Your smile has no illumination,
no dancing twinkle draws the eyes.
What lies will you tell today, when someone
asks if everything is okay?
Poem-Plumbing Depths June 14, 2019
This well is dank and dark,
Though they have promised from the depths
She will see stars,
so far, it’s darkness all around.
She only feels
a giant on her chest squeezing
joy, until tears squish dripping out.
She’ll fill this well with grief;
the only escape may be
floating on surface sorrow
until it floods over the wall
with all the sadness she can carry.
poem- small talk May 13, 2019
Sunny cashier:
“Did you have a good Mother’s Day yesterday?”
Contemplation.
Truth.
“No.”
Pause.
Longer pause.
Sunny voice: “I left the kids with the husband and
spent a lovely time on the lake. It was just what I needed!”
“Ah. Nice.
For some of us, it’s a time of grief.”
(Honesty is the best policy).
Still cheery: “Oh. Yes!”
Oh, dear.
Some of us, once safely through a horrid day,
are tripped by reminders of our private grief
in chirpy questions at a till.
When you tear open wounds,
what did you mother teach you to do?
poem-absent December 21, 2015
I hear your voice I see your smile
I’m glad you’re here to sit a while,
but when I turn around I see
that you are only memory.
So Christmas has come and you are gone
and day by day life still goes on;
though you are free from earthy pain,
Your absence grieves my heart again.
exam time June 19, 2013
The sky drips
its soggy sorrow
on students
walking into exams.
They step
out of white hazes
in expectation
(or desperation).
The sky drips
on their satisfaction
of consummation
and their sighs
of celebration
for coming
graduation.
Shawn L. Bird 