Grace Cavalieri

August 23, 2017

Audio: Showboat, Listen Here

Letter from Puerto Rico

If patience were a ray or sweet word
       It would never fail here
The keen bone of quiet is like faith
        Listen to the heat
        Feel the violet view
Cold motion has no reward
For Winter's just a painting on the wall
And Spring's wind is always perpendicular
        To time
Even if Lucille got the job you wanted
On the 5th floor with the Big Four
Shaking hands in her yellow suit
And chic bobbed hair
        She’s dead now with unnarrowing
        Limits of grass
And the song succeeds with blackbirds
         And promise
Outlasting music's endnote.

 
Credit: Plume Magazine

February 28, 2015

HERE IS A POEM YOU CAN HIDE IN

When you come to wherever

failed hopes go, turn

here instead,

where my child’s voice is heard

in the night, still damp from dreams.

Talk of sweet surrender against the

February snow, and then turn inward,

where silver trims the bitter limbs.

I’m not afraid to mention

precious aspirations, and

all we know went wrong,

I’m here with you,

under the same sun and same moon,

above darkness,

right here, the source of prayer,

right here in my hand.

(credit: Casa Menendez)

"Mama Didn't Allow No Blues Or Jazz..." 

                  Lorne Cress

The monkey trap is simply this

A coconut hollowed out

A sweet potato stuck inside

This is how a monkey can be caught

He puts his paw inside

And grabs his food

You say it's dumb

Determined as hunger

Caught inside a shell like that

You say betrayal comes from just

Such needs as a monkey has

We do not know the source of sanity

How monkeys feel about hunger

But I think it's better when holding on

From not letting go

I think it's better to let go.

my neck as if
I could see through my
Closed eyes to his transparency.

5.

When they took his tubes out
He threw his head back
Like a white horse.

6.

Did he wonder why I didn't step in
To save him
One more time.

7.

Last night
At midnight I felt his hand
Touching mine

Moving down the right fingers of my right hand
As if it were the last hand
On earth.

8.

How quickly he moved away
I would have held on
Forever.

9.

How long can a person
Dying of thirst
Hold water in her mouth
Without swallowing.