Today
life is soft focus
foggy view.
Slow brain.
Whole body blurred,
translucent.
If someone took a photo
would I be a phantom?
poem-getting there April 30, 2021
It’s easy to find.
You know where the old RCMP station was?
No? Well. So.
You go straight up the hill from there.
Turn left where the McGuires lived
Until what they used to call Riflerange Rd
No idea what they call it now.
Keep going until that house that used to
have a hair salon in the basement
Our place used to be a B and B.
You’ll see, we have a great view
We’re eagerly waiting for you!
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NaPoWriMo Prompt 30 was to write a poem giving directions. I used the style of direction giving most heard in Salmon Arm, where I live. All the old timers give directions based on where things used to be or what they used to be called. The re-naming (numbering) of streets, some 40 years ago has not sat well!
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poem-outside April 29, 2021
(Napowrimo day 29 is about describing a scene out a window, but this morning I was standing in a doorway observing, so I’ll use that moment).
This morning outside my door,
cacophony of small birds
catcalling to the universe:
Oooh baby! Look at me!
Our place! Get away!
Twittering spring tumult
screeches and titters.
The world persists,
though you have ceased.
poem-lilo April 28, 2021
Our friendship can lie low
for months and years
Wading through the morass of obligations
from family and job.
Fallow fields tended on Facebook
with a like or a care emoji.
Does anyone else write letters any more?
I miss live laughter,
the belly aching kind,
making new memories.
I miss voices harmonizing until the cells
reverberate into joy.
Time doesn’t lie between us
it surrounds us
paints its creases on our skin
but within, this friendship
hasn’t aged a day.
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Napowrimo Day 28. This actually links to the prompt from yesterday which was to explore ‘an obscure sorrow’. Yesterday, my sorrow was too overt for obscurity. Lilo is an interesting concept. I have so many friends whom I only see once a year at certain writing conferences, or others that I may go years between seeing. My friends and adopted families in Finland, I don’t see for decades, but I think of them often, and when I see them, it is like we slot back into each other’s lives like no time has passed. As if I could be the neighbour next door. Some days, I wish I were. It is hard when real life means you can’t be with the people who fill your heart. I must say, I definitely appreciate how Facebook has made it easier to touch into those distance friends far more easily.
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poem- are you singing now? April 27, 2021
in the end
you had to sing the hymns in your head
fill your mind with the music
that could not escape
in the end
she held your hand
entwined your fingers
listened to your last breath
in the end
angels embraced you
brought you into their choirloft
and left us all bereft,
at your beginning.
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NaPoWriMo Day 27.
A bit of an elegy. This April has been full of poems of grieving. *Another* dear one died yesterday. (5 precious souls lost to us in 10 mos, 3 in April alone!) His glorious voice is now raised with the angels, but oh how we will miss it here on Earth. RIP Randy.
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poem-carvings April 26, 2021
Outside my window: blue sky, new green.
Promise and potential
A future of fecundity.
Inside my heart: fog, ice
You are gone
The planet is too joyful
for such a day.
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NaPoWriMo Day 26.
The prompt today was for a humorous parody, but as I received the news of the death of another dear person in my life this weekend, humour is not on my mind. 4 great losses in 10 months. What a wearisome year this has been.
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poem- weekend April 24, 2021
Daily countdown
Five days
Four days
Three days (Hump day!)
Two days!
Six hours!
Four hours!
Two hours!
Home at last
Collapse
Sleep ten hours
Twelve hours.
Fourteen hours.
Early to bed.
Sunday- recovery!
Look around
enjoy the sun
deal with chores
Early to bed
Ten hours
’til it starts again.
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NaPoWriMo day 24. Has anyone found themselve just completely exhausted over the last year? Between brain injury recovery, three family deaths, and the stress of increase in Covid cases and dangerous variants (and positive cases in kids within the local school system…) I don’t think I’ve ever had as hard a year. How about you?
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Poem- left hanging April 23, 2021
Craft it up.
Send it out
Check it off.
The intentions were there,
But I’m staring at the screen
seeing blurs
realizing it’s dream-time.
My off-switch just flipped,
so this poem will be left unfinished
until my brain is back on-line.
Perhaps tomorrow some time?
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NaPoWriMo day 23. Shakespeare’s birthday! I was going to play with a sonnet for their response prompt. Perhaps another day!
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poem-budding April 22, 2021
Outside the window
new green
We walk by in masks
waiting for vaccine
Spring is a time
for hope
Another year on a
slippery slope.
Daffodils bursting
from the soil
Politics and a pandemic
embroiled
Breathe.
Take care.
We’re almost
there.
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NaPoWriMo Day 22 A little contrast between the hope of spring and the stress of rising numbers of infected folks, including a friend.
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poem-double words April 21, 2021
NaPoWriMo prompt for Day 21 was to use repetition modelled after http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/poem/2008/11/there_was_a_man_of_double_deed.html.
There was a girl who spoke the words
That wrapped the world, but went unheard
When the girl began to dream
T’was like the universal scheme
When the scheming came to naught
T’was like a void that time forgot
When the void it opened wide
T’was like a cave with home inside
When home called loudly, she went in
T’was like relief flooding within.
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Shawn L. Bird 