The back of my hand is changing.
I don’t know it anymore.
New freckles hiding in the wrinkles,
veins like fat rivulets of blue shadow,
knuckle joints ringed like holes in the boles
of slightly crooked trees
(I almost expect an owl or two to gaze back)
All these new things, just to remind me
I’m getting old.
#155
I am a rag doll
stuffed with broken bones and glass.
Hear the ragman’s call.
#154
Words are just the beginning.
Behind them lie more important matters
like motivation, expectation, emotion.
And to make matters more confusing, words
can sound the same yet mean something
totally different.
Not your garden variety homonym where
both ants and aunts enjoy the flowers.
I speak of shadow words,
unspoken longing and loneliness,
envy and ennui, malice and menace.
Context will not help you here and you have but a split
second to assess, decide,
react, respond. The art
of conversation in nefarious hands
becomes an art worthy of
Sun Tzu rather than Lao Tzu,
more war than poetry.
So if we need to talk,
cast no shadows across my words
and I will cast none upon yours.
#153
Hard little seeds of regret, slippery and elusive,
that you swallow by mistake.
White webs of membrane memories
that smother sweetness
with pithy pathos.
Leathery armoured skin that clings
and tears the tender flesh with every tug
towards freedom.
And the flesh, vivid hued yet vapid,
with pockets of wincing sourness.
And amongst it all the occasional
sweet tang, a state of grace that reminds you
that the orange is still worth tasting.
#152
There is a child within who waits
impatiently for special dates
who surfaces ‘round Christmas eve;
a child who struggles to believe
that through the glitter something real
is waiting back for them to feel
the wonder once again and smile
deeply, truly, like that child
whose eye once shone with Christmas lights;
who innocently scanned the night
struggling to stay awake
to watch for reindeer pulling sleighs.
We are the ones who still remember
a long ago pristine December,
when we gazed into the night
and spotted Santa’s sleigh go by.
For those who, in their childhood, glimpse
the jolly elf or his footprints
will never grow up all the way
but stay a child on Christmas Day.
#151
What is the strange fascination and awe
over gadgets and gizmos, and goofy gewgaws?
The compulsion for whiz-bangs and whatchamacallits
for knick-knacks and trinkets, trifles and baubles
What is this longing for thingamadoodles,
the whole mishmash and kit and kaboodle
of whatsits and whatnots. I think it quite odd
that we drool over doohickys and thingamabobs
All these widgets and paraphernalia are just
more thingamajigs that I’ll have to dust.
Keep your thingummies, gimcracks, the whole darn shebang
this possession obsession can just go and hang.
Don’t gift me with hotchpotch concoctions or gear
I’ve declared twenty sixteen a doodad free year.
#150
note: oh, well, maybe just a FEW doodads… sigh…
Leaves do not just fall.
They just follow their desire
to embrace the earth.
#149
the clock ticks on
no poem appears
I’ve a very bad case of ‘tempus fugit’
with inspiration
on vacation
I guess I’ll just have to ‘fudge it’…
#148
In the cold darkness
somewhere seeds slumber gently
waiting for the sun.
#147
I gaze upon the calendar
and see it filling up with cheer;
trimming trees and carolling
and ringing in a brand new year.
It seems that when the days grow short
hardy northerners embark
on merriment and shining lights
that celebrate the early dark.
The days are shorter, that is true.
Some days we never see the sun.
but if the days seem short it’s ‘cause
the nights are filled with festive fun.
#146
Linda Studley 