Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Shore” by Thomas Doerksen.

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Shore

By Thomas Doerksen

What did I want from this short life.

In the middle now.

I have loved the sea when she is angry.

Always I have run her shore when she is angry.

What did I want.

From poetry.

From philosophy’s premature decisions.

See how things go silent on the shore.

I loved you I loved you, sea.

I will die.

I will leave only a few scraps.

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Copyright © Thomas Doerksen

Thomas Doerksen is a philosopher, scientist, and poet in Victoria, BC. His debut poetry collection Through the Cities and the Woods was released by JLRB Press in 2025. He has forthcoming poems in Hart House Review and Queens Quarterly.

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