Somewhat a response to this poem ‘Suicide Note 1’ at Distant Dreams Poetry
Just Opinion – 1st September 2026
The price is the price.
It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken – 31st August 2026
I polish ghosts into a golden age,
the past appears the way I need.
Where I reside is carved on the page,
walls erected outline my screed.
So many names dissolve into the dust,
a lifetime’s work reduced to yellowed ink.
One path is quietly being discussed,
another burns alone beneath the drink.
Stitched a self from fragments within,
a life becomes the story that remains.
Bus rides through the snow become a hymn,
breathing softly in the smallest pains.
Is artistic dedication noble
or just self-imposed isolation?
The mystery is solved inside the story,
but the mystery itself is an illusion.
I’m not sure what prompted it but the title of Seth’s comic, It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken, has been in my mind recently. Not having read it yet, I investigated the story and themes and came up with this write. Intrigued, I’ve also pushed this book higher up my to-be-read pile, which changes often.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Consider Your Feelings Too
It’s easy to take offence at another’s wrong
Yet you have similar failings too
Forget your anger and what compels them
For what else could they do?
Dumb Luck – 30th August 2026
What a fabulous contradiction I was
At times, disbelieving in wonder and awe
At others, feeling so far down because
I had no idea what I was living for
Gloomy skies could comfort or divide
Why did the good times fade away?
Without understanding what I was inside
Unable to avoid being a perfect cliche
So long ago, I can look back and laugh
Dumb luck has brought me to today
Even when I wasn’t on the right path
I stopped myself from being led astray
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
When You Feel Lazy
What’s fuelling your reluctance?
Spite? Fatigue? Or something more crazy?
Sometimes, we gotta do what’s gotta be done
Even when you’re feeling lazy
Enriching – 29th August 2026
The answers were scattered across the floor
like Scrabble letters, making perfectly formed words;
just waiting to be found by the keen observer.
All it took was for a good look around;
without that, they were just plastic spikes
waiting for stupid feet to learn truths through pain.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Want Nothing = Have Everything
Put to use what you have in your hands
No one can have it all
It’s the wise man who understands
To keep that desire in control
Wishful – 28th August 2026
Given a choice, I would rather have seeded elsewhere—
perhaps in a princess’s garden, where I might glimpse her face
but once a week. Swapping our perfumes, I would die to be
squeezed dry of my oils for her pleasure; but I will accept the
brushing of her fair fingers on my face.
Her groundsman, a man of few words, would tend to me while
his mind was elsewhere. Maybe he would whistle me a tune
to stimulate my stamen.
I could watch the horses leave on long journeys,
kicking up dust into my eyes, and await their triumphant return.
But I’m busy here fighting for the sunshine, tangled and bruised
amongst my neighbours. If I could just enjoy the wind or the soft
April showers, that would fall in July.
The long shadows of the Magnolia are now an unwelcome canopy
at the golden hour, when I would enjoy my best growing,
wishing to stretch with wings.
Written for dVerse Tuesday Poetics
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
The Opulent Stoic
The laws of life let us live well
Luxury is surrounded by misery and stress
Enslavement to it is a witch’s spell
We can still be happy with having less
A-ha! – 27th August 2026
sitting
within the search
waiting for it to click
sifting your soul, wracking your brain
until…..
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Laugh Or Cry?
It’s harder to laugh than lament
Our feelings often make it worse
Misery isn’t worth the rent
Shift that sadness into reverse
The Benefactor – 26th August 2026
In shadows, with coins and a crafted line,
to make a people's grief align
with foreign maps, foreign plans,
to break the chains with borrowed hands.
Suddenly, a protest grown—
the grievance true, but the help a loan,
where interests wish a stolen throne.
Written for dVerse Quadrille #354 – protest
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Seeking Out Shipwrecks
We never suffer the loss when neccesary
To let go of the things we hold dear
A life filled with your philosophy
Is all that we need to keep near
Morning Paralysis – 25th August 2026
Waking up for each morning’s graces
I analyse my thoughts from twenty paces
Before a single movement, I’m off to the races
Paralysed with the fear of my many faces
OCD has me trapped within its embraces
I’m one of the doctor’s strangest cases
Written for the Chimeric Poetry Scavenger Hunt:
Write a Quadrille as a Monorhyme.
This poem is written from the perspective of an old girlfriend of mine who suffered seriously from OCD, so much so that she couldn’t move her body when she woke, as her brain tried to work out the order that she needed to move her muscles in so she could get out of bed.
I’m pretty sure I borrowed the second line from someone but can’t remember who.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Respect The Past But Be Open To The Future
The pioneers are not our masters
But they surely are our guide
They make excellent forecasters
Take the future in your stride
A Life – 24th August 2026
made to be broken
pulled apart and examined
put it together
The most important haiku ever written.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Pillage From All Sources
Philosophy is not a contest
Wisdom is found everywhere
Pick and choose what’s best
For your morning prayer
Joining In – 23rd August 2026
A rainbow requires a rain that stings
against the broken beams of sunlight,
then slowly lifts its colour from the sky
or shatters into mist on the earth.
I watched each shimmering light
from across the valley,
and the highest peaks where
scraggly goats adjust their footing.
Meltwater races down
to the river rushing by,
where some fish brace the current's weight
and others choose to carelessly let go.
As another crossroads comes into view,
I hear the gravel crunching the tune
of both right and wrong.
I join them—flat-footed,
unsure, waiting.
Written for Poets and Storytellers United #241 – change
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
1994ever 