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Carolyn Martin - Poet

“All my life I have tried to find the truth and make it beautiful.” – Sting

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Sample Poems

Caged

San Diego Safari Park

there     through bamboo    scrub     palm

the tiger prowls      up/across/down

the terraced hill     focused     and predictable

sloughing     anxiety off      his muscled back

off the side-to-side     sweep      of his head

my camera waits     waits     waits      to catch

him in     a slice of light      but without      a hint

he charges     the fence      bared fangs    snarling

across the path     to fields      where languid stripes

lounge in sun     mother/daughter/sister/peer     smug 

and unperturbed     posing     for crowds charmed

by mesmerizing eyes     awed     by the art    

of her orange/black/white     without a chuffle    

or growl     she basks     in reverence     

I grab     my camera     sweep it     side to side    

from the anguish     behind wire mesh     to surrender     

lying     in the grass     unnatural     this life     like innocents      

trapped on death row     or refugees   in border towns

they say     Sumatrans can survive     a decade longer

in captivity   at what cost    I shout at  

the unfettered sky    who calculates     the price

Published in Kosmos Quarterly, Winter 2023

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Strawberry Fields Forever: A Cadralor

1.

Do you want to know a secret?

Everybody’s trying to be my baby.

All I’ve got to do is act naturally and drive

my car down the long and winding road­­.

2.

Yesterday, I saw her standing there.

She said she’s leaving home

but I should have known better.

It’s all too much to carry that weight.

3.

Wait. When I get home, the two

of us can work it out. Don’t let me down,

honey pie. I want to be your man.

You really got a hold on me.

4.

When I’m sixty-four and my guitar

gently weeps, all I need is a little help

from my friends. Tomorrow never knows.

I don’t want to spoil the party.

5.

All you need is love after a hard day’s night…

here, there, and everywhere.

I’ll follow the sun, a nowhere man.

It’s a magical mystery tour. Let it be. 

________________________________________________________________

To My About-to-be-Ex Therapist

About our session this afternoon, I’m confused:

you diagnosed my ergophobia with sadness

in your voice. No offense, but after 40 years

of Type-A overdrive, I’ve earned this new paradigm.

Put this in your notes: I’ve replaced chronic threats

of nothing-to-do with perfected laziness.

My fear of boredom? Relieved by mindfulness.

From my ergonomic chair, I spend hours

tracing the texture of walls and studying

slight tilts of Chinese serigraphs.

I’m happy to report the woman side-saddling

the panther’s back hasn’t slipped off yet

and the lotus pond hasn’t flooded our family room.

As for the cobwebs swaying behind the étagère?

They haven’t ceased to captivate. Anyway,

thanks for helping me define work as what

I say it is. My business suits and black pumps

are up for grabs at Goodwill; my office files

free of contracts, flight plans, and syllabi.

I’m noodling with a blog about the joys

of nothing much. Maybe you’ll subscribe.

Published in The Blue Nib, September 2019

_________________________________________________________

Waiting for a Bus to the Cloisters Museum

She rushes down the brownstone steps

and asks me to zip up her floral dress

since her husband’s still asleep and she’s late

for brunch with friends whose spouses bore

them to the brink of death she says

as she pulls her hair off her neck so I can trace

the curve of her back past a half-slip’s waist

over the bra that defies gravity

to pearls announcing elegance

and I’m embarrassed by a brush

with faultless skin as my nun’s short veil tangles

with the wind from buses zipping by

and when she says without judgment

or dismay You’re a rarity it’s true –

a stranger dressed in black appearing

just in time via Providence or Chance –

and she slides into a cab­ leaving me

bemused by her epiphany and eager

to contemplate seven storied tapestries.

Published in The Manhattanville Review, Dec. 2018

_____________________________________________________________________________

Everything Good Between Us

I have no ear for singing and seldom land on a black or white. Listen in your head, you say when I change keys five times. I’m scatting, I try. Good luck with that, your reply.

Whoever is in the driver’s seat is incompetent. My gas pedal foot never behaves and my mind strays off the road. You’re writing poems again, you call me back. Where are we going? I ask.

You strut your Nordstrom’s strut through the mall, dismissing a dozen clothing stores by the time I consider one. Quintessence of style, you lamentate my disregard for what I wear.

Everything defaults to me: the glasses you lost somewhere, the key that doesn’t fit, the celery I bought that wasn’t plump enough. Trade-off? You ignore my grumpiness.

 You have to listen faster, you complain when I ask for a repeat. I can’t keep up when you allegro through health, finance, politics, and theology.

The time between a rift and a reconcile grows shorter every year. We slam doors, conjure up a laugh, reconnect to our own happiness. And, ah! there’s always that kiss.

In every grocery store, I turn right, you turn left. I’m the counter-, you’re the –wise. Inevitably, at noon or midnight we meet – you with salty, me with sweet.

When I invite you to talk about death, you reply, I haven’t tried it yet. When I say, Then talk about miracles, you smile, What’s the difference?

When chaos sneaks up and threatens our equanimity, we look it in the eye, grab each other’s hands, and dance to the music of the spheres.

When I run out of things to write, I’ll pose you against a baby grand like Barbra, Liza, or Elaine belting out show tunes to the neighborhood. Everything about you sings a poem.

from The Poeming Pigeon: Love Poems


Ready are you? What know you of ready?

                                                                          – Yoda

If this were my final day on earth, I’d like to think

I’d be sitting at the kitchen table with my coffee mug,

watching the sun scramble through our winded firs,

hoping the squirrels and feral cats would walk

the backyard fence. I’d like to say goodbye.

 

No doubt I’d check the morning news – another night

of death-by-belief, natural and unnatural catastrophes,

sixty-five million souls adrift in un-homelands.

This misery, I’d comfort myself, will ease the letting go.

 

I would hear you open the bedroom door,

walk down the stairs – steady as any day

before – and look at me expectantly.

 

We would sit side-by-side, agreeing

there’s nothing useful in worrying,

nothing helpful in judgment or regret.

I’d memorize the cadence of your voice,

the sharpness of your deep brown eyes.

I’ll know them when we meet again.

 

Just so you understand, I am not afraid.

I’ve been there before. The fact remains

my last day may end tonight or in two dozen years.

For now, there’s nothing more to do than warm

my coffee up, cheer on the squirrels and cats,

and tell you I love who and where we are.

While earth counts up its scars, take my hand.

Let’s watch the sun break free above the firs.

from Thin Places


All I need

A few skyward things: one steady star

to guide, one constellation to bet

a myth upon, one quasar to break

the dark. The rest is ornament.

 

One mountain to announce it’s ripe

for bulbs and seeds to multiply

without a first or second thought.

Birth deserves tranquility.

 

A frenzy of birds at sleeptide’s ebb,

 tornados of gnats at dusk’s flow.

 Two feral cats. Two red-tailed hawks.

  Days that warrant wilding up.

 

A word for grace or luck or hope

when the mountain blocks my star.

In-the-bone love for all that’s lost.

Something born to lead me home.

from The Way a Woman Knows


Salieri, after a performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute

at Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden, October, 1791

The cheap seats love the man.

Each night he lures them from slogging streets

into the pomp and pageantry of fairy tales

with music that makes the angels cry.

 

They love the oboes courting flutes, bassoons 

entwined in clarinets; strings outracing

trombones, trumpets, tubas, horns

toward kettledrums shuddering the boards

beneath their feet. They care not for scores

or virtuosity. They want delight—

magic doors, scenes that fly,

finales—and more, und mehr.

 

I hide behind red drapes high

above the crowd, and watch them watch

the note-barrage shooting from his fingertips.

And when the coloratura soars

toward F above high C, I catch them catch

their breath before their “Bravos!”

seize the chandeliers where magic drips

from candle wax. The pulse-throb

of the aria vibrates my skin.

I want to cry. Divinity has voice.

 

But when the curtain falls

the deafening applause unhinges me.

“Encore! Encore!” reminds

this lesser child of God,

he’s fated second-best.

 

Heaven-hurt, I never could compose

so many notes across a page;

never could raise a mundane crowd

above its seats as that little man

with fire in his fingertips.

 from Finding Compass

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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