The clever, cruel words that never escaped your lips and
the ones that did escape someone else’s,
the directions to despair,
and the fact that only a whisp of air separates us
from the cold blackness of space.
#81
Category: Writings
Life Learns a Lesson
My life needs to learn how to hit the ‘undo’ key
so I can back up a space to where I
actually knew what I was doing.
My life needs to learn how to call ‘time outs’,
where I can huddle and plan my next move
without someone changing the rules.
My life needs to learn how to chill,
that every move doesn’t have to be
a lesson, or a character building exercise.
Maybe it isn’t life who needs to learn the lessons,
maybe it’s me.
#80
Time Out
I admit my addiction to minutes and hours,
my passive submission to time’s evil powers.
Clocks are the scourge of all civilization.
I try to ignore them when I’m on vacation.
But when I’m at home I check with the clock
before eating or sleeping or going for walks.
At work there’s a clock that thinks it controls
my every move, my heart and my soul.
At least where I live we don’t pander to time
by forwarding backwards in reasonless rhyme.
Most disappointments in life can be laid
in the hands of a clock that cold heartedly said,
“Sorry, no time left to do what you want to.”
Ticking and tocking and tolling they taunt you.
To Hell with this ‘saving time’, daylight or not.
I say pull the plug and let ’em all rot!
#79
R is for Raven
Raucous raven roosts on railing
ranting, in the rising rays.
Ratty, raddled, rabble raiser,
ready reaver roams and raves.
Ravaging the rubbish, reaping
refuse as his rank repast.
Rattling with righteous ruckle
reciting rhymes with riant rasp.
Rascal, robbing random relics.
Rogue, regard my rambling request.
Retreat to rackety, rickety, rookery.
Refrain from ransoming my rest.
#78
Almost Here and Now
I can hear the new grass growing.
Spring is softly stirring, throwing
off her downy coverlet,
that winter left all thin and wet
I can see the warm wind blowing.
Spring is whispering soft and low and
licking icicles to tears of
joy that trickle free and clear.
I can taste the sunlight tingling.
Spring is gath’ring dead wood, kindling
fires of fresh dreams in my flesh
and songs of starting in my breast.
I can feel the sweetness wafting
Spring is breathing scent aloft in
clouds, low slung with watery vows
that spring is almost here and now.
#77
What Am I Thinking Now?
If you only knew me now
in this specific time and place
what assumptions would you form
about the choices that I’ve made?
How would you go about reverse engineering my life?
Would a practiced eye perceive
tiny fractures in my soul?
Would a quirky mannerism
speak of issues with control?
Would you use inductive or deductive reasoning or both?
Would the lines that crowd my face
be a printed page to you?
Schematics with a legend
to explain the things I do?
Would your condescending smile say “I knew it all along”
I believe I’d beg to differ
with your educated guesses,
and your calculated insights
for it’s all far too depressing
when science puts its blinders on and tries to read my mind.
#76
Me and Chuck
I had a plan of where to be and what to do and say
But chaos overtook my plan and random far away
and, tangled in string theory, that dimension now is loath
to interpret my existance as alive or dead or both.
If Schrodinger had named his cat he never would have thought
to use him in experiments and put him in a box.
I think I’ll spring Schrodinger’s cat, name him Chuck, and so,
like anomalous phenomena, we’ll just pick up and go.
#75
Sentences Starting With I Love
“I love a mystery” she says
then delves into the mystery with the sole
intent of unravelling it.
“I love the view” he says
then builds a house with a big window facing the view
so he can pull the curtains.
“I love you just the way you are” they say
then point out reasons that way is wrong and how
you should change.
Beware of sentences starting with I love.
#74
Memories of the Sea
Once upon a million years ago or maybe more
some of us climbed dripping from the ocean to the shore.
Some of us breathed in the air and stood on new fledged limbs
and turned our backs upon the home where we once used to swim.
And some of us remember still the ebb and flow and tide
of our ancestral home where our siblings still abide.
Some go back to the water, some stay away in fear,
but all of us have memories of the sea that salt our tears.
#73
She Dreams
She dreams of half squeezed tubes of oils,
the scent of turpentine, and the loose, paint smudged shirt
draping her body.
She dreams of the vacant stare of the canvas,
waiting on the easel, the perfect light slanting, and
the thumbnails scattered on the speckled table.
She dreams of the handthrown pot, bristling with brushes,
the pallet knives, the rags and scraps of yesterday’s news,
like leaves waiting to turn and fall.
She dreams of the pallet perched on her arm like a hawk, fierce
and unafraid, raises the loaded brush, takes a deep breath,
then wakes up and goes to the office again.
#72
Linda Studley 