Author: Dusty Lynn Baker

Words With Artists

/ Dusty Lynn Baker / Leave a comment

My long awaited podcast, Words With Artists, just published today with a double launch of artists Judy Quinlin and Rosanne Quatroke! You can even watch the interview with Judy on my YouTube channel @dustylynnbaker

Join me in entertaining the ghosts of our pasts, sipping tea, and sharing words with artists!

A Song Unfurled

/ Dusty Lynn Baker / Leave a comment 
Poetry is the song of the spoken word
   gliding gleefully, playfully
      sliding smooth as the devil's tongue.

The true sound is not of a novel told
   in long form, in paragraph,
      broken to imitate a mold.

It speaks, it cries, it screams
   to be read, a melody as
      interpretation unfolds.

The flowery tale it need not contain
   but the rhyme must remain
      if only as a song unfurled.


* My attempt at a quaint and simple ode to John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn. A favorite poem of mine since high school. I wrote a paper on it in undergrad and found it again in graduate school. It likes to visit my mind when changes come to my life.

Read it here: Poetry Foundation, Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Sensual Kitchen

/ Dusty Lynn Baker / Leave a comment 
Squirming among the grains of paradise,
     lost in the mystical feeling
     of a soft blanch, just enough to
     feel the pulpy softness of breast.

Sautéing the flesh in the rarest
     of saffron, colored in red
     and the gold of turmeric, 
     rich in thoughts and desires.

A spiritual sensation, 
     a sensual kitchen, 
     where heat of anise on fire, 
     flambeed with grains of alcohol, 
burning within,
bursting out
     of the depths of her soul.

Warrior’s Soul

/ Dusty Lynn Baker / Leave a comment 
Waking to a dog barking,
   mother calling her name,
      sounds of air whizzing by.

Lost in a world of conflict,
   father gone to his grave,
      younger brother hiding in the crawlspace.

A pang pulls at her stomach,
   dry lips reach for the sky,
      tears as her mother looks her way.

Safety is nothing to a girl
   who is already starving,
      already ill from the war filled waters.

One day she'll leave her home,
   as she stands holding her father's rifle,
      a warrior's soul forced upon her.


~ Written in memory of my Red Cross service in Kosovo, 1999-2000

Daughters of Time

/ Dusty Lynn Baker / Leave a comment 
Stones gathered on chiseled limestone
     counting souls who have gone before me.
Coins on headstones, flags on tall poles,
     but not so tall as the mighty sycamores.

The cool brisk air broken by a warm 
     cup of tea to sip from.
Pouch of lavender takes me back in time
     to wood floors, dirt floors, glass bottle windows.

I look out on the valley, low water
     as the land suffers from drought.
Crying to Mother Earth to bring the rains,
     to color the leaves of autumn.

Sisters gathered in purpose of words,
     infinite love with cosmic relations
     as we, the daughters of time
     bring forth the future of the stars.


Written while sitting on the Blacksmith Cabin's porch swing during an Indiana University, Center for Rural Engagement, session for girls and women of all ages with author and professor Catherine Bowman.

Tattered Thought

/ Dusty Lynn Baker / Leave a comment 
Sinking lower in disguise,
Lost to simple navigation of life,
     unhurried absence
     from des soirées, grandes fêtes.

Excuses bound on escaping canary
Flying from clouds of doubt,
     torn wing, tattered thought
     away from billowing fantasies.

Mind's eye driven to ledge
As butterflies flitter inside,
I call them back,
     away, come back,
The future I must decide.

Quicksand

/ Dusty Lynn Baker / Leave a comment 
My feet are planted on quicksand,
Never to stay too long I’m told,
The changing tides, the roaming winds
Blast me to my knees.

I’ve never reached solid ground, 
Not known of a homestead my own,
The grasping of my arms
Jerks me back to a ledge.

Pulling up, seeking dry land,
I dream of a garden of light,
My children there, their babies too,
As my roots cling to the soil I’ve found.

My dear mother, let me grow,
Let me plant my tree right here,
I need the nourishment found,
I need my own spot on your earth.