Contact Carole at:
horse123@aol.com
 

Sitting on the porch tonight, tired, escaping day heat
   In the dusk before the dark, there are no long shadows
To prop up barns and trees and fences. It is quiet
   And the lastlight of an arrogant unyielding sun has 
Had the decency to blush before shutting down the day.

Then night’s hidden tree frogs begin noisily demanding
   That I listen to them sing their extended version
Of the history of the world, 
     which chronicles a litany of froggy generations
               ... tonight
               ... in unison 
Til daybreak explodes into yet another fevered day.

It is in the middle of this rhythmic dissertation
   Of familial history, a melodic amphibian party 
That defeats the quiet of a starful country midnight,
   (and in spite of an unfamiliarity with Froglish) I, in fact, 
Do understand their hallelujah history of the world.

He leaves her nothing, choosing his blind need.
     Ecstasy, the kind she does not wish to share.
A trip, he offers, with its cocaine tarnished
     Silver pleasures...no? He still inhales it by
Lifting the tin mirror, and all but disappears.
     The abandoned coffee in his cup grows cold,
Silence dulls the table, and she... she’s alone
     Holding shards of that which once was theirs. 

He, in deserted dank hotel rooms, hugs
     That hidden thing and practices his lies.
Brass numbers cockeyed, gaping doors
     With dusty cobwebs waiting. Smiling,
He enters in, with dark thick trembling,
     And in lonely adverse expectation,
Throws away his life each time he breathes.
     Flames lick the soul. But it is she who burns.

Now the mirrors show thinned fragile shadows
     Inside those blackened tenements of grief,
Those corrupt rooms with unsure daytimes,
     Offramp houses, blinks of night, opening to
Hungry streets, unwashed, with howls of want.
     Seductive shining opaque ghettos,
That seal off the pastplace of their life. 
     She, eyes skinned, runs naked from the ash.

On the windowsill, this small bell is quiet,
The handle, phoenix-like, with wings
Caught in rising, a hint of flight.
A teenage daughter's gift.
     Mystery surrounds her 
          Now she’s grown.

Given to enchant my ears with whispers 
Of her trip to Bali, hints of distant rice grains, 
A smell of spice, and open sewers revived,
Ring of a separate place.
     Mystery surrounds her 
          Now she’s grown.

Private, veiled, the bell sounds somewhere,
Not just here. A breathless ringing moment
As she looks across the table where now,
Between us, anticipation...
     Mystery surrounds her 
          Now she’s grown.

the 
moon 
jumped
          in 
               the 
                    window

chased by an unseen hoard 
of giggling legs and fur and yellow eyes 
and disembodied laughter in the night.

a pack of clever coyotes crashed our unofficial gathering 
of more sedate and formal nighttime 
creatures who meditate in darkened silent barns, 

startling horses, goats and poets 
with their cacophony of frenzied laughter
and shaking up the quiet stars

before loping in delight over the south-most
neighbor’s hill, snatching a
                                            deaf 
                                            chicken 
                                               on 
                                                            the way.