Rotten Standards – 22nd April 2025

Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – Earth Day. Somewhat inspired by this article by Brendon Holder

A field of wilted flowers
renders a rotten perfume;
motionless too many hours,
a long forgotten bloom.

Sucked dry of all excitement,
each moment wanting pleasures;
balance out of alignment
in search of ugly treasures.

The smartest generations
dumbed down by what they have got;
With lowered expectations
we just let our flowers rot.

Without Success – 21st April 2025

let’s just play,
dabble about
all the day.

it’s just fun,
a little learn,
a slow burn.

in training,
without success
or explaining.

new pursuits,
a little try
before I die.

Want to hear my poem put to music? LISTEN HERE and please tell me what you think? Is it just fun, does it add anything?
I don’t know what to think yet!?

If the AI song above isn’t to your taste, what about this reading? Please let me know your opinion! 🙏

Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – micropoetry, based on a section of ‘Beginners: The Joy and Transformative Power of Lifelong Learning’ by Tom Vanderbilt and quoting Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi


Charlie Zero The Poet Music picks & Reviews #18 and my quick thoughts:

Ash Koosha – fine enough for interesting electronica but not my jam.

Colin Stetson – sensing a theme here… 😄

Conan – Oh, guitars! Woohoo! But…this style too dull and repetitive for me. I mean, I have some music like this already and I can just listen to that. There’s nothing here that says Conan is in anyway superior. I’m sure this would have more impact live but I’m also envisaging that there’s not much entertainment going on onstage…

Okilly Dokilly – Fun ideas here (that I probably wouldn’t have picked up on them without reading the lyrics) and there are heavy guitars but it’s still not scratching my itch. Or am I just in a bad mood?

U – this has some ideas going on (see Ask Koosha above)

Despite none of this being of interest I’m glad to have been presented with them here and taken the chance to listen to some new music. That’s what it’s about.

Fragments From Cahiers – 20th April 2025

Can our futures be forgotten?
It seems impossible for us to breathe,
Our corpses are covered in jewels
from strands of daylight that we weave

Ideas of satisfaction and dread
Time is eating its own tail,
Involuntary memories of the future;
Pre-emptive deja-vus assail

Art takes our breath away
to trick the universe with meaning
Painting pictures of our words
absurd enterprise, intervening

Every path becomes a detour,
not trusting even the simplest thoughts;
Flattered by the frivolous
from fragments of a few reports

No solitude is enough for us
– We cannot be hidden from God
Death found us as children
and unwilling to spare the rod

Inspired by what I could read in this article by Philip Traylen where he translates Cioran.
Shared with dVerse – magical realism
11th Dec 2025 – Shared with What’s Going On – lonely

Feedback wanted on this SUNO AI version – is it any good, does it make the words more interesting or take away from them?

The Time March – 19th April 2025

Gravity really gets me down
Like a stone sinking in water
Waving goodbye, about to drown
As a lamb led to the slaughter

Run around, hurry up to wait
In the valley of my despair
The friendly fans of time frustrate
Words carved in flesh, my pain to bear

So to the end, I march toward
To the fate that awaits us all
It’s such a difficult reward
To be here for my curtain call

Submitted for an AllPoetry assignment on syllabic poetry.
23rd Apr 2025 – Shared with dVerse prompt – fate

Laugh The World Away – 18th April 2025

Inspired by all the adult men who never learned to stop being spoiled children and end up in despair when their facilitators (often parents – dads who went through the same process) are no longer there for them.
Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – free verse
Title borrowed from Mission of Burma

Bedtime stories, parables of life
on the shelves, still dusty;
rows of cans, of unopened wisdom;
the teachings, the learnings, the Buddhas
– where the father remains…

Left in the hands of the monkish
– scholars, not teachers;
words like paper airplanes
flying overhead, tumbling down
to joyous boyish cries…

All the toys lay broken
– it feels as if the tears will never dry;
in search of the comforts of the womb –
gift givers keep giving gifts
until the boy learns when to cry…

Soon, the world is full of giants,
wandering, aimless and distraught;
– fear distilled into crystal glasses;
a fisheye lens to view a world
that owes nothing…

All the pleasures dull the pain
until the pain becomes the pleasure;
The wisdom trail long disappeared,
black eyes follow from the dark
snapping at heels with impish grins…

Chasing the dopamine dragons,
their fires pierce the thickened skin
twisting deep into the calcified heart
The face savers are dead –
left alone to laugh…
alone…

Ninth Innings – 17th April 2025

In youth, as playful as expected
it was a pleasure to see you run,
panting for breath until collected;
the joys of a life just begun.

In the early years, you would settle
to be as we all had visualised;
then, one day, you suffered bad fettle
and your health would then be compromised.

Through eight lives, where you almost perished
to the ills of kidney and liver,
our love never wavered, we cherished
every moment as the caregiver.

Now here we are in the ninth innings,
to see you this way now brings us pain,
but the memory of your beginnings
from a lifetime ago will remain.

Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – ode


Charlie Zero The Poet Music picks & Reviews #17 and my quick thoughts:

PoiL – Long familiar with this awesome band. The video for Fionosphere is mesmerising: https://youtu.be/c6tbJDm40Pc?si=30WWUNu7hgZJX0Xk

I seem to end up watching it every few months. In fact, I’m going to watch it again now.

Zu – Zu were on my record label’s very first release so I’m familiar with them too: https://tenzenmen.bandcamp.com/album/eccentrics-vol-1
This is a good reminder for me to go check out some of their more recent stuff though.

Prairie WWWW – I came across this band about five years ago and some of the band members names are familiar to me though I’m not sure why. I never listened in depth before but it’s obvious that this style is right up my street!

Fulu Miziki – vaguely familiar with this band too, I think from stumbling across videos of theirs. Listening now brings back strong vibes of listening to John Peel late at night, waiting to hear the one or two punk tunes he might play and being subjected to what seemed like hours of the Bhundhu Boys (which, ironically, I find quite enjoyable now)

Sonora Tropical – the brief snippet here also brought back John Peel vibes and this one not enough for me to investigate further – these hips are too old to shake these days.

Great selections this time, Charlie.

The Unwinding Of The Meaning – 16th April 2025

They call me the changing
between the dark and light;
or the rearranging
from compressed or stretched tight.

And from the mountain ground
you may see me arise;
or suddenly I’m found
to give you a surprise.

Ideas are coming forth
with their release to bring,
from the south to the north
indeed, I am (the) spring.

Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – the prompt word is spring and so I investigated as many meanings as I could.

The Ink, The Blood – 14th April 2025

Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – micropoetry (not very micro but it is one of the forms included) with a few links back to some borrowed or paraphrased lines of inspiration including one* that I forgot to take note of.

ink, blood; blood-ink spills,
chiselled in stone, etched in flesh,
carved on bloodied bones;
the words of God in your hands
to be rewritten again.

shaken foundations;
in the cracks, a seed takes root
until flowers bloom;
you must destroy to create
a space to keep all your words.

then, in audience
they become your cross to bear;
these words are your sword
to cut through stone, to lay bare,
making sense of destruction.

in theatres of hate,
coliseums collapsing
at the empire’s feet;
when the wind whispers its threats*
fanning the flames of defeat.

libraries burning,
the word soon becomes the deed;
the chants of dwellers,
dismiss not, their dialect;

gather our friends, make a storm.

ink, blood; blood-ink spills,
in the cracks, a seed takes root
these words are your sword
when the wind whispers its threats
gather our friends, make a storm.