Are you ready to face the day?
Inspired by a David Elikwu newsletter.
Title Fight – 21st October 2026
Ding! Ding! Ding!
Stuck – 20th October 2026
Anxious at the infinite
I don’t want this freedom at all
Give me a set of blinkers
To hide my eyes from the sprawl
Confused at the crossroads
Each horizon out of vision
Clutching a map with no borders
Contemplating each decision
Paralysed by all the choices
Someone, please, close the prison door
Take away possibility
I don’t want it anymore
The paradox of freedom.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Marks Of A Good Life
If lives provide the answer to meaning
There is no question other than being good
Self-control, courage, freedom and justice
Are the trees to grow in your wood
Patty – 19th October 2026
A little rain, a little mud
This is what it’s all about
She’s the little one who would
Keep on going without doubt
Inspired/paraphrased from this Peanuts strip (which I now want to read more of, thanks to this article)
Coincidentally, last night, while trying to get back to sleep after Tigger continually waking me to eat, my nostalgic mind (far too nostalgic recently) replayed a lot of teenage memories and about 95% of them occurred outdoors and 0% of them featured rain. Has my memory made England more miserable than it actually was?
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Good Habits Drive Out Bad Habits
With a bad habit revealed
Counteract with commitment
Don’t keep the good concealed
Let it be your equipment
Ants – 18th October 2026
The newest members of the colony
stretch fresh legs from soft white larvae,
the infant.
All labour for the greater good,
standing guard around the brood and queen,
the participant.
One emerges bent, antennae lost,
still striving to belong within the swarm,
the mutant.
Wisdom threads through every caste,
from weavers to the tireless leaf-cutters,
the consultant.
Before the magistrates’ mandibles
stands a trembling plea for mercy,
the defendant.
Declared unfit, cast from the nest,
it wanders through the undergrowth—
the immigrant.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Frenemies
Nothing worse than a wolf befriending sheep
But remember that you’ve been the wolf too
When the bad friend was worthwhile to keep
That’s when the frenemy became you
Keepsakes – 17th October 2027
1.
A kangaroo skipped in
while blustering storms
blew through cobwebbed windows
shuddering bed frames
jolting my dreams to life—
losing a day somewhere over the ocean
2.
A Golden Kaiser-i-Hind flew down
from the highest bough
and fell into my warm hands
a little too soon
a smooth and shiny candy
eager to be eaten
3.
A quiet smiling kokeshi
on the bookshelf
anime eyes wondering
a green tea maid
a soy sauce sorceress
keeping secret doubts
4.
A spicy Sriracha soi dog
wanders a tropical island night
shadow dancing in firelight
before sunrise reveals
floods of frangipani
and a chain of jasmine blossoms
5.
All of all of you
broke off a piece
that you keep
as I keep mine
like a trinket
like a teacher
Shared with dVerse MTB: Cadralor
5 numbered stanzas
choose 3-10 lines per stanza (keeping the stanza length throughout)
each stanza stands alone as an imagist poem (just the obliquest of connections)
5th stanza pulls the 4 unrelated stanzas together into a poem of love, of yearning
rhymes and syllabic meter are NOT wanted
Golden Kaiser-i-Hind is China’s national butterfly
A kokeshi is a traditional Japanese doll
A soi dog is a stray Thai dog (soi means lane)
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
The Benefit Of Kindness
Nature bids us to do well by all
Every moment is an opportunity
In return expect nothing at all
The kindness is all that needs to be
Total Confidence, Maybe – 16th October 2026
fools and fanatics
always certain of themselves
the wise – full of doubts
Paraphrased from Existential Comics #641
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Spread The Word
Once your habits were a hindrance
Until philosophy’s principles came along
Your help can make the difference
Your guidance can make others strong
Blaskó – 15th October 2026
the tick
tick
clicking
creaking
on the stairs
...
three incessant brides
seductive
and cold
count steps
into a darkened cellar
strewn with time's dead flowers
and déjà vu
...
tick
tick
click
Shared with dVerse Poetics, taking Bauhaus’ Bela Lugosi’s Dead as inspiration and borrowing the line ‘strewn with time’s dead flowers’. Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó was Bela Lugosi’s full name.
Prompt: Write from inside an abandoned mansion after midnight. There is no obvious ghost—yet every room suggests someone has only just left.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Give People The Benefit Of The Doubt
Everything turns on your assumptions
Are you generous and forgiving
Or with malice and presumptions?
Which makes for calmer living?
Hedgehogs – 14th October 2026
Hedgehogs edge through needled air,
prickled backs in winter’s shiver,
wanting heat yet fearing heartache,
drawing near but unable to deliver.
Humans do the same in cities,
hands half-reached, then pockets-deep,
trading jokes for silent distance,
fearing wounds that love can keep.
We rehearse our careful manner,
measured hugs and a fenced-up heart,
confined to barbs in our tidy circles,
wisdom learned – to stay apart.
I learn to live on my inner warmth,
as some nights, beside smaller fires,
I find I’m not so lost or lonely
with everything a hedgehog desires.
Inspired by the Hedgehog’s Dilemma.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem
Don’t Get Mad. Help
Without drama or an unseemly show
It’s only right to let another know
Perhaps there is a better way
So everyone may calmly stay
The City At Night – 13th October 2026
From the widespread blackouts
to the districts' neon-bright,
a low voltage of anxiety
crackles through the night.
—I am this city.
In the pulse of stalled traffic,
through the sirens' angry weave,
under lonely concrete bridges
I sometimes sit and grieve.
Then midnight sends her repair crews
to patch the potholes deep
all down my memory lane,
while subconscious consoles sleep.
Applause trembles in my ribs,
a protest locks my jaw
this fractured municipality
is what I'm rooting for.
What this city dares to admit;
the details of its trauma;
the bus route takes a detour
as service restored, much warmer.
Inspired after reading Maia’s Diaries
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Revenge Is A Dish Best Not Served
Vengeance does not lead oneself to healing
It just keeps the wound freshly bleeding
While hitting back may seem appealing
Set the example you’d like to see succeeding
True Monday – 12th October 2026
hungry cats / caffeine kicks / PM2.5 222 – gas masking
Happy Songkran / sweat and ice /nostalgic poetry (must be true!)
A patience test / crying child / wet and wild
Quiet time, dry time / drunken brother / hungry cats
Inspired by this SubStack post at Tokyo Notebook, where two people would communicate daily or weekly or whenever but using this format and just using small true statements about what has happened in their lives. I thought that it was a cute idea.
This True Monday was 13th April 2026
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
