Do you do what’s right,
or just what is right for you?
There’s a difference.
#135
Choice
Words speak
Notes ring
Paint blooms
Voice sings
Ethereal moments
exist in forever.
Forever exists
in the moment
we choose to be free.
#134
You’ve Got it Good
One thing that I’ve never understood
is people saying that I’ve got it good
just because there’s someone somewhere else
who is so much worse off than myself.
Really? Is it supposed to cheer me up
that ‘though it’s empty I still have a cup?
Am I supposed to look around and savour
the fact that my life’s better than my neighbour?
Does my pain or sadness just not count?
Since when does empathy take to account
the relative degree of one’s despair
before bestowing simple ‘there, there, theres’?
When a person’s down upon their luck
comparative compassion kind of sucks.
#133
Food for Thought
On reading labels…
If ingredients are so hard to pronounce
that you can’t get your tongue around
them, then chances are good
that this isn’t food
and it doesn’t belong in your mouth.
#132
Home Grown Conspiracies
…research shows that 77% of accident related injuries happen in the home…
A scalded hand while draining the pasta
a cut on your thumb from a broken glass, a
broken toe from stumbling into the door jamb (you weren’t wearing slippers!).
A wrenched shoulder reaching for cans
on a high shelf, losing your balance
and falling off rickety ladders, (welcome to the broken hippers).
A sprained knee and a spasming back
slipping on floors you recently waxed
and developing a nervous tick (trepidation starts to fill me).
Now here I stand at the top of the stairs
perhaps it’s time to whisper a prayer
to the Gods who protect klutzes like me (‘cos my home is trying to kill me).
#131
Becoming Human
The desire to delineate our territory
is a basic urge.
From the craving to carve a cave
into a safe haven
to the ensuing need to paint on walls
to proclaim all our deeds and
affirm our existence to the world.
And so, when it comes time to share
the cave with those we care to save
from the wolves we struggle with
the old imperatives, temper the
declaratives with the wisdom of
time spent risking co-existence
and becoming human.
#130
Craving, need, compulsion, impulse
Haiku Cliche
A bed of roses
by any other name would
still have hidden thorns
#129
The Pain in my Neck
Winter, winter
like a splinter
that I can’t reach to remove
Fester, fester,
cold nor’ wester
like a kiss from reindeer hooves.
#128
It Works for Me
I am so organized
that I never procrastinate
because why put off till tomorrow
what I can ignore today?
#127
Angels in the Snow
I went outside at night to catch a snowflake on my tongue
the way I always used to do when I was very young.
Eyes closed, I opened up my mouth and tilted back my head
when much to my surprise I caught a falling star instead.
It tasted just like moonlight did fifty years ago.
and as it melted on my tongue it took my heart back home.
It shone the whole way down my throat and I felt a wonder
growing from my middle and rumbling like thunder
until it just exploded in to gales of childish glee.
I spun ‘til I was dizzy then I dropped down to my knees
and fell far back in time into snows of yesteryear
and when I opened up my eyes the sky was hard and clear
as though seen through the filters of innocence and joy
where wheeling stars and northern lights sing but make no noise.
I swept my legs and arms back and forth and to and fro
and made a splendid angel print beneath me in the snow.
When I awoke next morning I thought it just a dream
I stood at my back window and I wiped away the steam.
and there it was, moonlit and clear beneath the flickering stars
a perfect little angel in the centre of my yard.
#126
Linda Studley 