Number one
occupational
health hazard for
flight attendants
is falling
during turbulance,
for hair stylists:
hair slivers,
for teachers
it’s vocal damage.
Today,
my throat concurs
and longs for Ricola
and honeyed tea.
Today,
teaching hurts.
poem- story girl April 14, 2014
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.
poem-duck advice April 10, 2014
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.
poem- when did I become a poet? April 6, 2014
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!
poem- mosquito poems April 2, 2014
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.
poem-gastric catastrophe April 1, 2014
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?
poem-magic mirror March 31, 2014
The lake has captured the sky
reflecting clouds on blue silk,
shore lines doubled,
snow dusted trees, like brushes,
paint mist
suspended half way between reality
in a magic mirror of spring.
poem- waiting for grey whales March 25, 2014
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.
poem- perspective March 24, 2014
Most ferns unfold their fronds
beneath the trees in shady glades.
Along the winding roads
in the Olympic peninsula
ferns view a new perspective,
rooting into the moss
that wraps and drapes the trees.
Instead of remaining on forest floor the fern explore
the sights and sounds high above ground
the wind blown coast
the ocean salt.
Some ferns take advantage of a willing host
to see more of the world.
Their lives may be shorter
and less spread out,
but their perspective is expansive
without a doubt.
.
.
I was astounded to see what I’d call a Boston fern growing all along the roads, from the mossy trunks of all sorts of trees between Forks and Port Angeles* in Washington State. Huge ones were beneath the trees on the shady side of the road, but on the west side of the road, where the moss was thickest on the trees, the same ferns were growing from out of the moss all the way up the trunks. I didn’t see huge established ferns, just single fronds unfurled on the trees, but dozens on each tree. It kind of reminded me of being an exchange student, taking root in a new location, and seeing the world from a different view. 🙂
.
*This is the road that Edward Cullen takes at ridiculous speeds in his Volvo in the Twilight books. Personally, I don’t think even someone with supernatural powers should be driving faster than 60 miles/hr on that road! 😉
Shawn L. Bird 