today,
i wore it again
and people complimented me
they say red is my color
and it suits me.

today,
it's too thick and dark
did i overapply
no, it's the right amount
just enough
to make them think
i'm fine.

today,
i look at myself
in the mirror,
and they're right
red shines on me,
so i applied
another layer,
and another
until my lips felt too thick,
but my eyes still see
the scars beneath it.

As you drive
taking me, we- on a ride
from the suburbs I grew up in
to the City
Down the same streets
Ive always known, driven myself,
the same route
that leads to Toronto.
Splitting, the fork- takes us,
Arching
flying around the circumference of the city
The sun, golden orange,
begins to set.
Iridescence coating the skyline –
as each reflective surface
momentarily
becomes stained glass.
“Eric-I need GPS direction” …


& Its after I've arrived at my destination
& then home again after it all;
do I re-open & Re-read this scribble in a note book-

Recapitulate, & end.

A Candle
's flame
-the most
selfless of light-
Consuming itself,
to
Illuminate night.

That was before all the decisions.
Before the car was packed and
you drove with such a pain in your
knee.

That was the last time I was
thin and my hair was not yet
pink.

Before I knew you were around
the corner.  You were not yet
the last to set my mind reeling.

Tomorrow will see you wrapped
In the linen of your generation,
the symbol of a freed man.

Wallace Steven's predicted
you but I was not listening.
To be freed was not the point.
All that was before I saw the
exhaustion on my face.

Waylon Jennings here.
Full stop

Yet all my life foretold you.
The brave of you and the
blindness of my ever
singing anthem.

I leave you with s soft
flower

To

Wear

in your hair.

Caroline Shank
April of my discontent


4.20.2024

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

for Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ----
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to ****

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ----

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux ****
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump ----
Trepanned veteran,
***** girl,
Thumb stump.

My neck is feeling better than it has in at least a year .
Love you I am back in Iowa now.
I will try to come back here again tomorrow night.

There are pauses in between musical notes and stops between an artist's strokes and periods in between a writer's sentences. We have come to an end. We have come to a stop. But sometimes the only way to continue is to halt. The only way to begin is to end.

- apbq, pauses and stops