The Better Man – 4th June 2026

Something old

Something new

Something borrowed

Something blue

A sixpence in her shoe

Our friendship before the loan

Your silence after

My twenty dollars

The colour of your absence

Was worth it

Shared with dVerse Poetics. The ‘something borrowed’ line reminded me of the thought, ‘If you lend someone twenty dollars and never see them again, then it was probably worth it.’ I’ve tried to ‘marry’ the two ideas together here.


Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

This Is What We’re Here For

No one said life was easy – it’s true
No one said that it would be fair
It’s been done before – you can do it too
It’s tradition, and you’re the heir

The In And Out – 30th May 2026

breathing 

is really more important than the other in-and-outs,

and it’s never consciously thought about
until the final one, in that stark white hospital



room 

where family sits together, in quiet grief.

the empty shell cleaned, now unfurnished of blood,

getting smaller and smaller and that



is 

the way we all go after being, our undoing.

all the stories that made us us, told you what we were,

all connected by these little words



only 

to be forgotten, not amounted to much, there

may be others but just a few who scratch

their name somewhere, to be seen to break through,



born 

under the lights, to brightly shine, made all

fresh and new, furnished again with blood.

a tiny temple, a clean empty shell



with 

first breaths made together, familiar families

sit again in familiar rooms, in familiar places.

going home with more to include, in this



space

where new blossoms bloom, grass grows,

streets lights wander up to the mountain skies

where new stories are born in the twinkle of an eye.

Shared with dVerse MTB: taking a fine line down where I have reused the line ‘breathing room is only born with space’ from my own poem from a couple of days ago, ‘On The Usefulness Of Emptiness’. This line is then used as a word acrostic and each stanza defines (somewhat, in my case) the meaning of the word. The prompt and my write was inspired by Laura Bloomsbury’s poem ‘An unbundling’.

I started writing this thinking about my mother passing away on the other side of the world from me. My cousin was there holding her hand as she took her last struggling breath after a couple of years of suffering with COPD. This then unconsciously took a turn towards the circle of life.


Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Working Hard Or Hardly Working?

Where is all the busyness taking you?
Is it really accomplishing very much?
You read and write, and work all night
Just to remain in place, as such

Let Them – 28th May 2026

Let them find the puddles
you pointed out —
what you call falling,
they call jumping.

Let them fly
to figure out fortunes.

Let them forget my name
and find their own.

Let me still be here
but let me let them go.

Shared with dVerse Poetics – Let them


Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

The First Two Things Before Acting

In a short time, you’ll be nobody and nowhere
What’s the point in getting into a tizzy?
The task at hand, considered with care
Remember your purpose before getting busy

The Promenade – 21st May 2026

The church’s pale pink spire points to the promenade-
an outstretched hand as a tether,
anchoring her flight to the earth’s quiet gravity,
binding the sky to the soil.

Half-forgotten prayers billow crushed amethyst,
flowing against the wind’s invisible current.
His smile outshines the sun’s shy rays.

Slumbering mosaic fields and houses stacked
like dominoes, waiting for the earth to topple toward
a dark anchor in a world of gentle hues.

A blue-leaved tree-dream sentinel,
drinking the sky,
red cloth weeping its flowers into the grass,
a ghost of faith,
rising from the green hills like a…

…like a spilt bouquet of memories, full of a soft joy.

Shared with dVerse – Chagall picture prompt


Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

What Kind Of Boxer Are You?

What advantage from abandoning your pursuit
Of wisdom when this is why you trained?
Skin calloused by suffering bears the fruit
Of all the knowledge you’ve obtained

Ship To Shore – 20th May 2026

circle of truth
Blockade on blockade-
time to sell those stocks.
Unplug the power grid,
set for financial shocks.

Peace is a boondoggle
for the dogs of war.
The circle always completes
from ship to shore.

Business means bucks,
made at any cost
until...
all ledgered lost.

Shared with dVerse Quadrille #248 – dog and inspired after looking up the meaning of boondoggle and having seen the attached image this morning.


Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Quality Over Quantity

At the end there are no prizes
For having read every word ever printed
One good book, full of surprises
Reveals more than all that’s imprinted

The Archive – 14th May 2026

Shared with dVerse Poetics – what does art say?

Piling up all the ideas,
they amounted to waste;

(shards of dreams)
chaotic,

overwhelming.

Sharp,
j-a-g-g-e-d thoughts,

piled in spires,

leaving only a little sliver of sky
– an unfocused sea of debris.

An ANXIOUS entropy,
SUFFOCATING senses

When the records are reviewed
these monuments refuse art.

All the good things erased,
all the bad things entombed –

given to the archive of Anthropocene obsolescence.


Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Our Well Being Lies In Our Actions

How quickly time erases such glories
Attached to the regard of others
Let your actions be your own stories
The right action is what one discovers

What Colour Was That? – 7th May 2026

Shared with dVerse Poetics – rose. An ‘Afternoon Delight’ is a type of rose, apparently.

An afternoon delight used to be
a beer in a summer garden.
Music played through a window
with the sun hanging lazy into night.

Those tinted glasses of nostalgia
– what colour was that again?
Knowing that it may not be repeated
why continue to wish for it to be so?

As beer became a thing of the past
– a regret of wasted time,
an afternoon delight is a nap
now that the sun sets so quickly.


Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

How To Have A Good Day

I’ll give you a guarantee
If you want to have a good day
Do good things for free
And you’ll always feel this way

Flowerage – 6th May 2026

Covered in its perfume
Splits along the blush
Tender age in bloom*
Blues buried the crush
Seeds outgrew the rind
Bitter harvests follow pursuit
Tasted its sweetness blind
Bruises on the fruit*
Core outlasts the bite
An acerbic birthday suit
Succumbed to the blight

Written for dVerse Quadrille – bloom. Based on two lines from Nirvana’s In Bloom*. ‘Flowerage’ in honour of the Descendents.


Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

Righteousness Is Beautiful

There are many tricks to showcase beauty
But it’s a deception in which to trust
Choose and even keel, a commitment to duty
Even-tempered, self-controlled, and just

The Message Mosaic – 5th May 2026

chaos we’ve embraced
ignoring all predictions
they saw it coming!

prepared, they had already dug their holes
it turns out we’re the bad guys
but that we’ve always known

propaganda will not win this war, and our winter is coming soon

no one notices
the autumnal leaves falling
with small silent bombs

hostages
held
in helicopters 


a message must be
sent, so they
shoot the white girl first

Written for the Chimeric Poetry Scavenger Hunt – a Mosaic Haiku:
the 1st stanza is a Zappai or Senryu, 5-7-5
the 2nd is a Kimo, 10-7-6
the 3rd an American Sentence, 17
the 4th a traditional Haiku having a seasonal word, 5-7-5
the 5th is a Pi-ku 3-1-4
the 6th is a Lune 5-3-5

and, once again, utilising Punam’s dVerse prompt, which asked us to use opening lines from books as closing lines to poems. This one is They shoot the white girl first,” from Paradise by Toni Morrison.


Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

You Are The Project

The raw material is your guiding reason
Your mind, the asset – you, the project
The professional has no laurels on which to rest
They know that practice makes perfect

Celsius 233 – 4th May 2026

We, the living knowledge, remember it
difficult ideas, things of beauty – struggle was
the gift given up voluntarily, like a
candy comforter, where rotten teeth bring pleasure.
We build new campfires with old tales to listen to
and think on the past – it was a pleasure to burn.

Written for dVerse – golden shovel and, once again, utilising Punam’s dVerse prompt, which asked us to use opening lines from books as closing lines to poems. This one is It was a pleasure to burn,” from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. Could this then be considered a golden triangle?


Today’s Daily Stoic poem:

What’s Truly Impressive

The gossip and notoriety of the rich and famous
Certainly reveals some sort of impression
Perhaps it impresses the ignoramus
Overpowered by their own obsession