Patti Masterman Poems

Never mistake the fake for real;
Hard truths, for lack of loving.
The genuine need no introduction,
And we reserve anger only for what we care about.
...

Ghost of the present moment,
you glide by unbidden,
to only god knows where.

Memories and forgotten laughter,
...

I am a figment of my imagination,
I am a hologram, loosed upon the world,
I am the past of the present that's waiting-
Waiting for time, in its time to unfurl.
...

The dead make love to the earth,
Mingling their atoms in death,
Suffusing the soil of their birth-
Using up everything left.
...

Let me remain here in the enclosing labyrinth of words
where the faint, obscured stars shine brightly for me
instead of imbibing their pastry and coffee
for their world is better, left unsaid
...

Where once love seemed safe
(At least he saved my heart)
Through rejecting me
(His refusal was pure art)
...

Where Magpies fly, there was a witch;
Lived on hillocks, by the ditch,
Lied by daylight, carried sticks.
...

There is a kind of distant music,
Sometimes rings throughout one's being;
As if the moon had found it's voice,
As if the stars begun to sing.
...

A woman's just a padded cell, in situ:
With mirrored tile reflections, of former occupants
Reveals their once desires, like long past feast
That's been viewed only partially, through a narrow hall,
...

I killed the spider with the Bodhisattva's shoe-
Don't blame me; there was not a lot to do:
On the one side, was the spider; venom; death!
The other, endless lifetimes- the ecstasy of breath.
...