Naked Ears

Been walking with naked ears 
Been walking that way for years
Love having open hearing
Birds chirping
Bugs zinging
Wind in the trees
The sounds of nature
Not so sure
Why people find headsets
So endearing
Love my naked hearing

I wrote the draft of this poem on a friends Facebook page after she posted about walking without a headset on. I don’t wear a headset, I don’t check my phone, answer email or texts when I am out walking. I am there for the walk and the live experience of the walk.

When you walk do you walk with Naked Ears?

Observations in Nature

I wrote this poem after watching a muskrat swim by with a tender shoot of bulrush in it’s mouth. The muskrat had to dodge around a beer can to get to it’s burrow under this tree.

Muskrat and beer cans
Pop cans and turtles
Coffee cups and frogs
Cellophane wrappers and herons
Balloons and ducks
Plastic bags
Sharing the pond
All shining in the sun
Ain’t nature divine?

Raccoon and cigarette butt carcasses
Along side the road
Opossums no longer scampering
Rotting in the sun
Birds wings fluttered by passing cars
Unmoving bodies flying no more
Plastic bags fluttering in the trees
All shining in the sun
Ain’t nature beautiful?

Ain’t nature beautiful?
Ain’t nature grand?
People
Oh People!
What are we doing to our land?

Dan Beresford, June 18th, 2021

This poem will be added to the book I am writing… “100 Terrible Short Stories and Poems”

Thoughtless Writing

The title expresses my feeling about more than 90% of the written communication I receive today. Email and text and crappy, boring flyers. I was speaking with a fellow poet earlier today and that started a bunch of thoughts rolling around in my brain. Here is the first draft of a poem that came from those thoughts and feelings. I think it needs work but as a guy who loves words and poetry and tries to communicate emotions and evoke a response I know it is going somewhere.

Thoughtless writing finger and smartphone

Black marks on a white background
Pixels forming the shapes of letters
Words on a screen

Slashed and pecked
Clicked and clacked
Thumbed or fingered
And click to send

Drab and boring
Unemotional
No beauty
No flow
Just click and go

The power of words
Thoughtlessly ignored
Sacrificed for speed
Just to meet the instant need
Written in haste
Thoughtless writing
A waste

No description
No emotion
Perhaps an emoticon
Click and gone
Then move on

No thought for the deed
Of writing words for others to heed
No sharing of soul
Speed the only goal

Thoughtless writing
Words on a screen
No cadence or flow
Words sent in haste
Bland and boring
(Excuse my snoring)

‘Twas the Month Before Christmas

My musings this week lead me to write my first Christmas poem.  The ending is a little week and the poem is still a work in progress. I hope you enjoy it and I welcome your feedback.

Cheers,
Dan

‘Twas the month before Christmas

Grammas and grandpas, uncles and aunts were planning with glee

Christmas gifts for under the tree

Skates for Suzie

An e-book for Ned

A dolly for Tasha

Maybe a tablet instead

 

Parcels were packed

Cards were signed

And Monday morning they woke to find

Their gift sending in a bind

 

No mail was moving

Not even an inch

The mail was frozen like the heart of a Grinch

The mail would not move by foot or by car

Not by plane or by train

Not by truck or by bike

The posties were on strike

 

They cried for benefits

For hours and pay

And in the warehouse the mail would stay

Until they got their way

 

A ruling was made up on the hill

To work the posties must go

So to work they show but ever so slow

No smaller do the mountains of parcels grow

 

Now brothers in arms

Block the way

Continuing the delay

The unions are holding our nation at bay

 

Caring not for sobs and sighs

Or the little one’s cries

Ruining Christmas for those far away

Alas what a sad day