KAREN CORCORAN DABKOWSKI

The Poetry Of..
Karen Corcoran Dabkowski

Dirge For The Untended

Things
left to themselves decay
in the same
way
people do. The outer shell
becomes un
recognizable, slowly over
taken by bits
of time, by
misplaced faith,
by putting
love
in jeopardy
and walking away and letting
spite have
at it; this is the story
of the car in kudzu,

strangled by rampancy

or the face
of the Man
on Mars - the loneliness
that once
meant
something
to someone
lost in space - staring off at what
was not
and looking blank and thanking no one for where
he's
been: lost
in the mass
of days, the mask
of nights,
the neglect
of the hours as they slid in front
and smothered
view - this is a dirge
for everyone
in the
v a s t
h a l f - o p e n e d - e y e,
l u s t i n g with all the time yet none
to spare
on the upkeep
which
is the only thing that lasts
beyond our husking. Save
your t i m e l e s s n e s s
and not
your daily linens: we all have
laundry. Shuck it. Find the thread
in the gore
and the
chord
of now. Find what
you lost
or neglected to do, and
do it. Prop your heart with what it needs

and leave the bleeding
to itself.

It always comes.

Hard To Describe

I live
in a mausoleum
and all day long
I walk
through webs. Some webs
are small, some
large

and some
unbroken

because I couldn't bear to see them
break apart. I preserve ghosts

in, and around me

going grayer by the day

hung
in memory's
Spanish Moss, which is lovelier
than loss
hung solo, flapping gently in a breeze

nobody feels
but me

and it
feels like sorrow
stung
by sand.

Zero Growth

The window knows
nothing
of cactus. The window
stares
open-eyed,
into a green
made brown by dirt. These hands do not
care
about 'streakless'
anything
or gadgets
that make
work easy.
These hands peel
back the curtains
stiff
with last year's soil

and let in
boiling air.
They do not care. They
do not
grow things, nor do they lighten
anything. These hands
are
clueless
as the window is
of cacti. I might have loaned
a little
love
and given it
to a thing
that needs so few inducements
to shoot
an inch
or two
above the ground, but I have found
I have
no talent
with windows
or with plants, or for cleaning up what
lethargy hath
wrought. I bought

a book.

I closed the drape.
Put

on
a lamp.

Tried not
to think about
seeing
out.

How Now, This Rising

Last night
and the night before, the weeds bent
in gravity
beneath
the oppressive weight
of this strange
atmosphere of jungle
lassitude- water on the petals, sweat on the brow
and now, after thinking
one could not rise again,
we do.
The weeds do. Flowers
turn toward sunrise,
hope for rain to end
this clobbering by climate, too early rage
of summer heat, spring sweetness left for sog and bellow
about the humid loss of sense
that comes from
too many days of non-stop
murderous, early summer, and the way we wilt before it.
Thunder
on the horizon- thunder in the heart-
we part
ways
with bed. We rise.
Go slowly
to the window. Look out
toward
the greenish, troubled margin
where the sun
will be too soon. Our minds atumble
from the last day's solitude, bubble
on the stem, the
water rises, our limbs weigh

vicious much.

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