Patti Masterman Poems

Life don't ever leave these days:
When I can look my loved ones eyes-
And not ever have to turn away.

Though work be endless as the night,
...

If all the creatures were enlightened
With a higher-ordered brain,
They'd always save- and never spend-
And in this way avoid pain.
...

Hominid: all tooth and bone,

Eyes and claws, and raptor-gaze
...

When you fall into sleep,
Your mind lets go its creatures,
All the dead and living monsters created-
Haphazardly, accidentally, or on purpose.
...

I see you walking all alone
Down that road, just waiting for sunset,
Shaking your head, to silence the voices;
You know, that we all have to make choices.
...

You're tired, you're poor;
Wretched and homeless, beside the door-
Toss your torch, is there no more gold?
Then leave these storied lands of old.
...

Reviled did I live, said I,
As evil I did deliver
Never odd or even-
Live not on evil.
...

Perhaps oddly, I think of you the most on this day,
The day we ate hot dogs, holed up away from the world,
Just the two of us; nobody else liked hotdogs.
It was our proximate communion, in the midst of the summer.
...

The faith of a child could ring
a church bell on the stillest day
and the sound carry
for thousands of miles
...