The Traveling Circus Show and Other Poems

By Ann Christine Tabaka

The Traveling Circus Show

I remember …
The circus came to town that year.
A show of strange and exotic beasts.

Billowing tents stained with age
evoked images of castles.

Music played; stories were told.
Laughter pealed through the air.

Colored lights and magic
weaved their charm.

We danced; we sang.
We became children again.

Wanting to join,
wanting to run off.

Searching for freedom
and fulfillment of fantasy.

Imagination floated on a cloud
above the universe.

Then the circus left.

Who We Are

who are you,
what are you,
and why are you still here?
how did it ever come to this?

I do not match myself
so how can I match you?
we are so different – you and I.

positive and negative poles /
deflecting magnets /
resisting ways.

I am mish and you are mosh
in a mixed-up crazy commotion
that never finds its way.

nothing ever changes.
nothing ever grows.
in the end,
I am left without any sense of me.

The Last of the Last of the Last

How old we have grown.
Time has not been kind.

Tear filled rivers rushing by.
Salty taste of life drips from our tongues.

Days falling like leaves, drift out of reach,
feathering the land with decaying dreams.

We sailed away on wooden ships,
towards a dying sun.

It will be the last, of the last, of the last.
Our time is nearly run out.

I fear the end draws near.
All good things begin to fade.

Eyes close to what can never be,
As twilight swallows our sails.

The Fruitfulness of Motherhood

heavy with child, the peach tumbled to the earth,
spilling open her soft flesh to free new life.
the tree could not hold her burden past August,
so, he sacrificed her to the generation to come.

she melted into the autumn earth, releasing
her last breath. her survival less important
than the green sapling that she bore. one life,
one death, all she had to give.

had she been voluptuous, ripe, and sweet,
this would not have come to pass. other
beauties were plucked for consumption.
her bruised and misshapen body
saved her from this fate.

her tree and the bees loved her blossom well.
she bore her stone/child with pride.
her now broken body would resurrect
a new tree. and so, the story lives on.

Summer’s Last Breath

Swinging upside down
through a tunnel of disbelief.
The pain we know grows deeper
with every breath drawn in.
Taking the wrong turn again,
we fly past wooden bridges
crumbling in the twilight.
Silken songs of yesterday,
lie rotting in the sun.
The stains of sins once shattered,
beneath the moonless night.
Penance is a lonely word,
when forgiveness will not grant.
Have you no thought of what we once had,
or was it all in vain?
Love vanishes as a whisp of smoke
caught on an ocean breeze.
We walk away from forever,
leaving footsteps in the snow.
When did summer go wrong?

Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. She is the winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year, her bio is featured in the “Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020,” published by Sweetycat Press. Chris has been internationally published. Her work has been translated into Sequoyah-Cherokee Syllabics, into French, and into Spanish. She is the author of 13 poetry books. She has been published micro-fiction anthologies and short story publications. Christine lives in Delaware, USA. She loves gardening and cooking.  Chris lives with her husband and four cats. Her most recent credits are: The American Writers Review, The Scribe Magazine, The Phoenix, Burningword Literary Journal, Muddy River Poetry Review, The Silver Blade, Silver Birch Press, Pomona Valley Review, Page & Spine, West Texas Literary Review, The Hungry Chimera, Sheila-Na-Gig, Foliate Oak Review, The McKinley Review, Fourth & Sycamore.