Your toe nails
echo in the hall like
a cavalcade of snare drums.
Thundering timpanic tribulation
of tip tapping echoing through my brain,
draining me of peace.
Your toe nails
four times four feet times two
(two square roots of feet)
Are a private percussion section
depriving me of sleep.
.
.
.
I need to trim the dogs’ toe nails.
Arg.
I should have
warned you about our bud.
She’s thorny
but she’s precious.
Touch her brusquely
and you’ll bleed from flesh
torn by her thorns.
They are sharp, but they protect
a precious bud.
Some day, if we tend her well
she will blossom into a glorious rose,
for now she is a thorny stalk
with a tentative bud,
doubtful of blooming.
She will need to be coaxed,
but someday, her unique beauty
will amaze you.
She will show the world
talent, insight, and vision.
She’ll be a complexity of
colour, scent, tenacity.
For now, she is a thorny stalk,
but we have faith
the guarded bud
will bloom
Usually too territorial to rest together,
twenty Red winged blackbirds,
tremble upon the tips.
One bush, in early spring,
a yellow, red and black bird bouquet.
.
.
Such a strange sight as I was driving home from Vernon last weekend! And hey! Red winged blackbirds are the first sign of spring! YAY!
At The Cracked Pot
three crack pots,
(story pouring
word winders)
read.
Audience fights
coffee makers,
straining ears
to hear,
relaxes with smiles
at trials below amid the coal,
at parking problems,
at teen trouble.
The writers who read have only words
with which to weave a moment
to give a gift, to share
with those gracious ears
filling the chairs.
.
.
Allusion to The Cracked Pot Coffee Emporium in Vernon, which hosted writers Patricia Donahue, Howard Brown, and me this afternoon. A packed house strained their ears, and it was a lovely time!
Put it away
It’s past the time
for you to escape
the fear
the hoping
the wish
that it will change.
It won’t.
The drinking
The shouting
The hitting
The habit.
It’s routine.
Routines don’t change.
That dream
That picket fence
That reflection in your rosy shades
will never be reality.
The reflection behind your shades
will always be blue and black.
Walk away
Put away
that dream
and claim
life.
The togetherness
stretched between
man-cave and girl-zone,
in dutiful words
and sharing kisses on the stairs.
The silences
listen for the echoes
of footfalls
and wonder
what togetherness
means.
Snuffling with fuzzy head,
her frigid feet
in search of heat,
she creeps, shivering between the sheets.
Piled high with fill from sheep and geese
duvets do not suffice to thaw her feet of ice.
As her teeth tremble a timpanic tintannabulation
of unsympathetic vibrations
She seeks cessation of sensation
in the oblivion of sleep.
You’ve been waiting,
watching,
wondering,
but now
it’s time to act.
Stop planning,
scheming,
dreaming,
and do.
Face the task.
Make it happen.
Decide as you go along.
It’s time,
now.
Your limbs
spill from silken sheets
shimmering in the glimmer
of morning squeezing between
window slats,
striping you like a convict,
but I am your prisoner.
Your lips
curl as you murmur,
conversing with lovers
in your dreams,
Your hips
burrow deeply
on the rhythm of your sighs
and I long to lie beside you,
lingering in the light,
but as dawn drives day
so must I away.
.
.
An aubade is a French leaving poem. It’s the opposite of a serenade, and is the song of a lover leaving his beloved in the morning. I’d never heard of the form before, and on the same day, I discovered it by accident (when I looked up a French lingerie company by the name and the definition came up) I found an aubade in the WordPress poetry feed. Quite a coincidence! Here is my first one. I should add, that I am unlikely to ever write one from experience, since generally I’m going to bed at dawn, while my husband is getting up! 😉
Who knew
when love first entangled
that rapture yields both
blessing and anguish?
Anticipated joy
dashed by disability,
disease, dread,
death.
Watching beloved baby
suffer
and the love that begat
all the suffering
lies so tangled
in anguish
that it’s difficult to
find it at all.
Shawn L. Bird 