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Best Poems Written by Kathryn Sweeney

Below are the all-time best Kathryn Sweeney poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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By the Hair

You thought you had me by the hair,
While you tossed my heart
To and fro
Across a tennis court 
Just because 
I was your insurance policy 
That you kept in your back pocket 
Or so you thought
Until that frigid morning 
I disappeared 
Halfway across the globe 
Just so I could 
Untangle my long blonde hair 
From the harsh grip
Of your twisted thoughts.
Maybe body surfing 
Did the trick 
Right into the salty waves
That slammed the soft sand 
With a certainty 
That right then 
You became a history book 
A scary chapter 
That sealed itself shut 
With a hammers blow 
So that 
I could never take a second look 
While you thought 
You had me by the hair.

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That One Man

I want to be with the man 
who loved me for being whole,
a free spirit flung
from the top of a mountain like last winters white out blizzard.
The man sits drunk in his living room,
paralyzed in disbelief 
that his mother last sat on that black leather couch,
before I came and his spirit told him that he knew my soul,
he was a casual friend
of that unbending security guard that held watch over my
taped together heart,
its secrets exposed
after his third bottle of homemade red wine,
that dribbled down his throat like a miniature river
of blood
coating a liver that sat like a putrid sponge inside him.
Praying 
that he would depart too numb for pain.
And we slept
like shadows of the children we were long ago,
in the sweat of New Jersey's choking midsummer,
our souls sliding down that slope together,
on a red wooden sled,
innocence lost,
and our last lifetime clear as ice.

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Food Lure

The art of cooking never changes,
it's lure to us debates
taste vs. smell,
then it all rises up in memory like a colorful dream,
one of art that has been raided by veterans of the old country.....
My grandmothers never ceased to feed us,
"eat!" they would scream, 
and their work worn hands would bring forth Polish and Ukrainian feasts of 
pierogi, borsch, babka, and love,
blended into a holiday festivity that never disappointed, fresh from a sea of hand picked ingredients.
New York City was our place of initiation to that congregation of food and loud, loud people who thrived on second helpings. 
I reincarnated this time just to be one of them.

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High Tea

My heart cartwheeled 
Inbound,
Like the white stag in a fairy tale long, long ago 
And for a moment in time 
It was swept into a sea of grief
Like a duckling in the king tide 
Then further I went, tumbling now, 
Down, down, 
Into the rabbit hole,
Where Alice held high tea, 
Her blue dress faded, 
From a century of guests,
(Even the Cheshire Cat looked weary)
And in her hand, was a deck of cards,
The tarot,
She threw them on a Snow White floor of glistening marble, 
While she smiled at me,
It was my turn, she said, 
And the outcome was revealed as a star,
One like Bethlehem,
A path into a world less travelled,
Where I’ll go and change 
In a split second,
A reflection of eternity, 
And never die.

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Ship Moved On

(and now the ship moved on....)
She took us like a valiant steed,
from coast 
to islands free,
where Tongan tapas decked the halls,
of South Pacific glee,
Marquesas, atolls, 
reefs and pearls,
far away lands
grass skirts, dancing girls!
(and now the ship moved on.....)
The dream fulfilled,
we headed back,
her wooden body held wind slack.
We heard her fate,
she sank one day,
that boat was old, she had her way....
(and now the ship moved on)

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Home

It felt like home
with a slight 
taste of loneliness
while the tv was on,
and you laughed
saying it watches you.....
and here we are once more
looking at the deer
out the bedroom window
our clothes on,
you said it would wreck it all otherwise.

It felt like home
the pictures on the wall
spoke their glory
replicas
photography
in the raw of ansel,
and your mothers coffee cup
on a side table,
years after she passed,
still
our clothes on,
you said it would wreck it all otherwise.

It felt like home
in your sisters old bedroom,
patchwork quilt soft as snow,
you said she looked like me,
as you kissed my cheek goodnight,
our clothes still on,
you said it would wreck it all otherwise.

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Jersey

The man planted and watered the garden,
like he did always in his weathered dungarees, as he told the girl
no,
     no to a day down the shore...
The phlox and peonies thirsted for his touch, screaming for the tilt of the watering can.
     The girl stood at the screen door, mid summer New Jersey heat sweltered at her bare feet,
she clutched a glass of whiskey while he whistled at his pink and yellow crop.
     Raindrop tears rolled off her chin, dissolving with the trail of salt into the booze, her black lace nightgown glued to her thin body. 
The bees circled his flowers, not caring for tears or indifference.

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Rosebud

I wanted to keep you alive,
in the small waterford bud vase
near our bed,
the one the minister spoke of,
on our wedding day.
There was always a rosebud in the vase,
you'de replace the dead one,
then I would,
we took turns, 
the rose our rogue child,
that breathed a fragrance of the eternal bloom.....
and that night that you died,
I put two buds in the vase, 
hoping that your parting was 
no more than last nights dream.

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Geese

Those wings of the Canadian geese
strap themselves to my heart,
removing the dark barrier of northeast landscape
and where I reside
in a charred picture of scenery,
a modern day reflection of the masses of breath who make more and more,
and evacuation is the norm.
The geese go south and then north again, gliding in a thought independent of
gridlock.

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All of the Light

One day
He told me 
That it was me 
He had been waiting for 
His whole life 
As his garden unfolded 
Into a firework show 
That summer,
Yet his mind 
Was shut 
That permanent glue 
Of ancestral belief 
Held it tightly 
In the past,
So I sent him 
All of the light 
I could find 
While deaths icy claw
Waited in the dark 
Right outside his driveway