Patti Masterman Poems

The poem is a wanton, immoral creature:
Strutting about in three quarter time, batting it's
Myopic but still desirable eyes at anybody
Who is watching within winking distance.
...

Things that we see every day
Must live in a finite world, confined to the aisles
And the avenues, of our attention.
...

Like sheets hung in a haunted house
Impersonating local ghosts,
The clothes of the dead, too, still hang there
Nothing ever moves now, no more jostling for space
...

Why do my dull atoms cry out for yours;
Atoms, as a group, are seldom alone,
Being that they're really just small fluffy spheres
Often found in groups much larger than one.
...

young women perform sex as a metaphor,
thinking that a man once approached
must come to see her as his masterpiece;
the soft sculpture of all his imagination's grace.
...

sometimes those forgotten hues
that I find in secret grottos
return their salty finger kisses
and wind does too
...

Why should breath care
If lover's breathing?
Why should death note
If love is grieving?
...

Too long denied, she rages in my sleep
(No stairway to my heart too steep)
Mellow, she sings a soundless melody,
(Unloose the wires; you'll soon be free)
...

The bible says, not even a sparrow will fall
How much is contained in a meadowlarks call?
Flitting about, full of rapture, while singing-
Shy childhoods hours, memories are bringing.
...

Just be happy and I won't ask
If you cry, as the sun goes down
I won't worry if you can say
Your lovely mind's not come unwound
...