Once,
I’d count down days to him.
My pounding would steal my breath at
the thought of him.
I observe my obsession from a distance
laughing at my absurdity,
thankful to have exorcised such ghosts.
.
Now,
thinking I’m seeing her soon
illuminates my being
with not-so-secret joy.
I acknowledge my obsession
in a collectitivity of compatriots
thankful for opportunities
to rub against greatness.
Every day
release some of the pressure,
let the steam of words blow
rising like mist
falling droplets of thought
caught.
You can make room for new
opportunities
ideas
possibilities
to pen
if you drain your brain
daily.
.
.
Lots of poetic devices in action here, as well as good advice. Thanks syl for the image!
The yard is speckled
with black spots
as if a coal train tipped on a fast corner
and sprayed lumps.
Twenty or thirty have spread out and bob
in search of hidden meals
or trouble
as is the nature of crows.
They’re strangely silent this morning,
like blurry eyed truckers
who’ve driven all night
and just want some breakfast
before the day begins.
Down the hall
voices–
murmurs words of whispered
conversations
I can’t quite hear.
The house is supposed to be
empty,
so I stalk the sound
searching for chatty intruders
their sibilant sussurance
strangely assured for the late hour
and their uninvited status.
In the bathroom,
it comes clear:
the toilet’s talking
to itself.
Hot day.
The mall is packed.
Swimming lessons need a driver
(kids can’t get anywhere by themselves, after all).
Joggers sweating past.
Gas mower chugs obnoxiously around the yard.
I miss the soft swisha-swisha of dad’s old Rotary mower
when summer was gentler
and filled with children’s laughter.
A hundred years ago these fields yielded
grief, fear, bodies, blood, and mud.
Now, wheat dries golden in the sun,
leaves wave in the breeze over crater scars,
While the earth returns bones and bombshells
to the surface: a century of slowly expulsing the detritus of war
extruding shrapnel from its pockmarked body with the new grass.
.
.
Watching the history channel, and amazed to learn that even today, Belgian farmers keep bins in their yards for unexploded shells they find, and the army comes by regularly to collect and destroy them. What a legacy a hundred years later! I’m just finishing Anne Perry’s World War One series which has made trench warfare very vivid.
In a moment
everything she thought she’d be
was sliced away.
In a moment
simple expectations yielded
to new arrays.
In a moment
opportunity seized her hand
to her dismay.
In a moment
foolish disappointments
were child’s play.
In a moment
her entire future was pulled
onto a new pathway.
It is dark here.
We have dug a den,
a hole to hide in.
Safe, secure, one entrance to guard
with snarling, snapping lunges.
Beyond the border we guard,
light illuminates.
We squint at silhouettes,
afraid of what lies behind.
The dark we know,
but light lures.
We’re raining
damp permeates bones
sky slides claustrophobically close
Grey day
If the broken pieces
didn’t blind him,
cripple him,
impale him,
perhaps he’d be free
to see her pain.
And seeing, to embrace it,
tame it, and more–
for her to show him
what she knows,
that slivers can be pulled,
that slats can be hammered,
that broken pieces can grow into crutches,
that the cracks of fractures
can be patched into a quilt
for a bed of nails.
Oh, he is broken, but
Comfort is where you find it.
Shawn L. Bird 