Are the Nations United? – 23rd January 2025

A petulant contrarian takes his bat and ball
Play by his rules or don’t play at all
You’re welcome to sit at the children’s table
Your membership card is purely a label

Majorities are a democratic dream
Sold the fantasy to the extreme
Somehow claiming the moral high ground
But where only the minority is found

Now as the world turns slowly burning
Eyes open to the virtues returning
Consign the child to go play at home
Where he can wonder why he’s all alone

Poet’s Pledge – 22nd January 2025

Written as reward
Benevolent monarch hands
Meaning to illiterate minions
Clinging onto every word

Posted in advertisement
The philosophical sword
Hangs on a single hair
Virtue is written in sunlight

Submitted to AllPoetry’s ‘An Expression of Yourself’ course – Brevity.
With this assignment, I would like you to use metaphor and simile. Focus on the ordinary but make it something more expansive to where your mind cannot find the outer walls of the images.


As an extra idea, I also put this through the N+7 machine and used (mostly) the results from N+14

The Monogram Handlers

Written as rhythm
Benevolent monogram handlers
Medic to immigrant misanthropes
Clinging onto every works

Posted in affair
The philosophical synagogue
Happenings on a single half-life
Vision is written in superlative

We Don’t Need Another Poem – 20th January 2025

We don’t need another poem
Out of the holidays, out of the seasons
Don’t make the same mistake again
Rolling seas and moonlight are not reasons
To write another one the same
And I wonder when are we ever gonna change
A prompt repeated ’til nothing else remains

We don’t need another poem
We don’t need the same old metaphors
All we want is life beyond
Another simile that simply bores

I know it’s something we can rely on
But there’s got to be better out there
Love and nature, their day is done
Just another castle built in the air
And I wonder when we are ever gonna change
A prompt repeated ’til nothing else remains

We don’t need another poem
We don’t need the same old similes
All we want is life beyond
Another metaphor to simply please

So what do we do with our lives?
We leave only a mark
Will our poem shine like a light
Or end in the dark?
Give it all or nothing

We don’t need another poem
About autumn, Christmas or Halloween
All we want is life beyond
Another set of rhymes already seen

To the tune of We Don’t Need Another Hero. After following a number of poetry prompt blogs for more than 12 months now I found it a little amusing that the same seasonal themes return again.

It’s more an observation than a criticism as I rarely bother to write about seasons specifically, or holidays (especially if they are not relevant to my location). Folks can write about whatever makes them happy. It’s easy to not read something! But I do like to be challenged by the writer to perhaps come at the prompt from a new angle for a change.

26th Sep 2025 – Shared with Poets and Storytellers United – fall

When Incommunicable, Stay This Way – 19th January 2025

Cyanide words in hot Julys
Sticky skin and fireflies
Warm and breezy, pulled outside
Golden hours of calm collide

Sweet and bold youth is claimed
Self-reflections blush ashamed
Come back again once gone astray
Beg the child to stay this way

The war that comes forces change
In adolescence turning strange
The inner child is shutting doors
To light dancing across the floors

To find the love in light tonight
To find the words burning bright
Experiments in consciousness
The honesty earned to confess

To the streets, to the skies
Cyanide words in hot Julys

Inspired and paraphrased by this post at Spinning Visions
19th Feb 2025 – Shared with Moonwashed Weekly Prompt prompted by the word unpretending.

Simples – 16th January 2025

Along the path, a muddy slip
Into the mediocre field
Or to sit under a tree for a bit
Until the bloodied knuckle healed

A bite of the hanging fruits
A nap before pulling on
The still-muddied boots
And trek where travellers belong

Looking for the complicated
Blinded all to common sense
The simple to be contemplated
To ensure the least expense

Inspired by this email from The Stoa Letter
Shared with Moonwashed Weekly Prompt – simplicity

Ascension – 15th January 2025

– Dreams fuelled the fire
– – Sacrifices made to inspire
– – – Hard work satisfies desire
– – – – A ladder to heaven
– – – – – Ascending to the stars
– – – – – – Dreams fuelled the fire
– – – – – No stone remains unturned
– – – – Sacrifices made to inspire
– – – A lesson always learned
– – Hard work satisfies desire
– Reward is duly earned

Shared with dVerse’s Quadrille challenge – lift

A Hold On Power – 14th January 2025

The bow is taut, passion tight
Get a shot off! Get a shot off!
Where will the passion land?
A strategic misdirection

Waiting for sweet release
All possibilities in existence
A strategic misdirection
The essence of a passion tight

Before the shot goes off
A strategic misdirection
Watch your head! Mind your head!
Anticipated release

A strategic misdirection
Whilst the bow is taut
Get a shot off! Watch it fire!
Ready your art for war

Spun out from this quote “When the bow is taut it hasn’t been shot yet but the power is there and you can shoot the bow in many different directions, that is the essence of strategy.” which I probably read at The Stoa newsletter.