Category: Poetry

Rhymed and unrhymed, form or free, this is where the poetry lives.

Politics

lindastudley5 Comments

Politics (from Greek: πολιτικός politikos, definition “of, for, or relating to citizens”) is the practice and theory of influencing other people.

 

I’m tired of being influenced.
I’m tired of indignant voices.
I’m tired of having to choose what’s right
from what seems to be all the wrong choices.

Is honesty that hard to come by?
Who’s pulling the puppets’ strings?
For one is as bad as the other
just about different things.

I’m tired of the mud and the slinging.
expediencies and specious excuses.
I’m tired of arrogant platitudes
and blatant, egregious abuses.

All I want is a person to vote for
Somebody that I can trust
to do their best, not just for themselves
but for all of the rest of us.

 

#63

Confessions of a Craft Addict

lindastudley4 Comments

As a child I learned to sew by hand.
Then knitting and crochet lessons began.
As a teen I embroidered jackets and jeans
with fanciful creatures and Tolkien-esque scenes.

I made dolls and stuffed animals and toys for my kiddos
I don’t think there was anything I would get rid of.
I made rugs from old tee shirts, quilts from old scraps,
candles from crayons and paraffin wax.

Corn husks became dollies, I restored antiques
before Martha and pinterest and shabby was chic.
Then came weaving (backstrap) and weaving with beads.
Macrame, the gateway craft that leads…

…to quilling with quills and quilling with paper
and miniature crafting, like a form of escape.
Foil candy wrappers folded like stars.
The wood burning tools that left nasty scars.

I’ve wire wrapped beads, I’ve carved and I’ve felted,
made oddly shaped flowers from plastic I’ve melted,
What started as freebie, recycled, make do,
has cost me a fortune in supplies and glue.

Maybe someone should organize an intervention
to separate me from my crafty inventions.
But please wait until all my projects are done
That’ll be, let me see… when I’m a hundred and one!

 

#62

Thoughts on Morality

lindastudley1 Comment

A truly moral person does the right thing.
Not because rules, laws, or dogma say they must.
Not out of fear of retribution or punishment if they don’t.
Not for personal gain, praise, or reward.
Not because it is expedient, or easy.
The truly moral person does what’s right
because it is right.

 

#61

Travelling Light

lindastudley4 Comments

If I’d been looking back
to see where I had been
I probably would have stumbled on
opportunities unseen.

So I’ll leave the past in the past.
It’s gone, and it’s done its part.
Whatever I need to remember
is already stored in my heart.

Eyes wide to the future, I step out
and leave the baggage behind.
I’m travelling lighter now-a-days
if only in my mind.
#60

Fad Foods

lindastudleyLeave a comment

New superfoods appear each day
midst claims of health and slender waists
that can be yours if you eat them
no matter how vile they may taste.

Once it was oat bran and now it’s kale
acai berries I can’t  pronounce.
Some I tried and some I found
I couldn’t put inside my mouth.

But then there was the red wine craze
and dark chocolate anti-oxidants,
Those I’ll keep even if
I have to buy some stretchy pants.

I’m tired of worrying about food
of feeling guilty if I cheat
and actually enjoy a meal.
Now I just close my eyes and eat.
#57

I Am Like a Restrung Guitar

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Unwound, unwound, unwound
with lowering  moans and sighs the old dead strings
give up their place. A release
of tension. Freed from peg and anchor
they lie, silent on the floor.

New strings spring from enveloped coils;
leap out, eager to take their place,
to discover their voices.
Wound, wound, wound
with hopeful ascending trills
and the music is renewed
and renews.

It takes time and patience,
constantly re-tuning to reach the right notes,
but new strings are willing to stretch,
willing to take the tension
just so they can sing.

I am that guitar.
I have new strings.
Sing with me.

#55

Big Bang Bread

lindastudley5 Comments

There were only supposed to be twelve spiral arms
of cinnamon and raisins.
Then my doughy universe began
to expand, in a big bang boom it bloomed over
the top of the pan and the distance between
raisins increased exponentially,
like far-flung stars hurtling apart until
the heat overwhelmed the live, growing yeast
of creation and baked them into place.
And that is why, instead of a dozen
cinnamon rolls, we have an enormous,
if sparsely populated,
loaf of raisin bread.
Big Bang Bread.
It’s not a theory anymore.

#54