Save your scratch in a small vase Paris, they say, is better in pairs Arcs of triumph encircled by cars Scare the children, and no one cares
State your case to the makers of taste The eyes on you and me, they see Heats the spring into summer’s haste Ate alfresco with a steeping tea
Cider salted by the tears we cried Peach perfume bought on the cheap Tired of all the cobbled streets tried Peek at all these secrets to keep
Rat rummaged garbage made art Night is made of stuff and thing Earth must reveal its true heart Sign the road along where angels sing
Atoms burn bridges over the moats Stone the crows, we’re taking notes
Written for prompt #7 at the Chimeric Poetry Scavenger Hunt: An (extended) shadow sonnet, where the shadow words are anagrammatical (because, why make it easy?)! This took a long time, even with help from AI to find the anagrams that may also rhyme. This is also why it is extended, as I couldn’t figure out what to trim after all that effort. Did my ideas translate well enough through all the restrictions?
Shared with W3 prompt #179: Write 5 separate Hay(na)ku poems, each about a different aspect of love, including but not limited to: Romantic love, familial love, self-love, unrequited love, enduring/timeless love. Each poem should stand alone but together create a layered meditation on love.
After reading through others’ entries for this prompt, I was inspired to give it another try, particularly after learning more about the Greek Gods of love. Above is the new entry, below the original (titled Curriculum).
Cheekily shared with dVerse – Tuesday Poetics. Always considering a different angle on a prompt, my mind took me to a place that I’ve only heard about (honest, guv!), guided by the Cambridge Dictionary entry for ‘paddle’, which gave me ‘We provide a variety of toys, such as floggers, paddles, cuffs, and ropes.’ I didn’t really get a ‘song’ into the poem but the sounds are clear and obvious.
We provide a variety of toys, for adventurous girls and boys;
Whack! Whack!
A sharp crack lands across a welcoming back.
With floggers and paddles, over the sub the mistress straddles;
Zzip! Zzip!
A consenting courtship at the whims of her loving whip.
A kink of ropes, clips and cuffs, or a silken bondage tied with trust;
Squeal! Squeal!
The trussed and bound reveal the boundaries of this fetishistic deal.
Blindfolded and restrained, the traditional roles clearly reframed;
Swish! Swish!
A safe word so devilish, “No sex, please, we’re English!”
Make a reckless deal with rivals and so pierce the heavy crown. A twirl of the ragged moustache and a murky drink to wash down.
A puzzling weave, the heavy trunk; A lesson from the firefly sweep. An ornate starfish? A rowdy deer? The sting of an onion when asleep.
An Arctic award for this inferno, relishing the blast button blunder. Vacant eyes, a skeletal flensing, shredded skin all rent asunder.
Inspired by the gentle nudge of Sunra Rainz and her post about participating in this year’s Inktober challenge, with the prompt list below. Not having the inclination to paint with a brush, here is a painting with words, that somehow ended up being about playing video games, which was not in my mind when I started!
A tanka, shared with Reena’s Xploration #400 – inspired by the attached picture from The Marginalian’s An Almanac of Birds. These elusive birds are known as ‘jewels of the swamp’ and their song is a ‘sweet-sweet-sweet’ sound. Their name is derived from their colour, an almost fluorescent golden-yellow, like the robes of a papal prothonotary (a high-ranking cleric in the Catholic Church. I learned all this today, too.
trusting no fixed star but the compass in my chest to chart my own path
plastic handles bite my palms head spins, as heartbeat ba-bumps
welcome days in – ever winding the humdrum must be done wound down – until day’s out
at my cluttered desk I stitch poems line by line lest gray cells ooze out
the words remain concrete a scripture my own
fountain pen twirling needle of unwritten words seeking sacred course
A two-person rengay, written with David at The Skeptic’s Kaddish. David’s lines are italicised. I think this is the first time I have written a poem with someone else and it was an interesting exercise. I started off with the first stanza and deliberately left out any motivations about the words to see where David went with it. Each time after that, though, we did explain our reasoning for the words. I think the final result became quite a balanced poem and a balanced reflection on life too. I’ll let you make your own mind up on that though. 17th Jan 2026 – shared with Poets and Storytellers United #210 – collaboration
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