Cassandra Langer

Fact

You will not breathe a sigh for me

Whose quality of mind you cannot know

Any more than cobwebs silvered in the breeze

My head pillowed on plumes of rainbow wings

To shape a flame of free imagination

Nevertheless, as long as nature’s green velvet spring

Sparkles along the banks of the Hudson

Casting bright shadows on the rain soaked road

You will be my soul’s doorway to Eden

The years will not change these facts

When our eyes meet what I watch watches me

As long as this heart has passions

I will love thee

Deprivation for Alberta 1969

Dear sweet loveliness whose name

I may not hold:

We are time’s folly

Of us he makes a droll tale

Told in sudden bursts of lust

Amid gales of lilting laugher

for our thread-bare condition

And the frayed poverty of our affairs

Genteel sinners down on our luck

Yet not for the fantastic court

Of Lumis Park paradise trade

No Persian couch closeted behind doors

Of eunuchs whose glittering swords belie

Their weaponless condition would seem

As free as slatted benches outside public facilities

Where I may not hold your hand

While my eyes record vibrations

Which need no language to make them clear

Save the turning over of your eyes

like the restless sea

Chronicle (September 22, 2009)

Do poems matter

to chronicle innocent blood

to chronical heart break

What crimes did they commit

that you execute them for

what were you trying to erase

that I need to draw attention to

with my stack of words

Before the Ayatolloh’s

violence and violations

my words go pale

drained by the human slaughter

in the name of the prophet

who spins in his grave

shamed at their transgressons

against Islam

What lessons can we draw

what protections can we evoke

beside this tyranny

witnessing this tragedy

unfolding constantly before us

in this reign of endless terror

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