In drenched sleep
dreaming
computer rests across my knees
I’m writing
with neck crooked awkwardly
of you
and what happens next
in my favourite novel
and pondering the universe
until wisdom unfolds.
I type it all down,
in my dream
take dictation
from the subconscious
but when I awaken
there are neither words
nor keyboard
and all wisdom has evaporated
in the steam,
or drizzled down the drain.
I’m wearing Misty’s shoes;
her ghost clings to them
billowing behind the clicking heels
in the hallway.
Misty set these shoes
on the foot rest of her
wheelchair, but I’m dancing
to her memory down corridors,
blowing kisses to the sky
through windows
wide with wishes.
.
.
.
A few years ago on eBay I bought a pair of black and white Fluevog Harlows: T-straps on towering spool heels . Misty’s sister told me about how they were selling her shoes after her untimely death from cystic-fibrosis. I was so impressed with what she told me about her feisty sister over a brief correspondance, that I created a shoe-oholic character called Misty in the Grace books 3 & 4. The manuscript is sitting on a shelf, waiting for polishing. Someday you’ll get to meet her fictional namesake. In the meantime, you can admire her excellent taste in shoes:
The narration of your life
reads like a psychological thriller:
danger around every corner,
tension ramped to pain,
each character a potential villain
set to betray you,
and you’ve been betrayed, I know.
You’ve built your fortress
high and wide
and peek over cautiously
in your dark camouflage,
searching for the enemy
ready to defend
the small safety zone
you’ve carved for yourself.
You will survive,
because the protagonist
must overcome.
On the power of your words,
your resilience will rise
above the tormented tragedy
of your history
and you will embrace the destiny
that awaits your discovery.
I believe in your joyfully
mundane denouement.
Duck:
observe the legato ease of
geese relaxing in their Vs,
or eagles, reaching out their sides
to slice the skies,
even the tiny wren flies
from tree to tree efficiently,
but you,
you flap
over-happily
like a rattlepated,
frenzied drunk,
Duck.
When did I become a poet?
Was I not born a poem
Washed into the world on sorrow & pain
Spun thru desire?
Do poems require words
or only bodies?
Each life is a poem
unfolding without words
that every lover reads
and feels deep in the soul.
Every mother is a poet,
birthing baby poetry.
For
We are born as poems.
.
in lieu of the Golden Shovel poem I meant to post from yesterday’s NaPoWriMo prompt. I’m still not finding a poem I want to use as the inner poem. I wonder if a stanza of another poem will suffice? Otherwise I’m looking at mile long poems!
I lie
Poems buzzing
about my head
Like mosquitoes.
I wait
For them to land,
Pinch them carefully,
Drop them into a
preserving jar of ink,
seal them between
leaves and binding.
I lie,
Free to seek
the peace
of sleep.
The dog
comes inside,
his belly
mewling like he’s swallowed
a litter of kittens
and their yowling mama.
Is it indigestion,
or did that temptress on the fence
finally fall
into his waiting jowls?
On shore watching
patiently waiting
for grey whales.
Scanning grey-blue sky
into grey-blue horizon
on grey-blue ocean
searching for a grey puff of breath
a fluke, sign of a whale amid the grey tipped waves.
Staring.
Scanning.
Watching.
Impatiently waiting for grey whales
in the blue-grey ocean
before the blue-grey horizon
under the blue-grey sky.
Staring.
Scanning.
Watching.
Waiting for grey whales
makes me
blue.
.
I’ve wanted to see whales since I read this book as a kid. 3rd trip to the coast during the grey whale migration, and still no sighting.
April 13, 2014. Diana Gabaldon trivia: Fred Phleger, author of the above book, was a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1951 to 1977. Diana earned her MS in Marine Biology at Scripps in 1975.
.
Remember
city lights
blinking in the lake
your arms wrapped,
us enraptured.
You and I
embracing the mystery
of intimacy,
creating a history,
trusting the future,
facing dreams, and
dreaming of reality
enfolding before us:
Laughter, longing,
lasting love
.
.
.
The anniversary of our engagement is approaching, so here’s a poem in honour of the guy who’s had my back for 60% of my life. Look at how cute we were on that romantic evening! 😉 (Trust me that there are city lights reflected in the lake behind us. I had a pretty crappy camera!)
.
Shawn L. Bird 