of shoe-scrapers packed to the hilt
dawdles through warming scents of
post-salad indulgence,
sweet with the street-aroma of 'feijoada',
garlic, and  aromatic oregano
***-grown in a back plot, littered with
discarded placards and tired bikes.

Past men leaning doors, unsure of new routines,
idle hands and minds with new time to fill
mostly in cold bars for warm camaraderie.
Women pick fitfully at quiet-season's crochet
squatting to gossip under a white wash
slung and pegged, stick-sure
against thin bleached facades.

Under Planes, old comrades congregate
shuffling at a make-shift table,
tired eyes set on cards,
playing for cents under a limited sky
once defined by Salazar.

Car parks thin.
Beneath the russet canopies street-sweepers
scorn a reckless wind, where still sun-crisp leaves
gather in gutters, thirstily anticipating
the first deluge under autumn's gathering clouds.




copyright © Caroline Grace 2011

Once I have been to that city
the city of ritzy splendour,
of hoary grandeur,
a gargantuan pile of steel and granite.
It stood an enigma
on the banks of Hudson,
lulling the waves to sleep
in the garish light of neon bulbs
with an eternal tumult
heating up its nerves

Walking down its streets alien
scenes eerie scurried past-
Men and women-
of all climes and continents
all ethnic denominations,
all shapes, sizes and colours,
blonds, brunettes,
blacks and whites,
tourists and nomads,
in flashing styles
outlandish costumes,
tonsured, dyed
and tattooed,
on shoulders, back and chest
with bizarre shapes,
Some dressed from top to toe
many bordering on ******,
splurging with life
feverish and frenzied
speaking different dialects,
some tall, some lean, many obese
trundling down busy streets
that never go still
with sleep and awakening
but action, commotion, agitation,
where each day is an eternity
and each night- a New Year’s Eve
where business runs without pause
rife with sounds and noises -
the incessant roars of fevered minds
muffled, stifled, excited, agonized
mixing with music flowing from concert halls
merging in sounds of siren
and speeding traffic
A banal hubbub-
A hoarse discordant clamour!

I passed through avenues
where sky scrapers
huddled together on either side
where once stood the Twin Towers
stabbing into clouds –
those titanic monuments of Yankee pride,
one day raced down to Ground Zero
where terrorists wreaked havoc
and wiped thousands unwary -
still frozen in the dark memories
of that day light nightmare!

Passing down Wall Street,
the nation’s Money Mart
that spawns an industry
of ruthless dreams and fantasies,
I saw,
the mammoth Bull, charging feral
under whose crushing hooves
many fall dead
and rise again like Phoenix
or soar into indefinable heights
or bury their dreams ever
under the sod.

Broad roads that stretched endless
seemed to lose themselves
like the mazy tangle of complex minds,
and pavements
littered with a thousand moving feet
Men and women in pairs,
hand in hand,
lip to lip,
bodies entwined
seen in beaches and parks
in whose brain
Marriage- labelled an anachronism!

In these hurricane of faces
with fleeting passions
or fixations of their own
What chemistry could I discern?
A zest for life--or its absence?
A search for a life lost in living?
A fight for survival
Or
A passive surrender to the inevitable?
I do not know—
I fail to define
I fail to divine.

All.
The mindless purchases
The green leaves we inhale
The uncontrollable laughter
The never ending sky scrapers
The musicians in the street

Do not change the fact.
That we are all alone
We have all been used up
We cannot measure up.
That we were not present
The day the obscurity faded.

However, they remind us.

That our souls remain alert.
Striving for revival.

Rain dancing towards a puddle on my tongue
reaching for something external, an embrace that chokes us.
This beautiful black bike thats engine screams like my fringed back,
I escape on the leather seats and the smooth silver
Blooming baby blossoms on the trees
(as tall as mountain) tops fly back as I race forward
Escaping our planted roots
Picking one by one to bring along, I balance beings.
The afterrain lets on a mystifying mist that wets my hand and the blossoms leak out on the distant pavement
I break in the air.
Stuck in this sanity.
I’m soaring on my engine like a hot air balloon
A smooth transcendent layer of life I ride on.
On clouds and winds past sky scrapers
Insanity is comfort
I float on,
bearing the future of
absence.
I enter no oxygen and mouth goodbye to breath.
But the weight is waved off
in a tide of tickling tongues
desertion is destination.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.
You made me happy when you were sane.

Singing to me, in that little coffee shop,
I wanted you to continue singing forever.
I was lost to the people around us.

Your voice was my foundation.
Your smile was my heart-beat.

But now, your smile is a flickering, dying flame.
But now, your heart-beats are counted.

We dreamed of traveling the world.
We dreamed sky scrapers and lion tamers.
We dreamed of a life that never will be.

You’re still my sunshine,
Please don’t take that away.

all i can think is
i wish i was the wild one
wild sister of the street
wild mother of the hungry sky
something poetic
like wild girl, roaming
more than just a wisp born
of country air
wild wind, ******* forward
through the field
across a country deep and cracked
until i reach the skyline
scrapers extending beyond the reach
of any mountain, and the stars rest
above the smog of the home
where the wild ones rest
where the wild ones lie awake
and i can camouflage myself
in the darks and reds and glittery bedspreads
and be wild
in a different way
paint me wild, paint me
green and blue with envy
paint my cheeks white, paint over the pink
of stale summer air
all i can think is
i wish i was the wild one
break away, go some place
where i can tell my story a million different ways
and they might believe me
make me wild in another way
no more ***** shoes or burdock-ridden hair
give me sharp heels, black combat
sleek and shiny, change me
make me wild
and i sink to my knees
sink into the soft, welcoming concrete
and say please, city
change me

many girls i know like men that glean
like sky-scrapers, brilliant in their hard lines
that rise up from the ash in a fit of man made glory.
somehow, i bypassed this lust for babel opting for flesh
teeming with genesis like the forest behind my cabin.
its heartbeats of life with in death pound beside me
as i lie in bed with the light off and the blinds open
looking at poplars like they're the pillars of Hercules
crudely inscribed with the letters ne plus ultra.
i thought he was in the spirit of lake of the woods
but his roots do not flourish here, they scour for soil
and water finding only dry sand. so at what point
did i stop ghosting the natural curve of the road
engulfed by the yellow of my favourite blouse
reflecting back in the blacks of his eyes like lighthouses
or twin Brittle Bushes from the Sonoran. he is nothing
but an African desert where children absorb warnings
like liberal skin, oblivious to the natural radiance in desolation
and everything that i will eventually let go

Land of the free
Home of the brave
From sea to shining sea
In between golden waves

From the fields farmers plant
Across the vast Mid-West
In this Americana Panorama

Northern cities touching sky
Scrapers lighting up the night
As the Carolina shore
Echos back the oceans roar

Along the Texas plains
Where freedom loves to sing
In this Americana Panorama

With the Grand Canyons openness
To Alaska's wilderness
The mountains majesty
Powerful in its reach

In all the time that's spent
There's no other way to live
In this Americana Panorama

The colorful blue fescue
On a Kentucky afternoon
Under a Live Oak tree
With Spanish moss as company

To the California sunset
Being the last thing said
In this Americana Panorama

If only your few freckles were the few stars I can see outside my city window.

If only that crescent moon was your mischievous wink, or sly smile.

If only I could jump out of my window and hop upon the sky scrapers, higher and higher and rest upon that crescent, rest upon thine shut eye, thy lips.

If only this window, your glasses were gone. I could leap and show you how much I love you. I could show you how high and fast I would jump over the CN Tower and fall again just for you and kiss your freckles on my descent.

Just for you. Just for you.

93 million miles Ra’s rays travel
and light your cratered face

as you rise between monoliths
where janitors man buffers

and ambitious white collars sit by crumpled fast food wrappers
devouring data, dreaming of their own ascension

while you climb ten floors a minute

tomorrow, our wide world will shave a corner from you
in a fortnight, you will be a white whisper

though surely as our stone spins, you will again
become gibbous--then regally full

inside the scrapers, the buffers yet buzz,
the aspiring giants yet yearn for more

while you remain, silent light in the night,
unperturbed by their folly

Soft soled shoes skipping silently along sun scorched sidewalks of Sacramento
Singing sad songs of sinners sinning
  Slinking into shadows of sky scrapers before the sun has soundly set
    Scowling at the sound of sick screaming children suffocating from the smog covered streets
  Spectators sighing, seeking shelter from scoundrels scavenging cents for smack
******* clad ***** soliciting STDs to self loathing suckers
  Smouldering remains, secreting Satan's scent on 2nd
    Sunken sailors slitting throats with sharpened sabres.

I was somewhere where I was enticed enough that I forgot to call home, I forgot to check social media, I forgot to respond to texts, I forgot I had a different life somewhere else. I forgot that public transportation stresses me out, and I also forgot about how meeting new people can put me on edge. I was somewhere fresh and new, somewhere that made me independent, open, curious and even more so adventurous than I already am. I was somewhere where my eyes shone brighter than the street lamps and sky scrapers. I was somewhere where no one knew me and as cliché as it is, I could be whoever I wanted to be. I was somewhere new, and I could feel it in my bones.

I hope everyone finds a place like that, somewhere that's so encompassing and captivating that wherever you were before seems small and outgrown. I hope everyone wakes up in a place they love someday, in a place they realize they can be and do and say what they want. I hope everyone walks outside and realizes that where you are now doesn't have to be where you'll be forever.

I was somewhere so enticing and beautiful that it made me realize I can be those things too. I hope I end up somewhere where the stars shine as bright as I do, where my love for wherever I may be is as vast as the sky. I'll end up somewhere someday, and I've never been so ready to find my somewhere out there.

I tear apart the city streets
blow up sky scrapers
challenge the south easter to a battle
and fight concrete.

to find
what I
misplaced
.

Everything she wants is in her favorite things. It's in the songs she sings, the photos she reblogs, the movies she sees- she wants the tender, lengthy kisses she sees in films. She knows better than to expect it, but by God does she want it. The songs about adoration and indefinite love, about thinking she's a sight and lovely and beautiful, maybe even overwhelming and frightening- she wants it.

I want it. I want a mind-blowing love. And I want to hear about it. I don't want a silent lover; I want someone to yell about it from rooftops and sky scrapers to loud cities below.

I want a man who isn't afraid to tell me how he feels because he's afraid of losing me in the first place. I try to be this for others and I hope someday a man walks into my life and says, "My turn."

I know love isn't easy or picture perfect or always pretty, alluring or needed. But I love with my whole **** heart. I lay it out on the floor in your path to see if you'll run away, step on it, scoot around it or maybe pick it up and hand it back, saying, "Lay it down for someone else."

I want a man who will write the songs so they can be the soundtrack to our cinema of love and growth and adoration. It seems cliché, corny, unrealistic. Like a dream, like a fantasy. But why settle for an ordinary love? I want an out-of-this-world love that keeps me on my toes, keeps me with my wits, and keeps me alive. I want it to make my blood pump through my veins, I want it to make my blood boil. I want it in my veins, my eyes, my skin, my finger tips and *****. I want a man who lays his heart down in front of me, and asks for a trade.

She wants a love like the movies and songs. So, go give her a love that puts those **** movies and songs to shame. Kiss her as the sun comes up, kiss her as it sets. Hollow out her curves with your lips, kiss her where she likes herself least. Hold her. Remind her what she means to you, because she knows she's amazing and she won't wait for someone who doesn't show her that she is.

She is the song, the movie, the moment- now go sing of her, act alongside her, be alive with her. Do it. Just ******* do it. Love her with every ounce of your being, every molecule, because she's putting every fiber of her being into this and nothing more would light her up more than you loving her as much as she loves you.