You’re a beacon, baby
Oh yeah.
You flicker like a flame
and I come to you.
I’m a lost ship.
I’m a moth.
You’re a candle
when the power’s out.
You’re a flashlight
slicing through the night.
You’re a beacon, baby.
Bring me home.
.
.
.
Hmm. Sounds like it wants to be a song, doesn’t it?
The demons are hiding around corners
lurking in the shadows
watching you.
I know you feel the weight
of their gaze
hear the clink of their weapons
every day.
On the sunny days,
you outrun them
find smiles to return to those
around you
in their circles of care.
Other days,
smiles are barred growls,
the glow of sinister eyes pacing
around you,
squeezing life and hope
as their circle crushes in,
suffocating you.
Your demons on their unwitting backs
Your demons in their unwitting smiles
Your demons on their unwitting feet
Your demons in their expectations
Your incessant demons
invisible to others,
writhing,
circling,
just
there.
I pass the old man
on his balcony.
Huge sunglasses
through which he watches
like a
diurnal owl;
the world unfolds below him.
Just like my dad liked to sit.
I don’t wipe away
my tear.
They’re talking love letters
and I hold my tongue
but not my lips.
The tilting corners betray me.
The envelopes with your distinctive hand writing
my name like a caress
glued down like a kiss,
all our hopes and dreams scribbled onto foolscap
by a fool to a fool
giddy from hormones.
And now love letters
are notes on the counter:
“Turn on the crockpot at noon”
“Running errands. Back around 3.”
Messages that mean you still
love me.
Snow hugs the hills and
draping lower with slow purpose.
Flakes flip and fall, settle for a moment
Their white crystals paradoxically painting pavement black.
Winter is coming closer with every flake.
Outside
crunching air announces autumn’s
departure.
Inside
your frosty glare says
winter has arrived.
The clouds sink
obscuring hills with billows:
silver, grey, charcoal, black.
Heavy clouds in cold air
ready to coat the highway with danger.
We gaze out our windows
wondering whether we’ll get home before
the first storm of this winter.
Creeping along, devouring everything in sight,
unsatisfied,
wrapped up in strings of your own making
wound up in yourself
chrysalis
waiting for wings.
Patience is a virtue.
You break free, stretch,
the new you quivers with discovery.
You fly, fill life with sweetness,
bring joy to those who watch you
waltz with the wind
until
you fall life-less.
The core of you crumbles,
but the breeze captures the wings left behind
and carries them,
curling and flipping
to the sky.
Possibly,
I’m
impossible.
This posterity
of probability
poses immortality
prompts immorality
indulges the impossible
creates possibility
from infinity.
Assures
I’m possible.
It’s a grey day
frost in the air,
but at least I’m greeting it
in a great pair of shoes.
Shawn L. Bird 