Category: Poetry

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

My Mistake

lindastudley2 Comments

I don’t dwell on my mistakes but they do live quite close by
and we get together often though we don’t see eye to eye.
And I tell them how they should be and they laugh at me and claim
I should go look in the mirror if I want someone to blame.

And they always come to visit at an inconvenient time
my pennance and my poison and my sentence for my crime
of trying something different and stumbling and falling
of trying to discover my vocation, my true calling.

And I’ve tried to move away but they follow me. I guess
they have a built in radar for a forwarding address.
I suppose I’ll have to learn to get along with them some day
They’re my oldest, closest friends and they just won’t go away.

 

#98

Nickel for Your Thoughts?

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Budget day has come and gone, the news has turned to olds
but for one staunch Canadian it knelled a cruel death toll.

For many years he suffered from a deficiency of copper.
He alternately was the friend and bane of every shopper,

who, after lugging pounds (or kilos) of them in their pants
empty them on dressers or into piggy banks,

then find that when the register rings something fifty nine
their purse and pockets are bereft, no pennies can they find.

Devout friend to small children living close to railroad tracks,
we passed him off a million times but he always came right back.

Today we bid a fond farewell to our pseudo-copper friend.
The brave Canadian penny has met a cents-less end.

#97

The Single Original Thought

lindastudley2 Comments

They say “pride goes before a fall”
I say “I don’t agree.
Pride is what makes us excel,
our downfall’s vanity.”

They say “the truth will set you free”
I say “I must demure.
Whose truth are you speaking of?
I assume it must be yours.”

Clouds have silver linings and
it’s darkest before dawn
and early birds all get their worms
and ugly ducks are swans.

We’ve thrown up clichéd fences
of homily and adage
with lies for all occasions
to carry ‘round like baggage.

There are many memorable mottos
that would better be forgot.
For there are no glib pronouncements
worth a single original thought.

 

#96

Spring Ambush

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Faint goose honk at edge of hearing,
soft chinook arch crowns the sky.
Wobbly fawn at edge of clearing,
baby coyotes croon and cry.

Redwing blackbird’s liquid chuckle,
rushing water’s roiling ring.
Crow returns with cocky ruckle,
peeper frogs begin to sing.

Pussywillows, silver glowing,
green haze limns the poplar trees.
Hush, child, listen, grass is growing,
Spring is ambushing the Peace.

#93

note: (I live in northern British Columbia, in an area called the Peace. Spring is a trickster here, sometimes you’re not sure if it’s really here until summer!)

Awakening

lindastudley4 Comments

Some days I think I understand what it must be like
to wake up from a coma,
groping for the past, staring into the mirror
only to see a stranger staring back.

Some days I think I understand what it must be like
to live in a foreign country,
everyone waving hands and talking gibberish
until I speak, and they stare at me, puzzled.

Some days I think I understand what it must be like
to be a sleepwalker,
restless pacer, blind seeker,
doomed to endlessly retrace a pointless journey.

Then your laughter rushes in to fill the gaps,
you smile in a language we both understand, and
the beating of your heart sings me to sleep.

#92

One Bird’s Trash

lindastudley1 Comment

I found a feather,
bright blue resting lightly on the grass,
a swatch of the sky drifted to earth.
I gathered it up for wonder.

I found a feather,
yellow gold, glowing on the dirt road,
a shard of the sun, a celestial hitchhiker.
This too I gathered.

I found a feather,
iridescent black, lodged in the pansies,
a nail paring of night sky, hiding from the day.
I gathered again.

I wove the feathers into my nest of memory
and never again wondered
why some birds steal tinfoil.

 

#91

Fibonacci Rules

lindastudley6 Comments

I?
I
do
not
think
that form
poetry is a less
valid expression of true
emotion or insight than vers libre poems,
do you? There is a symmetry
to it. Fibonacci
makes our
poems
fit
to
a
t

#89

Fibonacci – the sum of the number of letters in the last two lines equals the number of letters in the next line (I also reversed this). So start with 0 and 1, 0+1=1, 1+1=2, 2+1=3, 3+2=5 etc….(1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21…)

Seasons of Love

lindastudleyLeave a comment

Our love sings to my heart
in the trickling chuckle of a redwing blackbird
proclaiming the promise of a dawning spring.

Our love clings to my heart
with the sweet scent of lilacs, nodding, langourous
in the still warmth of a summer garden.

Our love plays on my heart
like a phantom melody at the edge of memory,
and the sound of leaves falling.

Our love cradles my heart
as a layer of snow protects the slumbering lilac,
patiently awaiting the seasons of love.

 

#89