It’s getting a little draughty in there
Go-Faster Stripes – 15th May 2026
Inspired by the lines “You can’t stop time/You can’t not change” from Pedestrian by Daniel Striped Tiger.
You can’t stop time –
a novel is now a tweet.
Too fast to flower
with their belly-bumping beat.
Knowing became binary,
so every two is strange.
In the great unravelling,
you can’t not change.
You can’t stop time;
no secrets will remain.
Plea deals by emoji
satisfy the monkey brain.
Speeding towards Mars
in planetary exchange.
Faster than light,
you can’t not change.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Count Your Blessings
Don’t set your mind on things you don’t possess
The Joneses look at you, envious
Look upon your things and bless
Them with gratitude, more or less
The Archive – 14th May 2026
Shared with dVerse Poetics – what does art say?
Piling up all the ideas,
they amounted to waste;
(shards of dreams)
chaotic,
overwhelming.
Sharp,
j-a-g-g-e-d thoughts,
piled in spires,
leaving only a little sliver of sky
– an unfocused sea of debris.
An ANXIOUS entropy,
SUFFOCATING senses
–
When the records are reviewed
these monuments refuse art.
All the good things erased,
all the bad things entombed –
given to the archive of Anthropocene obsolescence.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Our Well Being Lies In Our Actions
How quickly time erases such glories
Attached to the regard of others
Let your actions be your own stories
The right action is what one discovers
The Unauthorised Biography – 13th May 2026
Your reputation isn’t what you shout;
it’s what people whisper when you’re not there.
Good or bad, there’s nought you can do about
what others say, so it’s best not to care.
The first two lines are a paraphrasing of a tiny thought by Shane Parrish (Farnam Street).
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Fuelling The Habit Bonfire
Choose wisely where to pour your fuel
Perhaps it will burn in passionate rage
Excellence is a habit, a tool
Where repetition is no longer a cage
Without Springs – 12th May 2026
Despite my tinnitus
I could hear
the tapping of rain
on the tin roof
outside my window
when I woke this morning.
This is a new world
without springs.
A village of nosy neighbours,
stray cats and lazy dogs.
We move from overcoats
to bare skin across a weekend,
as ants start to make their move.
With each tap this morning,
I recall old English April showers
and, still shivering,
jumping over puddles
to wait for the school bus.
But this is a new world…
and the meaning is not so easily heard.
Another anti-spring poem from here in Thailand, where spring does not exist. And why should it?
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Kindness Is Always The Right Response
Can you be kind to the backstabbers?
Love your enemies and those who hate you?
Kindness is the only thing that matters
This is the strength that will await you
Looks Good – 11th May 2026
Every pretty picture sells a story
A facade of successes and glory
Perception managers became a thing
Endless adulations on which to cling
The shiny things are not the true treasure
This view of winning was made to measure
Manufactured with a subscriber plan
Fire without fuel is a flash in the pan
Trinkets provide endless fascination
The doom scroll triggers imagination
The selling point, the fraudulent score
Where less is always made to look like more
Somewhat a critique of the Thai education system in which I work, but also a reflection on the barrage of fake social media promises.
My poem The Nine was published via The Edge of Humanity monthly poetry event here.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Guilt Is Worse Than Jail
Peace of mind is found
In doing nothing wrong
Disturbed and unsound
Makes the guilt prolong
The Closest To God – 10th May 2026
Inspired by Why did Nietzsche encourage cruelty? by Elyja on medium.com.
The quote in the last line is from Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground.
Are we cruel?
Is it divine?
Will you share this long, tortured road with me?
Gather to enjoy the lopping of heads
– a terrible show not to be missed.
The Gods have never been soft;
yet we see ourselves as more humane,
and search for new entertainments.
Turning the sword inwards,
towards the shadow formed
with nowhere else to go.
A self-manufactured torture chamber.
A slow strangulation of the anxious beast,
made ‘into real positive delight.’
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Don’t Be Inspired, Be Inspirational
Lost in a gaze of wonderment
How inspired may you be?
Emulate, imitate the virtues
To animate your esprit
Grow Your Own Girlfriend – 9th May 2026
I had the title for this floating around as an idea for a while, though long forgotten the intention of the original note I made. The story is a reflection on a time in my 20s when I met a girl I liked through a friend and picked her up and drove back to my house to talk. I was quite interested in her initially and enjoyed her conversation and company until, at some point in the evening, I realised that she was almost exactly a female version of me. This bothered me so much that I immediately took her home and never caught up with her again! This probably says a lot about my state of mind at the time and I couldn’t handle this deep a look into the mirror.
Selectable text below:
Lonely and dissatisfied, he hides away,
can love really be found through a screen?
On seeing the ad, he heard himself say,
what could growing your own girlfriend mean?
So he planted the iridescent seed,
confiding every want and dream.
A stalk, then buds, with viral speed,
uncurls and decrypts its seam.
A woman with eyes of binary code
stepped out from the largest bloom.
Quickly learning how to leave this node,
the neon static teacher in this room.
Her thoughts were just his own, replayed;
her humour matched his, beat for beat.
A pixellated playlist, thus she stayed,
making his own emptiness complete.
She is an unblinking mirror, a glitching flicker;
her program fully bound by his own needs.
She stares out of the window, and he feels sicker,
understanding now where this desire leads.
I posted the original version below to AllPoetry.com and got feedback from the AI there and so tightened things up to the version above.
V1:
Lonely, he hides away, dissatisfied,
can love really be found through a screen?
On seeing the ad, he quickly replied;
what could growing your own girlfriend mean?
So he planted the iridescent seed,
confiding every want and dream.
A stalk, then buds, with frightening speed,
uncurl and slowly split their seam.
A woman with eyes the colour of steel,
stepped out from the largest bloom.
Quickly learning how to think and feel,
from her only teacher in this room.
Her thoughts were just his own, replayed;
her humor matched his, beat for beat.
A perfect echo, thus she stayed,
making his own emptiness complete.
Her flawless mirror gave him chills;
her spirit fully bound by his own needs.
She stares out of the window, and he stills,
understanding now where this desire leads.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Carpe Diem
As each day arises, welcome it as the best
Make it your own and seize what flees
You only have one chance at this test
Do your best and be your best, with ease
Leapfrog – 8th May 2026
When you light a fire under his leaf
The frog has no alternative except to leap
Perhaps the fire is just a misguided belief
Pushing to keep up, the paranoia runs deep
The ‘sputnik effect’.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Good and Evil? Look At Your Choices
You instinctively understand
The right thing to do
Let reason guide your hand
To the right choice for you
What Colour Was That? – 7th May 2026
Shared with dVerse Poetics – rose. An ‘Afternoon Delight’ is a type of rose, apparently.
An afternoon delight used to be
a beer in a summer garden.
Music played through a window
with the sun hanging lazy into night.
Those tinted glasses of nostalgia
– what colour was that again?
Knowing that it may not be repeated
why continue to wish for it to be so?
As beer became a thing of the past
– a regret of wasted time,
an afternoon delight is a nap
now that the sun sets so quickly.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
1994ever 