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Birds in Beards
Coloring Book
Written and Illustrated by
Shoshanah Lee Marohn
Copyright © 2016
Shoshanah Lee Marohn
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13: 978-1530566709
ISBN-10: 1530566703
"You may think it's nice
and you may think it's weird,
but beware of the man
with a bird in his beard."
I should have suspected
from his picture on line,
but I feared I'd be rejected,
and said I didn't mind.
When we went on our first date,
the birds sang us a song.
I really didn't mind
that he took the birds along.
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When he did bare-handed
falconry, I did think it was cool.
He might've been a genius,
an exception to the rule!
I know that barn swallows
often live with folks
on a farm.
What difference if
they were in his beard?
It didn't do us any harm
When he got the owl,
I mentioned "addiction,"
but he just laughed;
it inspired his "fiction."
Some people have pet mice;
he had a bird of Paradise.
I suggested he might
leave the birds at home.
He gave me a look
that chilled me to the bone
He was such an animal
lover, I couldn't deny that.
He also loved his friend,
Alex the Tom Cat.
He thought it was cool
to have a bird on his lapel;
to have eggs in his beard
suited him well.
He took his choir of sparrows
to the gym every night.
He was so fit,
who could say it wasn't right?
Finally, I asked him
if it wasn't weird
to have birds in one's beard?
In answer, he gave me
half a bouquet of flowers,
the other half of which
were in his beard
within hours.
The hummingbirds came
and feasted at will.
I had nothing to say;
I had had my fill
of birds in beards!
Didn't he know it was weird?
Why didn't he shave it off?
Yes, I'd had enough,
but he was sleeping in my loft.
His behavior continued
getting weirder and weirder.
I wanted him to shave,
but he just got bearder and bearder.
Wearing masks in the night
and feeding birds on his tongue-
regurgitated food!
His ideas were far flung.
As time went on,
my beau began to mellow;
with a quiet finch in his beard,
he was a nice old fellow.
An owlet was attracted
to his newly calm countenance.
It wasn't a bad thing
to witness his handsomeness.
But I started to get worried
about death and strange things:
if he died, would the bird follow him?
And haunt me and my siblings?
And then he took up with
a sweet old Sage Grouse.
And I began to consider
if he should be my spouse?
There were worse men out there-
they didn't have a birdhouse
already in their beard,
but was it really so weird?
Well, yes. Yes it was.
It was really, really weird
to have a little bird
part-time living
in your beard.
When the chicks hatched,
they were such cuties!
I resigned to go on
with poop cleaning duties.
They were cute for a while,
until he got too obsessed.
He stayed on the couch
and the house was a mess.
The chickens were on him
every day and every night.
No one was there
to sympathize with my plight!
Every time I got up to go to the loo
he would say,
"What are you going to do?
Can you get me a drink
or a spoon of Nutella?
I've got chicks on me, you see.
I'm a really nice fella.
But I can't move a muscle
or the chicks will get cold!
You understand, don't you?
I can't lose my hold."
Then he went and got a turkey!
We had a stand-off.
A silence of sorts.
We stopped speaking of birds.
I ignored his reports...
of quails on his fiddle
and bluebirds in his hat-
I didn't care anymore
about anything like that!
He could take his birds
and stuff them---
where the sun didn't shine!
There were lives to be lived,
and one of them was mine!
Setting aside his fiddle,
he trimmed it a little-
but the birds were all there,
still clinging to his hair.
Then he found a penguin
and made it a little helmet.
He felt our conversations
might overwhelm it.
And then there was the day
when things really went south;
the hummingbird was there,
attacking his mouth.
The storks came and
lived with us.
He didn't think it queer
to have a whole nest there,
living in his beard.
Again, he tried
shaving it, but
to no good effect.
The sap-sucker was
clinging, the blood
dripping down his neck.
As time went on,
he got a dreamy look in his eye-
a peace dove on his shoulder,
I did not know why.
Then he cheered up
as the weather got colder,
a full sized swan
in his beard and on his shoulder.
But I'd had enough
of his crazy delights,
his talk about birds,
and their harrowing flights.
The Ostrich situation
was more than I could take.
I needed a vacation-
on a pretty, bird-free lake.
He was so happy!
I didn't know what to do;
he reminded me of my pappy.
Birds stuck to him like glue.
Finally, I asked him to go.
My heart was too little
to hold every kind of crow
or variety of cuckoo,
to love the poop of penguins
to hear the owl say, "hoo hoo,"
while the mockingbird revved her engines.
I couldn't stand the hummingbirds
flitting inside my house
nor watch the noble eagle
attack the skittering mouse.
I'd had enough of finches,
of parrots reciting lore,
of swallows and birds of paradise-
I couldn't stand them anymore!
I watched him leave on his bicycle,
his birds flying all around.
Do I miss him, you might ask?
No.
Now I tell my daughter,
"You may think it's nice
or you may think it's weird,
but beware of the man
with a bird in his beard."
Special thanks to all of the "Beard Models," in order of appearance:
1. Matt Krueger (with a Lazuli Bunting in his beard)
2. Evan Skov (with generic birds in his car)
3. Victorio Piva (with a Falcon on his hand)
4. Mark Kesserich (with Barn Swallows in his beard)
5. Alex Bledsoe (holding an Owl)
6. Junior Jr. (with a Bird of Paradise)
7. Bryce Ziegler (with a Song Sparrow in his beard)
8. R.J. Dietrich (with Parrots and Alex the Cat)
9. Mike Mutant Goggles (with a Red Breasted Nuthatch)
10.Parisse Atkinson (with a choir of Swallows on his arm)
11. Jeffrey Ksul (with Hummingbirds)
12. Ben Boyce (feeding Great Herron chicks from his mouth)
13. Andrew Ettinger (with a Finch in his beard)
14. Matt Evans (with an Owlet)
15. Michael Van Vleet (with a living Robin, and a dead Robin)
16. Brian D. Marohn (hugging a Sage Grouse)
17. Marcelo Moraes (with Chickens)
18. John Francis (with lots of Chickens)
19. Dwayne Fry (with a Turkey)
20. Sean Downing (with a Marsh Wren)
21. Chris Wagoner (with a Western Bluebird and a Gambel's Quail)
22. Fellipe Santos (with Hanging Parrots)
23. Michael Mortensen (with a Penguin)
24. Bob Lee (with a Hummingbird)
25. Buck Samuel Dollars (with Storks)
26. Dan Constein (with a Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker)
27. Professor Batty (with a Peace Dove)
28. Jon Anders Ofjord (with a Swan)
29. Ryan Rysewyk (with a Gouldian Finch)
30. Charlie Kukuri (with Ostriches)
31. Marc Losenegger (with a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak)
32. Chris Hoppe (with Doves flying around his bike)
33. Zelma Marohn (honorable mention- she did try to grow a beard! with an American Kestrel on her hand)
Dear Friend,
I have this wonderful idea for an interactive art piece. What if everyone who colored this book left a review of it and included a picture of their coloring? Nothing would make me happier than going to the Amazon page for this book and seeing all of your coloring pages in the reviews. It might seem like there would not be a lot of variation, but take a look at the back cover of this book. I'll wait.... Okay. Did you look? Did you see how different all of those pictures were? Those are all different people who colored my self-portrait with a Polish Hen (still to come- the last picture in the book). I ran a coloring contest to see who could color the back cover, but I couldn't decide who won, so I just put them all on the back cover. I think they look great together. Now imagine that times... I don't know... one? I'm assuming all of my friends are buying this, at least. I'm pretty sure I have twenty friends... anyway, back to the idea:
This book is self-published, meaning I did it my SELF! Which is fun. But it also means that this book does not have pictures in the listing on Amazon. For some screwy reason, I can't do that yet- put pictures up of the interior of my coloring book in the Amazon listing, when it's self-published. But if YOU put YOUR coloring pictures there in the reviews? That would be AWESOME. Then you could not only share your coloring, but other people could see what this book is like.
Also, here's the thing: I don't have cash for advertising, so your review will also be the only advertising Birds in Beards gets- for better or worse. Could you leave a little review? Don't have a title? Here's one:
*Title: Most Amazing Coloring Book In the Universe
**Review: This is the best coloring book I have ever seen. [include picture of coloring]
You don't need a scanner. A snapshot from a phone or a tablet will do.
Go to Amazon.com. Look up "Birds in Beards." Scroll down to "leave review." It should take like five minutes.
Thank you so much.
Love,
Shoshanah
* Just a suggestion.
** Alternatively, you could say, "The world needs more coloring books like this."
The Artist with a Polish Hen
