Patti Masterman Poems

You're beautiful like exposed lies are
As deep as frost on a vine
As fragrant as cut flowers on the breeze
Memorable like a night after wine.
...

Flesh of the world's flesh;
Seething sea of wriggling bodies-
All breathing in breaths,
All hiding from deaths.
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Death is a dark tune
That arrives on a dark day
When nothing is going your way
And the storms break through
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I carved invincibly your name out of sand
Then tried to carry it in the palm of my hand
Half the grains fell, as I sank like an anchor
But inside your heart, I found no trace of rancor.
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Charms against the darkness;
Spells to wake the dead-
Never think the magic solely
Lives alone in words you said.
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Still flagrant in the microscopic world:
Dust from his boots lies quietly in the streets
His sweat and tears having seeped into,
Enriched, the very dirt
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And if your sun should nightly shine
To kiss my most fervent need
And if fevered hands should suddenly seek
Upon mine; inviolate, to feed
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I am folding myself into you,
Like bits of stolen fruit, into the batter,
A redolent, unanticipated pocket of cinnamon
Spicing the bread dough;
...

Hazardous-waste contagions are abundant here, and
There are so many yawning, open pits you can trip and fall into:
Like many before, I thought: I’ll escape to the sea-
But at the right apogee and galaxial rotation, just at the peak tides
...

When something is happening
That I just really don’t like-
I can get downright mean;
Won’t give in, without a fight
...