Patti Masterman Poems

Outside, in a cloudless sky
I try to decode scattered wakes
In cuneiform, made by noiseless airplanes-
At right angles to each other, unfurling curls of silvery rickrack
...

Why do I love to love you so-
Star of the screen; silver delusion
Incorporeal phantasm- is life that empty
That only your perpetual dramas
...

forest speaking green
of the damp blossoms blooming
tomorrow's full of color
roughened bark of many boughs
...

On a sunlit desert day
Like the other thousands of days
Within the faceless sameness of mud-colored houses
One indistinguishable from the next
...

I sometimes hear things
That remind me of your last breaths-
Fast and continuous, like a sprinter
Trying to finish a course before running down:
...

I used to write such precise, edited comments
With a tight rein on myself- I knew once that
Little bit of control went- the sky was the limit
Of my errant ways and obscure references.
...

There's a fire burning in my soul,
There's a place I never could go;
There's a sight, I never could see:
Some other place, where she sleeps free.
...

Once you've known death-
Smelled, tasted, felt it's breath
Tingling your spine, you can never completely
Leave that house behind
...

broken stone tool wielder
patient flint fire striker
round rolling wheel finder
winter cave hide wearer
...

When touching your two cheeks
There's a map there of the first time
The fingertips felt the smooth
Flesh coaxing- not pushy, not teasing-
...