“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” – Andre Gide
Awed by eternal inflation
brane strings me along
In infinite miniature
a brain fractures in fractals.
Where am I going?
Where have I been?
Nice to meet you, Mae—
'Is that a universe in your pocket
or are you just pleased to see me?'
Shared with dVerse Quadrille #257: A Pocket in Your Poems, using The Meta-Zone from the comic book Shade The Changing Man and some words and phrases taken from string theory, pointing towards the idea of a pocket universe.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Man is sick but he can’t rest
the dog sleeps all day, dreaming of running
Faith is never pure and rarely true
it takes a degree of intellect to behave that stupidly.
A family measures time in dogs and cats
but my stomach and bladder tell me the time
We of the low-style, vulgar horde:
can you imagine the boredom of being a god?
Life has never been so good
and I’ve never felt so bad
I am full of self-inflicted knowledge
I’m nothing, if not a contradictory man
Every translation begins and ends in failure
—ravishing portraits of otherwise
Walking around with the weight of his potential
The poet acts as a guide
Written for the dVerse prompt to break form with couplets, this piece let me use random lines I’d noted down over time. The first and penultimate lines link to their origin. The ‘vulgar-horde’ line is taken from Dante’s Inferno. The ‘translation’ line was definitely appropriated from somewhere now forgotten and the ‘ravishing portraits’ line is by Maria Popova.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
As the language of the night settles in,
with a candle raised to the sky.
The way ahead is slippery and sodden
—a vanishing point, a future sigh.
A gloved hand held, we wend our way
to the rolling river, quiet and moody.
The conspiring trees shake their bones
at your subtle ceramic beauty.
Your trusting eyes make no plea
as you submerge under the darkened depths.
Your silken arms are the last I see,
the last twinkling that the moon protects.
I walk with you, across the many bridges
that lead us out to the troubled seas.
I’ll wait for you on the silent shore,
framed in judgement by those ageless trees.
Written for dVerse Poetics and inspired by the paintings of John Atkinson Grimshaw, whom I’d never heard of before, but can see very clearly an England that I feel very familiar with. While the use of light in the paintings is somewhat seductive, I couldn’t help but let the darkness in with a story of forbidden love ending in quiet tragedy.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Leaving dusty footprints on Texan soil,
a drifting unemployed taxi driver.
Stumbling through nights of doubt,
towards seedy lighthouses that shone brightest.
He scratched her name on napkins, in margins,
on the fogged glass of Greyhounds—
rehearsing a love that would never be more
than a monologue for his mirrors.
Believing the act would be a sentence,
six shots, one ricocheted love letter,
so that on his arrival,
history might remember him
as something other than a ghost.
Shared with dVerse Poetics: Pilgrimage and reflecting on the story of John Hinckley Jr.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Shared with dVerse MTB: Five Leavings From Home and inspired by my own movement of home around the world.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
All the lines here have been taken from An Existential Guide to: Making Friends (with some minor editing). Shared with dVerse: descort
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
This stone is a memory
and memories are not truth.
I carry these stones in a box,
dripping nostalgia all over my shoes.*
The box fills faster than I can make room,
old rocks settle down below.
Some get stuck between my toes,
as I limp toward another show.
It's already Tuesday again.
I've got a pile of Tuesdays stashed away,
wearing themselves down to sand,
rattling the box with every shake.
Running my finger along the edges
for the last time—I'll know,
I'll divine them across the floor
and see what remains.
Written for dVerse Poetics – stone
* – appropriated from Makenna Karas
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Given a choice, I would rather have seeded elsewhere—
perhaps in a princess’s garden, where I might glimpse her face
but once a week. Swapping our perfumes, I would die to be
squeezed dry of my oils for her pleasure; but I will accept the
brushing of her fair fingers on my face.
Her groundsman, a man of few words, would tend to me while
his mind was elsewhere. Maybe he would whistle me a tune
to stimulate my stamen.
I could watch the horses leave on long journeys,
kicking up dust into my eyes, and await their triumphant return.
But I’m busy here fighting for the sunshine, tangled and bruised
amongst my neighbours. If I could just enjoy the wind or the soft
April showers, that would fall in July.
The long shadows of the Magnolia are now an unwelcome canopy
at the golden hour, when I would enjoy my best growing,
wishing to stretch with wings.
Written for dVerse Tuesday Poetics
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
In shadows, with coins and a crafted line,
to make a people's grief align
with foreign maps, foreign plans,
to break the chains with borrowed hands.
Suddenly, a protest grown—
the grievance true, but the help a loan,
where interests wish a stolen throne.
Written for dVerse Quadrille #354 – protest
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
I'm not so sure how to begin
but needing to find my place in
poetdom!
Started writing—the muse's call
always knowing I am the small
poetling!
Each day I scratched my thoughts on air
until my clumsy hand found there—
poethood!
Words that would make my mother cry
a joke that lights the evening—my
poetry!
Whatever the shapes or sounds or themes
I'm making worlds inside my dreams—
poetise!
Written for dVerse MTB: Compounding the Stem
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
