Patti Masterman Poems

The catastrophe is happening now:
In what is seen- but more, in what is invisible;
In what is heard- but more, in what is silent.
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How does one love the dead-
Make a date with a grave,
Try to get inside their head?
Too late to save
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When you ride the winds of chance,
They'll take you where you would not stay,
Where no friends are; a happenstance-
Where no one seems to know the way.
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Be the book
Nobody can read,
Be the plot
Nobody sees,
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To some, the dead must seem like objects,
Things with no consciousness, now defunct,
But the dead have character that's still visible;
Lines and wrinkles deep imprint.
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The wise ones say there are billions of others
Dying to change places with the living,
And there are also many worlds
Where the chance to live's not given.
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The tree at the window
Put its branches inside,
Trying to touch me-
Its heart open wide.
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I was never faithful-
Well not more than an hour;
The time to drive to church, and back,
To wed a faithful flower.
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Intransigent void:
Filled by a string of worlds like pearls/
Bloated with words from a million tongues/
The body's vile or the body's temple/
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I dream of a different world
In colors never seen,
Where loving voices call out low-
And nothing's sharp or mean.
...