Category: Poetry

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

Chronillogical

lindastudley3 Comments

Non linear time lines tangle
merging into one time,
the now time.
All things happening at all times
in a shoe box of photos and keepsakes ‘neath my bed.

Photos of children as they grow,
of weddings doomed and weddings blessed,
of loved ones gone and of times before
loved ones came to be.
Smooth skin, bright eyes, dark hair,
sapling and tree and firewood
phoenix and flicker
into and out of being.

There is no old, no young,
no tomorrows, no yesterdays.
All live in the shoebox amid the newspaper
clippings and children’s first teeth,
letters to Santa and letters from lovers,
curls of hair tied with red ribbon,
and a broken watch.

Underwater Burn

lindastudley2 Comments

Is happiness just the ability to hold depression at bay, to stay tears or at the very least to reach down into your last receding well of ‘oh well’  and pull up one more pail of ‘I’m fine’ to pour on the demons who unfortunately have learned to hold their breath and burn under water.  Hold your breath just one more time and see if you can outlast them. Hold your breathe, no ‘maybe’ about it, just grit your teeth and sink beneath the confusion hoping for a foothold so you can run like Hell for shore. There’s always ‘tomorrow’ – blessing or curse it can always be worse, it’s a matter of ‘will’ that won’t matter if you don’t care, so sleep if you can and hope for dreams of what could ‘be’ if the demons would just drown and wash away, feel the salt water purge them from your soul and try to find the urge to try just one more time to find something ‘better’

 

If you string together the words in quotations = ‘Oh well, I’m fine. Maybe tomorrow will be better.’

Soft Blue

lindastudley5 Comments

The sky is such a soft blue today,
like watercolour seeping from a loaded brush,
creeping across the horizon.
If I could I would lay my head
down upon its lap,
close my eyes, and drift
eider clouds tickling my nose
as they scud past.

I’d look down at naked poplars,
their skritchy-scratchy calligraphic limbs akimbo;
mute supplicants awaiting the slow explosion
of green ruffles and pollen confetti.
A time-lapse collapse into rustling
sighs but oh, my,
the sky is such a soft blue today.

Coconut Man

lindastudley2 Comments

Chop, chop, chop.
The machete falls.
He trims off the top.

Chop, chop
He flattens the bottom.
A deft twist and out pops a plug.
We pour coconut water into a travel mug
Gracias.

A peso, a smile,
and he pushes the coconut laden wheelbarrow
to the next tourist,
the next peso and smile.

The Stone Without Moss

lindastudleyLeave a comment

I’m the stone without moss, slowly rolling uphill,
the pebble the stone kicks aside.
I’m the lake far below waiting patient and still,
watching the pebble’s long dive.

I’m the last rippled echo that runs from the pebble
and dashes itself on the shore.
I’m the hands in the water, cupping and dripping,
to the mouth where the water is poured.

And I stand up again and I gaze at the mountain
And begin my eternal ascent.
I’m the stone without moss, the circling ripple,
till eternity’s utterly spent.

Counterpane Counterpoint

lindastudley3 Comments

In the dark of the night,
when I switch on my light,
my bedside window is an echo of white.

Like a dim extension
of my room, it blends in,
reality merging with bedroom reflection.

At a glance I don’t know
what is quilt, what is snow,
and out of my bed a poplar tree grows

as the snow sings again
its mirrored refrain,
a white counterpoint to a white counterpane.

Rainbows Day and Night

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Morning rainbows hang.
Pendant prism reflections
shiver in our breath.

Palms cupped together
hold the sunbeam’s refractions.
Hands filled with colour.

Moonlit prisms gleam.
An eerie rainbow reaches
blindly from midnight.

A glimpse of ghost light
glancing in pale reflections,
Flickers in star glow.

How Like the Masts of Sailing Ships

lindastudleyLeave a comment

How like the masts of sailing ships
are the tops of the bare bone trees.
And how like the creak of deck boards
is their groaning in the breeze.

How like the seething ocean
is the song of trees in the wind.
And how many days must pass
before I see the sea again?

How many days must pass away
Ere I see the sea again?

How like the wind carved sand dunes
is the snow in sculpted drifts.
And how like the tang of salt spray
are the tears upon my lips.

How like the lost gull’s crying
is the yearning in my dreams.
And how many months must fade
before I go back to the sea?

How many months must fade away
Ere I go back to the sea?

How like the foam upon the wave
Is the frost on the swaths of hay
How like the fog that shrouds the shore
Is the wood smoke, low and gray.

How like the ocean’s ebbing tide
does my journey backwards flow.
And how many years must pass
before I find my way back home?

How many days and months and years
Till the sea calls me back home?

 

Wax

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Waxing philosophic for so many years has resulted
in a waxy build up on my sensory receptors.
The soft, numbing layer insulates my sensibilities,
catching and immobilizing slings and arrows,
binding them like flies in a web,
suspending them in disbelief.

Easy to rationalise, to let things slide,
subsume them into the waxy cocoon,
give the whole thing a quick polish and
start laying down the next layer.

But lately I’ve noticed crazes in the glaze.
The comfortable, hazy wax has hardened, yellowed.
It dulls my perceptions, slows my reactions,
colours my interpretations.

It may be time to strip off a few layers of comfort.
Pare off the waxy build up and the
pendant collection of outrageous fortune,
mould it all into a ball and send it rolling.

Send the whole proverbial ball of wax rolling.