Patti Masterman Poems

who opens the door,
and who is knocking;
and who shoulders the dry, heaving breast of winter,
when whoever fires the gun?
...

I have a tattoo of you in my heart-
no one else can see it,
but it's right there on the inside.
If I concentrate, I can almost feel it:
...

your two eyes worship some evening farther sky
than the four winds around us, breathing with our sighs
perfumed taste tantalizes, in metered measure
as waves of warm skin rise, toward strong pleasure
...

In aubergine ochers I painted your eyes,
And smiles that your smooth lips would wear in disguise.
Eclipsed by the dark of your eyes, are my dreams;
Your words floating round, that my own being sings.
...

Fractious children gather at my doors,
Knocking on walls, peeping through keyholes;
And if I open to one, they would all rush in
Like the wind rushes by, on some panic-blind day.
...

It's a trick of the heart-
To grow in the sun;
Stretch out, in the dark-
While a life comes undone.
...

He carried me far away; farther than any dreams ever could,
As the white clouds seemed to ferry the sea gulls above us.
In his arms I floated blissfully unaware, far from shore,
The smoothest voyage I have ever known,
...

We cry for ourselves, in other's pain;
Envision our lives, in their's again,
Wish hope for their days
As much as for ours;
...

In ritual, evil gets it's ego stroked;
Fires attended in brassy censors,
Choking on expensive foreign smoke;
Incense from a dead god's pagoda.
...

Take beautifulest draughts
Of mellifluous maelstroms;
Let vicissitudes of hands
Enclose euphoric atmospheres
...