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.
Just when I think there’s been a change
Just when I think the brain’s been rearranged
Just when I think obstacles have been constrained
There’s a smash, crashing return to the old
The opening petals refuse to unfold
The rebirthing story will not be told
Just when I imagine, my hope’s short-changed.
Reality is bitterly cold.
My expectations are really what’s strange.
The light of you
twinkles on your skin
sends shooting stars crackling from the top of your head.
The light of you
glows blue green like phosphorescence
attracting, inviting.
You are bio-luminescence
shimmering on an ocean,
trails flowing after you like an evening gown.
I reach to dip my hand into the water and watch the light
die in my palm.
I long to live in your light,
bathe in the beauty,
float in the flotilla of the mesmerized, microscopic worshipers
flowing after you.
But you go your way
and I go home.
I gaze after you, and wonder if you’ve shared enough of you,
for me to generate light
of my own.
.
.
.
(for Sheri-D)
It’s always a let down at the end of a conference to leave the like minds of other writers, and return home to quotidian life. This was a particularly good conference for me, with lots of messages from the universe (or rather one that just kept coming up over and over). I am hopeful the words will be off on interesting journeys as a result of the learning.
The green gold glistens
in the spring light
waving languidly in the breeze
as if to greet friends
seen from a great distance.
Looking forward to seeing you this weekend!
the mother wrote.
The greeting card holidays remind children
of filial duties.
Without them, would they ever call?
Text message comes mid-day:
Happy Mother’s Day.
An opening!
Mother replies,
When will we see you?
No response.
Cat’s in the Cradle.
.
Sacrifice. Care. Tuition bills. Sick beds. Pain.
And here,
A lesson in humility.
It’s strange how
Happy Mother’s Day
can feel a lot like
F-you.
A greeting card sentiment,
leaves a slashing wound,
sliced by a weapon wielded in a war
she didn’t know had been declared.
There had been no need to
clean the vase,
dress up for the surprise
brunch,
lunch,
dinner,
visit?
or even stay home to hang around the phone
so as not to disappoint
the kids
who call to wish
Happy Mothers’ Day.
.
.
.
(I’ve got a short story in my brain, but we’ll start with this.)
I am not enough
to fill the void.
A yawning maw,
a gaping hole,
inadequacy piled upon inadequacy
overwhelms
and I
do not have the mass
to shore up against this tide
of weakness compounded
year after year until they got here.
I am battered.
I am broken.
I am not enough.
They say
you can’t get blood from a stone,
but there you are
grinding
and bleeding from the effort.
There you are
releasing your hard heart
and weeping change.
Oh sure,
it hurts to be stoned
It’ll kill you, if the impact
hits the right place,
but a bloody stone
is only a reminder
of your strength.
Stones were once mountains
Worn by time and pressure
your mountain has become a stone,
and from your tight grip
drips
blood.
Your portion of this landscape
reinterprets the shape
follows the lines
but makes them into
something new.
Microcosm makes
macrocosm.
.
.
.
Current project in art class. Each student has a square that contains a scene up close, but when assembled with others, reveals a larger scene (or in this class, spells out the initials of the school.
I wanted to go.
I raced out the door.
It’s been a horrible week but it’s over
and I’m coming home to you at last!
Then the signs.
Prepare to stop.
We waited
waited
waited
waited
waited
until the flagger said,
“No one is getting through tonight.”
Highways in all directions sealed
like a disaster movie.
Creeks washed out.
Head-on collision.
Mud-slide.
Avalanche.
The truckers lined up for miles.
I’m tucked up in a hotel with a good book,
safe and dry,
but I’d rather be home
with you.
.
.
.
True story. But it could have been worse! On one side of the slide was the bride; the groom and family were sharing a hotel with me. A story for their grandkids! My commute is usually 22 minutes, but it was 22 hours this time.
Shawn L. Bird 