Look in, look inside
Something hides behind the pain
Perhaps it is joy.
Stand up, stand up straight
Something new is beginning
That makes life worthwhile.
Step out, step away
Something is coming closer
Every moment.
Run, run to meet life
Embrace newness each morning
Your heart is beating.
#252
(note: try reading only the first lines of each haiku, then only the second, and, finally, only the third. The meanings reveal themselves differently this way) 🙂
The grass is greener,
at least it’s greener longer,
on some other sides.
Is it wrong to crave
greener pastures, kinder skies,
a gentle lifestyle?
It can’t hurt to look
and if looking turns to change –
the grass is still green.
#251
The scarlet letter of shame today
is not an “A”.
It’s the “S” painted on the shaker of salt
that’s at fault.
The salt shaker top is littered with holes,
it’s hard to control
the amount of salt that hits your food
and you overdo
because salt is teeny and hard to see,
it’s pale and wee.
Not like pepper that is easy to see
and makes you sneeze.
Though pepper lives in a shaker too
the holes are few.
And though pepper is safer than salt they say
this is the way
we traditionally think our seasonings should be
but it seems
pepper should be in the shaker marked “S”
(for ‘Safe’, I guess.)
And salt should be kept in the one marked “P”
’cause it seems to me,
since we know too much salt is bad for us –
“P” for ‘Perilous’.
#248
The slippery slope, diet-arily,
is greased with butter apparently
so now we’ve switched to tubs of some kind of margarine
something that isn’t really butter at all
it’s got no trans-fats or cholesterol
but it comes in a round plastic tub, to my chagrin.
‘cause in every fridge with their racks and drawers
there’s a wee compartment with a flippy door
where you keep your block of butter all cool and sweet
but the tub won’t fit where the butter once dwelt
and if you leave it on the counter it kinda melts
into separate unappetizing puddles of muck and grease.
So I keep it in the fridge, with the low fat cheese
and the fruits and veggies and all that wheeze
that’ll make me live longer and enjoy life more
but as full as my refrigerator every gets
There’s just one space where nothing sets
‘cause nothing but butter fits behind a flippy-door.
#247
Why write about life
When it’s waiting to be lived
Shut down, go outside.
#245
My head feels like it’s spinning
but it’s really just a procession of
turning points, back to back, spiralling
just out of reach.
Opportunity knocking at my brain
then running away.
So many opportunities that
by the time I’ve mourned the fact
that I can’t take advantage of them all,
yet another set has slipped away.
I could grab one and stuff it in my pocket
but it would probably fade,
like a bus transfer that you roll and fold
until it resembles flannelette.
No, I think I’d better catch it with my teeth,
like a jungle cat, and drag it away,
up into a tree and devour it.
Yes, opportunities should be devoured.
Turning points should be stalked, pounced upon,
and devoured.
#244
I’m a merry-go-round girl
in roller coaster world
and I wonder as I swirl
through a wrong turn in mid air.
I’m a Sunday Driver waking
at a Nascar starting gate and
I’m pretty sure I’ve taken
another wrong turn somewhere.
I’m a bunny hill kinda gal at the top of Everest
I’m dog paddling in the middle of the sea
I don’t know what went wrong but I’m gonna make a guess
I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
Me and Bugs
We took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.
#243
I think I lost my ticket.
Or perhaps I bent, spindled,
mutilated or folded it illegible.
It happens that way sometimes
when you hold it in your hand too long,
twiddling it, fiddling with it,
absent mindedly clenching and
unclenching your hands around it
as though the destination could
be absorbed through the skin,
a sweat stained dermal transference.
So perhaps it was just a transfer I lost,
not the ticket.
Wait, here is the ticket in my pocket.
I take it out but cannot bring myself to read
the destination.
#240
Tea in a chipped cup.
Love lives in the little things
Every day now.
Every day now
I understand that to see
I must close my eyes.
I must close my eyes
To feel the love that lives in
tea in a chipped cup.
239
I knew it wouldn’t have mattered
how many apples I had
you wouldn’t want any.
You didn’t like apples.
No one ever brought you apples.
And how could I have known
how long it would take to reach that other town?
I couldn’t drive back then,
I could barely ride my bike.
I’ve never paid attention to how long it takes
to drive anywhere, even now.
But if, one day, while driving to town
at sixty miles an hour, I should meet you
coming from the other direction
driving at forty five miles an hour,
I’ll wave.
#238
Linda Studley 