Warm home
Great job
Good friends
Cute shoes
Rewarding avocation
Healthy kids
Dependable partner
Old dogs
All parents
Your visits
.
.
Happy Thanksgiving, Canada.
Drive safely.
poem- Nobel Alice October 10, 2013
They said
short stories were out of fashion
but you wrote them any way
They said
women didn’t make good
subjects for novels
but you wrote them anyway
They said
Canada doesn’t have a literary voice
along with Margaret, Hugh, Leonard, et al
you wrote one anyway.
They said
Alice is Nobel and you said,
‘I forgot that was today.’
.
.
Congratulations to Canada’s Alice Munro who today received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Interviewed this morning on CBC she said that she’d forgotten today was the announcement, and when her daughter woke her at 4:00 to tell her she’d won, she said, “Won what?”
Of course, any way.
poem- farewell rose October 9, 2013
The leaves grow brown and fall
but between petals drenched with rain
blossoms still smell of summer sweetness.
poem- sad poets October 7, 2013
So many sad poets
with melancholy eyes
savaging at their sanity
Life is brevity,
chemistry,
my sensitivity.
incredibly
lacks pleasantries.
When brains strain
against levity
it is time to
press the anti-depressants.
Broken leg,
ruptured spleen,
brain in pain,
medicine for all.
Equal opportunity
of healing for spleen,
leg or brain.
Poets, find joy
in the rain.
poem- poem breath October 6, 2013
I breathe in a poem
inhaling words and images
savouring the rhythm, colour, and aroma
flowing through lungs, heart, veins,
capilliaries and arteries.
I exhale the moment
and the poem,
it goes
free.
poem- this was me October 5, 2013
This was me:
curls briefly permanent,
my pen poised on your promises
recording adoration,
lists of lingering longings,
the angst of my adolescence,
my imaginary reality,
of dreams carved from your
calls and letters.
Feeling freely at fifteen,
that was me.
..
I had written a lot of poetry for and about a boy I admired, and for his 18th birthday, I compiled them all into a book, in calligraphy, each was recorded in a blank red ‘leather’ book. In the top left photo you see the calligraphy pen I used. In the top right you see the book itself on my lap. The photo on the bottom left ended up as the ‘author photo’ in the book.
These portraits were taken by a young woman who worked for my mom. Her name was Lindy, and she was from Nova Scotia. I often wonder what she has done since returned to the East Coast.
In the bottom right you can see a bit of the 4″ wedge canvas Candies I wore to death that summer. Always a shoe girl. I loved those suspender jeans (by Pulse, my favourite brand). They’re probably still in a box around here somewhere, waiting for me to be 106 lbs again. Oh, those innocent teen years when I was still a brunette! 😉
PS. The more I think about this, the more I’m sure I lied in this poem. I got that perm after a dare from Mark, whom I met the summer I was 16, so this must have been the spring / summer that I was 17. Hmm. With necessary poetic licence, I’m going to keep the ‘fifteen’ in there. But you’ll know it’s not factual, okay?
quote- George R R Martin October 4, 2013
I was listening to George R R Martin’s Clash of Kings on my commute today, and chuckled over this line:
He thought he could smell smoke,
though perhaps it was just the
scent of his nerves fraying.
Do you ever have days like that?
poem- you in a crowd October 3, 2013
I see you
in the distance
across a roomful of heads,
tall and silent
watching them with a
pleasant blankness-
a smile that turns your mouth
but doesn’t light your eyes.
You stand above
conversation,
listening without interest,
putting in the time
required for politeness.
My eyes call to you
and you turn,
one eyebrow raises a greeting
and your lips rise with it,
I see the flash of gladness,
as you incline your head
and step toward my love.
poem- October October 2, 2013
Some years,
September exits in a swish of scarlet, and
October dawns dappled in gold.
But this year,
October is opulent in shimmering emerald velvet.
Forests hold back their adornment.
The morning whispers on wisps of fog beyond
“I will wait.”
All around the lake, summer aches for more time,
grips tight to verdant hues,
and as October embraces green
its ochre arms
bide
the firey glory
of autumn.
Shawn L. Bird 