millions of haikus
written since the dawn of man
is there a good one?
Keep writing!
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
No Self-Flagellation Needed
All Manner Of Things – 27th June 2026
The trepidation is acute
I ain’t got no motivation
Not even for a haiku
It’s verging on paralysing
But I must write for you
An ephemeral burst
of Fireblossom’s perfumes
these anxieties are
intrinsic word engines
Experimenting – to that motion
By stirring the pot, poets shirk
responsibility when it’s taboo
Sober rhythms revealing
something of my soul
I can scent intentions
but it’s also little wonder
I felt scared
The art blues of a job left undone,
of lucky fragments lacking sense,
is its own torment
zeroes sums to a dream unrealised
The coyote eats its own kind,
and fox of hell’s hidden rooms
turning creativity, so cunning,
into wildflowers of a beautiful war
After all that digging, in the weeds
are heroes of the noblest contest
The lilies, finest of them all
in this soup of writing,
of punning, all manner of things
shall be well.
This is another old dVerse prompt that I kept in mind and returned to today. The idea is to write a new poem while weaving in fragments of an old poem, which must be kept in their original order. I decided to use my own short poem, ‘No Haiku’, italicised above. While thinking about this idea, I was also reading the latest (at the time) Red Hand Files #365, from which I noted down several nice phrases (in bold above) in Nick Cave’s reply, along with a quote (bold italic) from Julian of Norwich, utilised for the title and final line. I decided to try to work these two narratives together. Clean text below should be easier to read.
The trepidation is acute
I ain’t got no motivation
Not even for a haiku
It’s verging on paralysing
But I must write for you
An ephemeral burst
of Fireblossom’s perfumes
these anxieties are
intrinsic word engines
Experimenting to that motion
By stirring the pot, poets shirk
responsibility when it’s taboo
Sober rhythms revealing
something of my soul
I can scent intentions
but it’s also little wonder
I felt scared
The art blues of a job left undone,
of lucky fragments lacking sense,
is its own torment
zeroes sums to a dream unrealised
The coyote eats its own kind,
and fox of hell’s hidden rooms
turning creativity, so cunning,
into wildflowers of a beautiful war
After all that digging, in the weeds
are heroes of the noblest contest
The lilies of them all
in this soup of writing,
of punning, all manner of things
shall be well.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Adversity Reveals
How did complaining help?
Now you have more things to do
Take the challenge upon yourself
This future is a gift given to you
Are You Alive? – 26th June 2026
A brutal plunge into ice
A pounding at your ribs
Are you still alive?
Excruciatingly difficult words
Resolve the years of tension
Now you’re alive
The terror of the stages
You’ll still sleep tonight
You know you’re alive
Concentrated suffering
Is the strength of Spartans
Tomorrow you’ll be dead
Double up on credit cards
Comfortably stuck in bed?
You’re already dead
Inspired by another newsletter from David Elikwu
A Table Set For One Instead Of Ten – 25th June 2026
The steady hum of overlapping hands,
Hallways thick with the echo of our names.
School bells gathered us like windswept sands,
To kitchen tables of communal claims.
The city that we built, we knocked it down;
Your side of the bed is no longer warm.
Those names are now a room I walk around;
No audience left for whom to perform.
Streetlights shine where I no longer belong,
Just one plate set at a table for ten.
I am the echo that once was a song;
Now silence settles in my inkless pen.
Written for dVerse – juxtaposition. This is a commentary on the contrast between our past and current (or future) selves.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
The Wise Don’t Have ‘Problems’
The wise person understands expectations
Knowing when to keep their mouth shut
We should listen in most situations
When we mostly do anything but….
Observation Affects The Outcome – 24th June 2026
Life is a quantum woman,
known, but unable to be described;
Lived but never solved
and so the mystery has survived.
To mark a line has no meaning
unless there was something before,
but thinking on it wastes time
when living is what it is for.
Looking at it makes it disappear,
like horizons in the Himalayas;
Seek and ye shall not find
such wisdom from the soothsayers.
The temple is not outside;
prayers are shared in the wrong direction.
Breathing in, breathing out,
let go your ego’s protection.
We’re involved in eternity,
our houses will come and go,
and while everyone knows who you are,
you’ll never really know.
Inspired by and paraphrased from Osho’s Life, Love, Laughter.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
The Truly Educated Aren’t Quarrelsome
Education negates the fights
Keeping to one’s own affairs
Don’t worry about wrongs and rights
Arguing what no one cares
Lemongrass – 23rd June 2026
Cooking under the tin roof
the humid rains will pitter-patter,
the chef remains aloof
to the oil’s sizzling splatter;
The house becoming eager;
the wind’s historical waft,
a heritable recipe keeper;
a plate that’s quickly scoffed;
A herb of refined taste,
enhancing by its bright flavour;
no tall stalks to waste,
tightly chopped to savour;
I like it! But what is this?
the dish has been disguised,
a little ginger, a little citrus,
my taste buds smile, surprised.
Written (after the fact) for the GloPoWriMo Day 6 prompt:
write a poem describing the taste of the item in Column A, using the words that appear in that row in Column B and C. For bonus points, give your poem the title of the word that appears in Column A for your row, but don’t use that word in the poem itself.
| Lemongrass | Pitter-Patter | Eager |
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
The Long Way Around
Some days the long way around rewards
But you miss everything close to hand
Everything you were working towards
Was far simpler than you had planned
Mud And Sheepskin – 22nd June 2026
With the first stones of the First Intifada,
I learned the rebuilding of my world
with thumbs in mud, not marble,
sheepskin stretched across olive tree twigs.
Brushes dabbed on UNRWA flour sacks,
ration-stamped ghosts bloom into orchards.
A boy with a door that still closes,
an olive tree outside, the settlers forgot to cut.
Art as resistance, refusing erasure,
imagination with its back to the wall,
signing its name in cracked clay and smoke,
the skies hanging from barbed wire.
Every scene is saying no
every line a road I’m not allowed to walk,
every frame a document, a moment,
steady as a heartbeat in the flour dust.
Inspired by the artists of Palestine, making the most of what they have left available to them.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
The Definition Of Insanity
Carrying on against the grain
Hope is not a strategy
Doing the same thing again and again
The definition of insanity
Russell’s Burden – 21st June 2026
Tonight, the moon is a ghost behind the veil,
but my own spirits force me to set sail,
Youthful bravado will be the death of me;
the moon is behind a veil.
The fog laid low, a dirty sheet,
but speed and danger taste so sweet.
My bones grow cold, I must sleep;
the fog, a choking sheet.
My nineteen years, all lost to the light;
Mom and Dad – it’s icy black tonight;
It will be a misty morning for sure,
now I’m lost to the light.
I’ll wait for you, somewhere just out of sight,
somewhere, just out of sight.
Written for Day 19 of the 2025 GloPoWriMo:
write your own poem that tells a story in the style of a blues song or ballad. One way into this prompt may be to use it to retell a family tragedy or story, or to retell a crime or tragic event that occurred in your hometown.
This poem tells of a school friend who crashed his motorbike one foggy night in a nearby village. Though we weren’t especially close, it was still a shock to me. The title is a play on his real full name.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Take A Walk
The mind will wander with a walk
There one will find a clearer head
Time and space away from the talk
Breathe a little and walk instead
Transmissions – 20th June 2026
Nested in your ears
Rearranging the silent
To listen
Between the heartbeats fluttering
A vibration on the line
Codes sung to the nectar
A single note of noon
Stitching the sagging sky
Until a soft broom
Sweeps the last light
This is written for GloProWriMo 2025 and the prompt:
write your own poem that focuses on birdsong.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Calm Is Contagious
Be the calm, not the liability
Losing your wits will bring you harm
Counter the chaos for all to see
Be no liability – be the calm
I Made It Out Alive – 19th June 2026
You found something in my lithium eyes
The leather belt left more than marks on your neck
As you buried yourself in bourbon and stink
Bonded by our death-wish
You would laugh as I would cry
Your mask was much stronger than mine
Mine as fragile as wet paper tissues
You love with the back of your hand
Waiting for your trophy wife to appear
You blame the powder and I blame myself
Grab your beers and go
I’ll call the ambulance myself
One last hug, I beg
As the apartment door slams shut
I’ll call the ambulance myself
And when you called and cared again
I bowed down to do anything, again
You came – you came and then left
Again, I called every day
Until you found your reason to make me stop
I made it out alive
Leaving behind the forsaken wasteland
That was your life, not mine
I made it out alive
Leaving you behind
This poem was inspired by a piece originally written by Shayne Rich on SubStack
Shared with dVerse OLN #410
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
1994ever 