Patti Masterman Poems

Wander a new land, one never known
Traces of prints dusted by snow,
Stones awaiting the gilded grace of evening
(the company of others; diverse things- for what?)
...

People always say Oklahoma has no beaches or mountains,
So there's nothing to do here.
But they don't tell you about how here in Oklahoma,
We got some things they don't have other places:
...

When I was very small
A load of plywood and two by fours
Showed up in our back yard.
I was told it was for a play house
...

The fly is now my lover-
Innocently sunbathing, and then he appeared
Determined, to go all the places he should not.
...

The lonely die twice, and the friendless alone;
The wanderer finds him too far from home,
The jilted stay, under grey clouds all day-
So promise now, never to roam.
...

I can't forgive her for stealing your poetry from us,
the ones you didn't live long enough to write.
Never mind that she stole your husband, your happiness
and peace of mind, which nobody is promised.
...

I want to go back in time again and touch my mother's cheek,
I want to hug my grandmother, at her kitchen sink,
I want to touch her flowers, see Grandpa play dominoes,
See my dad at gardening, watch him work the rows..
...

There are so many ghosts now,
Where did all the time go?
An old woman stares in the mirror,
All she has loved is gone
...

Ransom resented whenever the ocean encroached on the land,
Because she could no longer visit certain areas upon her walks,
Though she sometimes was heard to make small talk about its unseemly loveliness;
The rhythmic murmuring, the predictability of the tides.
...

You are the poem that lives on
in all the bright white spaces of me;
the sparkle of snowstorms
in the first flakes drifting
...