Your smile has no illumination,
no dancing twinkle draws the eyes.
What lies will you tell today, when someone
asks if everything is okay?
poem- later July 10, 2019
I expected
in my youth
a natural ending.
You railed against presumption.
Never!
Always!
Hyperbole spun us out,
Now our orbits can’t intersect.
I was okay with that,
until I wasn’t.
We’re not supposed to break promises,
even irrelevant ones.
Curse nostalgia.
poem- didn’t say July 9, 2019
He didn’t say it.
Not on the day
or the day after, when he used to remember.
No more embers. glowing.
Not hanging on the threads anymore, I just realized.
How strange when forever
truly dies.
poem-road June 23, 2019
Win win you think
and she knows your thoughts,
that you don’t imagine
hers differ.
They do.
She wants you, coming and going.
Sit beside for both parts of the journey,
find moments of connection
have those conversations
that are skipped in the day to day.
Those too rare times when you’re together
with nothing to do but hear each other.
She wants words and laughter and plans.
You leave early. A note on the counter:
meet you there.
She puts her foot on the gas pedal
and travels lonely,
as usual.
Win?
or lose?
Poem-Plumbing Depths June 14, 2019
This well is dank and dark,
Though they have promised from the depths
She will see stars,
so far, it’s darkness all around.
She only feels
a giant on her chest squeezing
joy, until tears squish dripping out.
She’ll fill this well with grief;
the only escape may be
floating on surface sorrow
until it floods over the wall
with all the sadness she can carry.
poem-preservation June 10, 2019
We need to be respectful
of tender psyches, mental illness,
all the agonies of existence.
We need to be respectful
of our own tenderness
and pained existence.
When being gentle of their tender troubles,
makes aches worse for ourselves,
who needs to respect whom?
Draw battle lines,
or at least find a bastion
against cries
calling you to your destruction,
dragging you to drown in the moat of their fragility.
Be respectful of your own precious sanity.
poem- cracks June 9, 2019
I’m slipping apart
Deep gut groaning,
inviserating split.
Your knife is sharp
and oh so subtle
No one sees the slicing
as pieces of me fall:
blood, tears and confusion.
Devotion’s greatest trick.
Betrayal by the longed for hope,
tenderly nurtured,
joyfully gathered to the heart.
Once before, protection pushed you out.
You said your sorries, cried for communication
and here we are again.
Cruelty masquerading as the heart I carried.
Pain pretending to be love.
No one else would be allowed in, after all this anguish.
Broken pieces of how I used to feel.
Wondering where the sweet creature disappeared to.
Mothers earn merit badges from the torture
of their children.
poem-here June 3, 2019
Here is the place,
soft amber light
warm hands
cool breeze.
Here is the circle,
feel the connection
crackling completeness
arms tight,
hearts warm.
Here is love,
wrapped around you,
holding you up,
sending you strength.
Here is peace.
Here is hope.
Here is now.
.
.
For Londa.
poem- weathering May 31, 2019
Blue sky
Slight breeze
Rocking of the lounge
Toss the dog’s ball
Feel summer approach.
Thunder in the south
Booming concussion shakes the land
Storm brewing
Run or
Hold fast?
Shawn L. Bird 