Category: A New Poem Every Morning

Life Imitates Crossword Puzzle Clues

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What’s an eleven letter word for that feeling
you get in the pit of your stomache when you know
you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, swallow, or process?
Starts with a ‘T’?
 
You know, the word that hints
that maybe you should change your name and
move to another city because you
just know this isn’t going to end well?
You may want to dye your hair too.
 
There’ an ‘id’ somewhere near the middle.
Figures that’s where the ‘id’ would be.
Right there in the middle,
demanding attention and immediate gratification. 

Ah, yes, ‘trepidation’.
From the Latin ‘trepidus’, meaning anxious.
Someone is scripting my life from crossword puzzle clues.

 

#46

The Speed of Sound

lindastudley2 Comments

I have been told that the speed of sound
traveling through the air
is a mile in five seconds but I know
some sounds travel faster.
 
Like the sound of a tear
hitting the pavement, an open palm
striking a cheek, or
squealing brakes.
 
Some words travel faster too,
‘goodbye’, ‘never’, ‘inoperable’.
 
Or maybe they don’t travel faster,
they just  travel further, straighter, hit
the intended target harder than other sounds, and
explode on impact.

 

#45

Outside of the Box

lindastudley5 Comments

You tell me I should think
outside of the box but really 
you just want me to climb into yours
and think the same way you do.
 
I have been outside the box,
mine, yours, everyones.
It’s a nice place to visit but
I haven’t perfected living there yet.
But I will, one day.
 
So don’t talk to me of boxes in vague
exhortations to creativity.
All you’ve done is paint some interesting pictures
on the walls of your box
mental murals – trompe l’oeil candy.

#44

Ted

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He’s an old cat
Black and white and claws
Grumpy meow
Prone to smack first and lick later
But he’s a friend of mine.
He has a name.
He has a soul.
And I’ll miss him when he’s gone
I think he knows this
Sometimes I see it in his eyes.
Yes, he’s a friend of mine.

#43

The Making of a Man

lindastudley3 Comments

It began with a babe who was held with love
It ended with a man not afraid to love 

It began with a toddler with a curious mind
It ended with a man with an open mind
 
It began with boy not afraid to talk
It ended with a man not afraid to listen
 
It began with a teen who knew right from wrong
It ended with a man who will right the wrongs
 
It began with your father and me
And now it begins with you

 

#42 –  for my son on his 26th birthday

The Reinvention

lindastudleyLeave a comment

“It’s time to reinvent.”

“Okay, so what first?”

“The inventory, what do we have to work with? What does our source material look like?”

“Well, some decent skills and experience here, some talents but they’re pretty well buried under paperwork and redtape.”

“Here, you grab that end of the paperwork and I’ll get this end, now, shift.”

“Hmm… they’re a little flattened but I think they’ll bounce back.”

“They’ll have to do, they’re all we’ve got.”

“What about this over here?”

“Well I’ll be! A soul! I never noticed it was missing.”

“Could be why the crushing was so extensive, the soul wasn’t in it, couldn’t mitigate the damage.”

“Look, it’s in really good shape. Yeah, we can do something with this. And look what it’s sitting on top of, a heart.”

“Maybe it was shielding the heart.”

”Could be. The heart is still quite strong for a model this old.”

“Okay, we’ve got skills, talent, experience, one soul, and one heart. Anything else we need to do this reinvention.”

“Yep, and it’s all around you.”

“What, this gooey stuff?”

“Yep. That, my friend, is the the glue that hold it all together, the creative spirit. Get the wet vac, this is going to take a while.”

 

#41

Willie, Phil, and Me

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It’s Groundhog Day in Canada and in the U.S. too
A time to watch the rodent to see what it will do.
 
Did it see its shadow or did the sun shine bright?
Will it stay and play a while or yawn and say ‘goodnight’?
 
It is an odd tradition, ground hog prognostications,
So fixed within the hearts and minds of our respective nations.
 
But up here in the northland we don’t have ground hogs
And if we did, right now they’d all be sleeping just like logs.
 
They wouldn’t even try to wake and look outside the den
Cause first they’d have to shovel off the snow and ice and then
 
The sun might still be shining while it’s twenty five below
Perhaps that’s why we have no hogs, perhaps they all got froze.
 
I’ll tell you this, no matter what prediction your hog brings
Even six more weeks of winter here means a fairly early spring.

#40

Epistles from a Northern Shut In

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Dearest Whom It May Concern,
My bucket list just scraped the bottom of my creative well.
I laboured to pull up handsful of silt and arrange it attractively on the page, a
hummock here, a swirl there, but along with the silt came the shards of sleep denied, slivers of guilt, and caltrops of anxious predictions of the worst yet to come (I’m saving these to strew in my path if I ever get on to one).
It’s a dangerous little ditty, my dearest Whom.
I can call you ‘Whom’, can’t I?

Ingenuously Yours

The Author at the Bottom of the Well.

 

#39

Message from the Mountain

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We spend more time going up the mountain
and coming down the mountain
than we spend at the top of the mountain.
Yet all our attention is drawn
to the top of the mountain,
all our dreams
are of panoramic vistas,
all our thoughts
are of how to get there sooner,
stay there longer,
go back again.
Perhaps we are only allowed one mountain top
per lifetime and how we savour it
is left to us to decide.

 

#37