Shawn L. Bird

Original poetry, commentary, and fiction. All copyrights reserved.

poem- Poetic Ballet March 7, 2021

Filed under: poem,Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 9:51 am
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Our words

are legacy.

Our hopes, fears, and

dreams pirouette on pages

They jeté into hearts and minds

even after we’ve returned

Á terre.

.

.

(In memory of poet Patrick Lane who left us one year ago today. A lesson I learned from him, “Use specificity in your poems. Don’t just dance, tango!”).

 

haiku- 100th anniversary of WW1 end November 11, 2018

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:29 am
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The guns fell silent

one hundred years ago, but

it didn’t end all war.

.

Mired in mud and blood

patriotism butchered

a generation.

.

If only those

recruitment posters were true

and their lives bought us peace.

 

poem-anniversary July 25, 2016

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 9:00 am
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It has been one year

without you.

I could take off mourning now,

remove a black cloak of outward grief,

but I will never remove the sense of loss.

It has been one year

without you,

but I still hear your voice

I hear your laugh,

your bad jokes,

another repetition of your life story.

I could take off a mourning cloak

but I will wear you on my shoulder,

hear you in my ears,

love you with every breath

until we meet again.

.

https://shawnbird.com/2015/07/25/obituary-herbert-mosses-duguay/

 

poem- four centuries April 23, 2016

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:14 pm
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Four centuries

before I was born

Will Shakespeare arrived

on the planet.

Four centuries ago today

Will’s body died

but his voice remains,

his words will still enthrall,

for centuries.

 

 

 

 

 

poem- Culloden Moor April 16, 2016

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 6:17 pm
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I didn’t see your ghosts

feel your spirits in the air

I didn’t understand what

drove folks to leave there;

On Culloden Moor the Scots

were slaughtered and died

Then drove from their lands

in Canada they arrived.

Their hardy characters

explored from sea to sea,

naming off the rivers,

(and my university).

The brutal battle that was fought

upon this day

led to our confederation

and the TransCanada

Highway.

.

.

Most of what I know about the Battle of Culloden I learned from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series.  However, it’s very cool that my husband’s ancestor Dr. John Rattray was Bonnie Prince Charlie’s personal physician in Edinburgh, and was saved from the noose afterwards only by the timely interference of his golf buddy and judge Duncan Forbes.  (John Rattray was Captain of St Andrews and one of the signatories of the official rules of golf in 1744.  Cronyism in golf plainly goes back to the beginning of the sport).

 

poem-two months September 25, 2015

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 11:25 pm
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Two months

Sixty-one days

Sixty-one memories of your smile

Sixty-one wishes for your stories

Two mysterious photographs

Too many days

without you.

.

.

RIPDaddy

Last week a genealogist doing a one name study of Duguay found my dad’s obituary here.  After getting a bit of basic information that could connect into his database, he sent me Dad’s family line back to 1620 in Burgundy, France.  I then did a little additional research.  Dad would have been intrigued, especially to know that at 1672 we share a common ancestor with some famous people: Hillary Clinton (American politician), Tom Mulcair (Canadian politician), Anne Hébert (Canadian author and poet).

 

poem-I do July 17, 2015

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 9:50 am
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Yes.

No.

Maybe so.

I love you, but

I love you,

but,

I love you, so

I will.

Do you?

I do.

.

.

.

.

If this poem had a ‘gag reel’ it would include

I love your

butt

(cough)  But it doesn’t.  So pretend you didn’t read that.

Happy Anniversary #30 to my long-suffering man. 🙂

Five years ago, when this blog was only a couple of months old, I posted this anniversary thought, complete with sepia toned wedding photo… 

 

poem- I was sure December 3, 2014

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 3:59 pm
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I am sure

I told them

We are sure

Yes, we are young

We told them.

Yes, it’s been fast,

But the college is small

and we get to know people

quickly.  We’ve seen each other

ten hours a day for months.

We didn’t tell them

about the ice cold walks,

holding mittened hands,

the tears,

the dreams.

We held those to ourselves.

Well, they said,

If you’re sure.

So we said I do

and I do, too

And we leapt off

a precipice

together.

.

.

.

This is the 30th anniversary of the day I met my dear man.  By the summer we were married, and still are

falling.

 

poem- wasted day October 2, 2014

On this day

I remember a ghost anniversary,

the day in 1976

when my sister was married.

My 12 year old figure was

encased in my mother’s girdle

beneath a hideous rust bridesmaid gown.

I sported a new Vidal Sasoon bob,

felt bold and grown up with

my uni-brow plucked.

I remember my father’s scowl

when a groomsman with waist length hair

obeying rattling spoons, bent to kiss me,

and the resulting blush.

The marriage lasted four years.

My daughter wore the hideous dress

when she was twelve.

She called herself a princess;

rust suits her.

Too bad my sister

never saw it.

.

.

.

You know, that whole girdle thing is really weird.  I was not a pudgy child by any reckoning.  I probably weighed about 95 lbs around the time of this wedding.  I recall it was my idea, so I must have been self-conscious of a little paunch, which at 12, was not paunch at all.  Very strange how girls are, isn’t it?

.

I looked for the wedding photos in the album, but it looks like I took them out of those photo eating ‘magnetic’ glued albums, and who knows where I put them.  Sorry!

 

 

poem-handsome July 17, 2014

Filed under: Poetry — Shawn L. Bird @ 2:48 pm
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G r e e n    e y e s,

h o l d   m y    h e a r t

t i g h t l y   a g a i n s t   y o u r s ;

l e t   t h e i r   c o m b i n e d   r h y t h m

~ s y n c o p a t e d    m e m o r i e s ~

d a n c e   i n   o u r

e m b r a c e .

.

.

.

Happy Anniversary, handsome.  Sam Heughan has nothing on you.

 

 
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