Sometimes Wind Moves In Secret

Sometimes wind moves in secret
Like a lover or a moon
Sometimes a board will answer
Or a shutter or a loon
Sometimes wind answers itself
Like a woman at the mirror
And sometimes no one's present
Or unwilling to hear

Wind moans over graveyards
As if weeping for the dead
Wind howls at the windows
Like it wants you, in your bed
Wind steals kites of children
Without making any sound
And wind tears off your head scarf
But lifts hair, like a crown

Wind sighs round a lighthouse
Like a sailor blown off course

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poem by Patti Masterman
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The animal body craves grass and tuberous roots

The animal body craves grass and tuberous roots
Wakes and sleeps, under cycles of the moon
Births live offspring; they and all their ilk:
We're all mammal, by proof which we give milk.

Bodies smooth, by means of wearing clothes
Sleep in beds, whenever our eyes close
And think we're more superior than those;
Flatter self, that god our species chose.

We still live by cunning and desire
In our fear, adrenalin keeps us wired
Proved our fitness, in more ancient days;
Hard to see now, with our modern ways.

The animal body craves grass and tuberous roots
Wakes and sleeps, under cycles of the moon:
Eyes more open, than they've ever been-
But less conscious, than we were back when.

poem by Patti Masterman
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Because You Were Beautiful

Because you were beautiful
The frost formed fingerprints, on window glass
As if to touch your shoulder, when you pass;
Or write in code, your name upon the leaves
So that it shows, whenever something breathes,
Because you were beautiful

Because you were beautiful
The storm left grayish teardrops on the sill,
A keepsake of the stillness it must feel
After angry clouds have left the sky,
And the birds and wildlife breathe a sigh:
Because you were beautiful

Because you were beautiful
This heart has felt the shadow of your grace,
Wherever loveliness has left its trace;
And songs I heard beside you, on the earth
Became the stars above us, giving birth-
Because you were beautiful

poem by Patti Masterman
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Anti-Love Poem #2

Ever since Romeo and Juliet
Repulsed lovers have considered suicide
As just an offshoot of unrequited love-
Even if the love was refused from the start
Or only existed as a delusion in the mind of the deluded.

I suggest that in modern life
What with plastics, antibiotics, and all this stuff
We have other options to the suicide-only impulse
And since murder practically rules this age,
Maybe you should take out the offensive love withholder, instead.

That would leave you free-
Free for another unsatisfying relationship
To help you remember you don't think
You're of any worth; and once in prison you would be surprised
How many would hurl themselves down to worship at your infamous feet.

poem by Patti Masterman
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Blame Me This Time

This time, to save time
I'm just going to fall in love
With myself: discrete lunches
Alone at the table, with an engrossing book
Candlelight dinners and vintage wine,
Looking up at the stars,
Trying to name all the constellations-
Just me and only me;
Slow dancing in the garden
To a symphony of cicadas
Heart-shaped chocolate boxes,
With a romantic poem tucked under the ribbon
Surprising myself with flowers
And fresh-squeezed orange juice
After an all nighter
Of watching movies by myself
Secret notes slipped into my bag
To meet myself at an undisclosed place
For a romantic interlude:
I can see it's going to get complicated

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poem by Patti Masterman
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I Know Why The Suicide Dies

I know why the suicide dies
I know his secret wheres and whys
I know all right, why the suicide dies
And you can bet, it's nothing pretty

I know why he's gone astray
It's all the words his brain kept saying
And never stayed quiet, till he went insane
Some was bad, but some just petty

He couldn't stop thinking; I don't know why
And part was truth and part was lie
Scary things, that made him cry
And don't ever think, it was pretty

It wasn't romantic, it wasn't cool
He opened his veins like a bloody fool
He wanted to stop that unraveling spool
Still, you could never be ready

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poem by Patti Masterman
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This Is My Poem

This is my poem of ______. (date)
This is my poem, written by myself.
This is my first poem never written.
This is my last poem now to be written.
This is the poem I would have written
if I had lived yesterday what I lived today.

This is my poem changing white light
into gold-leaf
and blue into violet.

This is my poem like a heaven twisting
and turning inside of me
all night long.

This is my poem of opening a window
to show what was always inside.

This is my poem encompassing everything
hope can bestow or chance agree with.

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poem by Patti Masterman
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The flame has softer fingers

The flame has softer fingers,
Than petals from a flower,
And it's memory is less
For every hour that it burns,
And the flower isn't jealous,
Of whomever enjoys it's beauty;
While the fire consumes most anything,
And none of it is spurned.

But flowers know almost nothing,
Of how a flame gets started;
And a fire knows even less
Of how a flower grew
Still, they have a slight respect,
In regarding, each the other;
As if each had certain knowledge
Flames and flowers are too few.

So there's a lesson for us,
If we care to pay attention

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poem by Patti Masterman
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You Can Easily Recognize

You can easily recognize
Those who have never dealt with evil at all
And those who who have been down
Knee deep in it, and on familiar ground-
Evil squeezing you like a lover;
It's hands where they shouldn't be,
Because evil is already on too close terms
With those who don't by nature fear and abhor it.
But a person who has avoided at all costs
The cold stare of evil, and those clutching fingers;
Who has run squealing, from anywhere
That evil has ever appeared:
That person will be destroyed
Almost before the first shot is fired off,
While at the same time, the well-seasoned soldier
Is starting to warm up to the fully acceptable notion
That maybe this won't be
Just another boring day, after all-
Hand already itching at the trigger..

poem by Patti Masterman
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And his poems have other poems

And his poems have other poems
Hidden, camouflaged inside them, as through the holocaust
Men hid within other men's homes, and workplaces,
And women within other women's closets, and dressing rooms
As a woman would hide her babe
First within her womb, and then inside her very heart
So his heart-poems reside and procreate in darkness, in hiding,
Spin their souls together to weave the spiders tale, and into
The famished strings of singing wormholes, which orbit
The always living, and the once-quickened dead;
From whence one day the spirit shall stride out; spin out
At his soft call, to take the percolating universe
By latent storm of surprise, and do a souls-token worth of battle
Only in silken strings of love's long-suffering silence.

poem by Patti Masterman
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