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Best Poems Written by Kathleen Shay

Below are the all-time best Kathleen Shay poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Kathleen Shay Poem

Phantoms You Have Carried

The clearest blue became mottled with age,
and I only recently began to notice.
Time-soaked eyes, foggy mirror to my own,
reflecting a frail wire, just out of reach.
Leading to a skull-shaped cellar,
therein lay the contents, shadows,
wavering in small glimmers of truth.
Reserved but yearning, they call to me.

Whispers carress my lobes; 
they are phantoms you have carried.
They ride on waves of joy and anguish,
snapshots of my tiny feet trodding down halls,
chasing cats with remote-control race cars.
Then I tumbled over a carpeted ledge
and bent your office-drawer key.
Maybe you'd suspected those young paws
were much stronger than they looked.

As time sped all around me, your atmosphere grew thin,
and labored breathing stole the spark from your limbs.
When cells began to replicate like narcissists in the West,
your hovel became a war zone, and I, a refugee.
You never caught your breath in the wreckage,
and when a second bout of war came, your lungs gave out.
I watched it happen, at a loss.
I remember your mouth agape, eyes glazed, wide,
as, in your final breath, you ran towards something I could not see.

Now, the battleground you once crawled through
has been cleared of every trace, every tuft of dog hair,
and all the shining documentation to prove you were an artist.
And how you were an artist, having sculpted so much of my
lanky willow limbs, my dense, ferocious heart.
I have a case of survivor's guilt.
I am writing every day a mystery, wading through
my own metaphysical mess, only faintly aware of yours,
the stuff that lingers like shadow people,
darting in and out of my peripheral vision.

I only wish they'd speak to me and
divulge what last you saw, or that I could
re-activate your smart phone and read
the very last text message you sent.

Details | Kathleen Shay Poem

The Sales Lady

Descending into a mega-mall, the fluorescence blemishes my skin.
There is a twinge in my temples as I approach the makeup counter,
meeting eyes with a woman whose shoes pierce my gait 
and whose artificially white teeth flash like EMP bombs.

But I must not be blinded; there is something behind those calcium shutters,
 illuminating inside her vessel and peaking through each crack ... I wonder.
Is her exoskeleton painted so pristinely to brighten the day?
Who owns the day she, in every meticulous gesture, labors for?

But every question is drowned in a clanging,
a clamoring of those persistent teeth trying to make a sale.
Rattling around like new tap shoes, sheening ivory.
White noise, white noise.

Every coherent thought blurred, humming viciously
as done in the shadows of the perfect women in chromatic ads.
But she is not perfect; I can see her pores.
They are weeping the regrets of thick foundation.

Those streaks of saline wet speak gallons and shimmer 
as they slide, revealing pockets of uneven flesh tones,
subtle bruises from the hot-lipped sun,
every mar a testament to resistance in midst of the Tyrants.

Gravity, Matter and Time; how admirably this body has battled them, 
unaware of its own striking animal; a masterwork of sinew and bone,
of neurons and cartilage, of mucus and moles.
Each electron hums in its proud, puffed little chest.

In earnest I wonder, does the sales lady know every outline, 
every wrinkle of her beige, waterproof suit?
Does she wear it in precious stride, beaming just bright enough so as to share
her whole self, lovely-garish, yet never glaring the keenest lens?

There is no answer. 
I only nod slightly, appreciating her mottled gem eyes,
politely severing our feeble connection, departing, contemplating them,
that such dazzling blue could exist immersed in milky pools 
disrupted by long-legged channels of blood.

Details | Kathleen Shay Poem

Our Bodies

The limitations slither over, around
In the gravity and measurements
The slope of my breasts
Pores sheening like rosy suns
And my brain, the quantum guide
The source of my vector
Allowing me no more room than the universe
As I sense that it is all mine
But I am nothing

I belong to the whole of civilization
But so do they, to me

Details | Kathleen Shay Poem

This Is the Letter I Write Myself:

Beauty is nice, but
it is not the best thing.
Your hair is not
your honor,
nor your memetic tee
your personality.
A selfie might be art,
but never
your epitome.

Details | Kathleen Shay Poem

The Stone and the String and the Mother They Murdered

My nails are getting long
so I might as well dig in
puncture my chest
skin this (fatuous?) doe
the scent of fresh blood wafting
as my digits wade deeper
 
I pull out a stone, smooth and
slightly porous
with a single red string
tied neatly around
Smash it, gnash it
the scarlet line frays
I catch a glimpse of
precious stuff inside
 
I chip my teeth
to chew and swallow
the glimmering mass
filling me
whole
I am illuminated, glorious
harrowed as an orphan fawn