I can't write when I'm coughing.
The spill of sound from my soured
throat, distinct  as brittle glass
when squeezed, the waiting
martini loosed into the air

Woof of bark and warp
of ice into the long inhale
of winter.

I write while you sleep, the
Soft cotton on my breast,
breath of forgetting denied.

The morning rasp awakens.
Another wasted day filled
With the.
    Loud call of
cough and bark.



Caroline Shank
June 4, 2024

One tear leaves, shiny vestige
of the brains transcription.
A movie house of dying
images scribes in cunieform
as I watch thru my prism
of memory

The racks of yesterdays
like layers of summer boats
in winter

of the claws of
sorrow,

the yank

of tears

Birth the ends of
sorrow when love

again

Walked

in..

You stood there
reflecting
my broken
healing, a

Refrain of

Saxaphone s.
Of love

In the

Tear s.

You Blessed me
from  your
so far

away.



Caroline Shank
5.20.24

Thoughts on a Sunny Morning


It's a sad **** day when
Memories fail and
leave without
a tool
for poetry.

Ric holds
the gate
but not the

key

Soulless longing for
the accidental brush
of synchronicity.
The breath of destiny.

Drunk on yesterday,
Without the touch
of indifference

memories under
consciousness
flay

me.

Bleeding,
the
pressure of
old promises

Unwright

me

Caroline Shank
5.15.2024

Things on hold
Bleeding in and the
flowers of surgery are
wilting  

Waiting is sand spreading
on the ground, slippery
and ever widening

My
determination is
rippled.

Morning is thwarted.

I am unmouthed.

Today is

unwritten.



Caroline Shank
5.6.24

I lack everything
I have no essence to cherish
I am dense to myself
Fear prowels my thoughts

The Divinity in me
Waits for no one
I am unblessed
Repulsed by nature
Coward
Today

I will return to my Recovery
Lessons learned

The deadend is not
signed
It is a curve that
ends on the
Last Exit to Chicago.

Caroline Shank
May 1. 2024

For us it was pure recreation, the
flap ends of days at work
We saw the night sky lighten to
the moon’s yellowed ends.

Our signals were these - -
the free
formed contacts of those who
worked in the dark.

Every time thru touch we
exolored the tiny motions,
the fingertip braille of meanings.

Then the scattered
motions slung across
the disarray-
the darkness of
lamps shutting off,

of
beds silenced, sheets
unmoved

ever again.

Not to return uncovered the
indifference, the mistaken
edges of a vocabulary grown
only
in my carved thoughts.

Feeling  blurred into
the dim haze of

indifference.

Touch

slid

away.



Caroline Shank
2.29.2024

Dear, You Know Who You are.

Bless me Father for I have
sinned.

It has been twenty four
months since last i

looked
in the mirror.

Forbid me not the long
vowels of my
Poems, the

caesura of love in

the Winter in Wisconsin.

Summer's in the
Lake.  There's fire in
my old dreams

And you.


Caroline Shank
4.26.2024