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Carl Sharpe


The Sister Tree ☊

you pulled me most of the way home
by the ear when I would not stay in line
you were a safety patrol leader and had
an arm band like the nazis wore

and once you shut my fingers in the door
when I would not let you close it

but you played beethoven on the piano
and you were beautiful and had
more friends than I ever did

and somewhere in the middle of your
five children came coffees when we
told each other secrets like children
and laughed about sibling things

when you died, we planted a tree in the yard
and we watched it grow years without you

and this winter the new owner trimmed it
with strings of white christmas lights
and as I drove by in the bark black night
I tugged on my ear and wept

grief, like children ☊

sorrows tap-tap on the window glass
when shadows cool the autumn dusk
I have closed the night. you may not come in
so it is with them--persistent and gentle

and used to getting their way, like a child
with sad face who taps on your knee.
read, look away, tell him later, later,
but the rhythm and the chant say--now

and you off to bed them in the darkened room
and they do not sleep, and you do not sleep,
for you have succumbed, let memory in
and you do not sleep, and cannot sleep again

why write a poem

I feel heavy when I don't light when I do
the first time I tried to write my name
four letters almost right honey
like that and I got it right in time
not cral carl but carl carl
hard as making a poem
a heavy burden
but short and
light to carry

Picture


​Carl Sharpe's profile

Deception

They break our hearts
These dawn-crested mornings,
Like the beach edge starfish

And the bleached gulls
With their long, cawing cries
That sound a long lament.

And each day's break
Comes to evening blue, night,
And the dog snapping sea.

Embrace

I am disrobed and disarmed in your hold.
Like bare-chested fishermen in a turmoil of terns,
I stand windblown and rocked, adrift,
And buoyant in the passion of the sun.

calliope, a.w.o.l.

there's a hole in my belly
where the need is
need to write a poem
the muse is a woman for sure
la belle dame sans merci
promises with a word or phrase
like a phone prank or empty knock
she does not visit instead
she teases with a tap-and-run
and never stays anymore
that was her just now
huh
​

Juliana at Ten, Seaside

She sails rock to rock on the unsteady wall,
Barefoot and sure-winged like a butterfly.
Her dark, careless hair wind-trails her
In the crimson light of the evening sun.

She rides unbound an infinite air
Between the earth's open hearth
And the yawning sea, each whispering
Its siren claim on her as its own.

Comments?

***

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