Linda Studley

Can't Put the Pen Down…

Archive for the category “Poetry”

01 Jan 2019

Once Upon a Password

Once upon a password
I used to recollect
the obscure encryption
I invented to protect

my email from those hackers
so they wouldn’t see
my personal correspondence
or steal my ID.

But now it’s getting harder
to invent those ciphers
that defend my info
and permeate my life.

Upper case and numbers,
symbols interspersing,
make it look like comic book
characters are cursing.

And by the time I’ve memorize
the password I’ve arranged,
a faceless message tells me that
it’s time the password changed.

And now I must start over…
seriously? really?
I wonder how you spell
‘password’ in Swahili?

Posted in New poems 2019, Poetry and tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
25 Apr 2018

One

I live in a bubble, life
playing out around me in comforting
rhythms, familiar if not predictable.
Passive spectator except on those
rare occasions when the bubble pops
and the world stands forth, stark and clean.

Colours sing that three dimensions,
five senses,
one lifetime,
are not enough
to experience a world so real
and I know that if I could just stay
outside the bubble I could hold time
in the palm of my hand, vanquish
the dragons of pain, fear, and longing, see
inside hearts, and speak without words.

Then a random, mundane thought intrudes
and the bubble sneaks up around me again, clouds
the freshness, lulls my senses.
But just before the bubble closes I wonder
‘is this what becoming one with the universe means?
Was I there and I blew it again?
Will I ever find my way back?’.

I feel in my bones this world
I’ve glimpsed is a stepping stone
to eternity and if I could just stay
long enough to find my way
I would sprout new senses, fly
into a new dimension, the next lifetime.
The dragons growl.
The bubble closes.

Posted in A New Poem Every Morning 2018, Poetry, Writings and tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
08 Apr 2018

The Long, White Struggle

It’s a long, slow slog;
this stuttering transition
from winter to spring

with hopes of greenery
thawed and frozen all along
the dirty, white way

until you cave in,
like a collapsing igloo,
and believe the ice

age has come for you;
encased you eternally,
one hand on the box

labelled ‘Spring Clothing”
the other on your down filled coat,
desperate with hope

even through nightmares
of hard, white piles crushing
your warm breath to mist.

“It’s supposed to get up to plus eleven by next Friday” he says.
I’ll believe it when I see it

Posted in Poetry, Writings and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
03 Apr 2018

Like a Bird

Your heart, like a bird
fluttering, testing the winds2018-04-03-Like a Bird
of change in your soul

before taking flight.
Breath-taking fibrillation
shocks us to the now

where a breathe can hang
like mist in the frozen air
then crash to the ground,

tiny icicles
shatter, chime through the silence
“it’s time to go home”

 

Posted in A New Poem Every Morning 2018, Poetry, Writings and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
02 Apr 2018

Aubade to Spring

A nervous twitch of heavy curtains,
a wary peering into first light.
What song will I sing? A trill
of joy thrilling at a pool of sunlight
warming my bare
feet or a dirge for dreams
of spring, battered
by northeast winds and smothered
in yet more snow.
Is it all bad?
No, today the sun shines and, at least
for a while, it is ‘aubade’.

Posted in A New Poem Every Morning 2018, Poetry, Writings and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
12 Jan 2018
4 Comments

Frozen Pride

There’s a northern sense of pride
in battling winter and surviving
minus forty, minus fifty,
icy fog and snowy drifts. We
soldier on in our uniforms;
long underwear to keep us warm,
and scoff at tender souls who live
in milder climes and shake and shiver
at minus five and have to close
the city down for an inch of snow.

We post the current temperature;
a brag of what we can endure;
a challenge to post a lower number,
to northern soldiers in other bunkers.

Year after year we earn our stripes
through furnace fails and frozen pipes,
when trucks die and the power goes out
you discover what cold is all about.
We’ve fed the woodstove through the night
and melted snow by candlelight.

We’ve earned our medals in the ice and cold
but the years roll on and we’re getting old
and we’ve paid our dues and we’ve fought our fight
and we just want a little bit more sunlight.
It’s not retreating, just retiring
to a place where the temperature is higher.
I leave the struggle to the young
who have the strength to carry on.

Old soldiers who’ve battled winter and won,
Deserve their moments in the sun.

 

Posted in Poetry, Writings and tagged , , , , ,
10 Sep 2017

Ashes

I forgot to post this poem – it was written on the 6th as we were travelling through the Cariboo. The haze made the background seem two dimensional.

 

ashes-smallTreed mountains, layered in smoke,
recede into the haze; cut-out silhouettes; mere jagged,
misty dreams of the real terrain beneath.
And in the foreground emerge the trees, clearer now,
more defined, more detail in their sweeping boughs and
pendant moss; skeletons of their ancestors propped up
in their arms, standing witness.
There is a sense of waiting in the air
and a taste of ashes on the tongue.

Posted in Life with a Capital L, Poetry, Writings and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
04 Sep 2017

Cheaper Gas and Greener Grass

Apparently smoke isn’t going to be the only issue in our trip down south. Now the fuel prices in the lower half of the province seem to be skyrocketing! Okay, time to do the research… now a site that reports the price of fuel at different gas stations in British Columbia has taken its place in the ‘Favourites’ folder along with ‘Drive BC’ (for road conditions), Environment Canada’s ‘7 day forecast’ (for weather), ‘Air Quality Advisories’ (how bad is the smoke?) and, of course, a listing of every sani-dump in the province.

I don’t remember doing this kind of cramming for a holiday before. Is it just me or has the world become a more complicated place to navigate? I remember previous trips to the coast being, basically, toss the suitcases in the truck, fill up the tank, buy some munchies and start driving. Yes, we encountered high prices that we didn’t expect and flag people with stop signs; we just didn’t know where they’d be ahead of time.

So is it a good thing to be this ‘prepared’ or does it just end up focusing your attention on all the things that could go wrong? The element of surprise is always waiting around the next bend in the road, so, in the end, is it worth it to do all this advance research? Do I run the risk of concentrating so hard on finding the lowest fuel price that, eyes on the webpage or the map, I miss the beauty along the way. Bill doesn’t have to worry about that, he’s driving so he’s aware of his surroundings at all times (at least I certainly hope he is!). But how easy it could be for the passenger to become an obsessive navigator.

I’m going to have to watch out for that.

IMG_3106.JPGAre we seriously considering moving south? Well, it’s September fourth and Bill just came in to tell me the frost f***ed our corn. You figure it out, sigh…
Greener Grass

They say the grass is always greener
On the other side of the fence
and I’ve agreed and thought the adage
made a lot of sense.

Until recently I realized,
much to my chagrin,
that I can’t see the colour of the grass
when the snow’s up to my chin.

 

 

Posted in Epigrams and Essays, Life with a Capital L, Poetry, Writings and tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
07 Dec 2016

Retrospect

Sometimes,
as the old name ghosts
through the new label.

Sometimes,
as I empty the folders,
shred the contents.

Sometimes,
as I delete them
from database and list.

Sometimes,
the mortality is deafening

Posted in Poetry, Writings and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
10 Jul 2016

Oh, To Be

2016-07-10_Oh To Be_Thomas_Corsan_Morton_-_The_gypsy_caravan

Oh, to be a nomad and walk away
without a backward glance
knowing home is not a place on a map
but a tent I pitch over my heart, wherever I roam.

Oh, to be a gypsy and ride away,
heart dancing ahead, beckoning me onward.
All that I need I carry with me,
it is a peace desire could never bring.

Oh, to be a traveller and drive away
with a soul big enough to encompass all.
Why scrabble for a scrap of soil freehold
when I can hold the world for free.

Oh, to be a wanderer and drift away,
footsteps light and eager on countless pathways.
To leave behind the heartache of change
and our inability to accept the pain of it.

Oh, to be
just to be.

 

(painting -Thomas Corsan Morton “The Gypsy Caravan”)

Posted in Poetry, Writings and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Post Navigation

← Older Entries