Patti Masterman Poems

Bombs before breakfast, blasts just at noon-
Hurry and sup, before we all swoon.
A leg flying by, we pretend not to see,
As we're remembering freedom's not free.
...

The window's blurry,
The odometer's broke,
​The tires are bare;
Who's driving this car?
...

The body is a cage
That you need to wear,
And when it's feeling good,
You will hardly know it's there.
...

Haunted rooms-
But I'm the ghost
Who has forgot
What loved the most.
...

Hair that was Sylvia's
have you no words now?
Like the cells of Henrietta
you're rendered mute, timeless.
...

When you leave a room forever
(As a hotel room, or a waiting room in some foreign town) ,
Though you know you may never go there again,
It pull's on your mind's substance, somehow
...

The wasp is talking by my ear
He has a low sultry voice whose effect
Is not entirely lost on me. But I wish him to be
Anyplace else. Wish his offspring great harm.
...

I want to have another house where no one else can go
Exactly like this other one; but nobody need know.
Piled high with films and books and such
And all the time you need so much.
...

what moves outside of time-
what moves in a clear sky,
that makes us move?
...

When you look at old photos
You can smell the rooms,
The books, antiques and musty looms;
Fading wallpaper, rusty pails,
...