Shared with dVerse MTB – No Answers
Held Tight – 21st February 2026
Tag: dVerse
What does the silence want
Fateful Feeling – 11th February 2026
parenthesis
spring approves wholly
lady, my flowers, blood kisses
will to wisdom, a life a fool pays
swear by syntax
this fate of paragraph
for my world pays
better never feeling the things
first is
blood kisses, my lady, flowers
death approves wholly
parenthesis
Shared with dVerse Quadrille #241 – flowers. A poem formed only using words from e.e. cummings ‘since feeling is first’.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Hero Or Nero?
The king attends to honour and health
While the tyrant overindulges their wealth
Can you counter the many temptations
That gather to trouble your foundations?
Liker – 7th February 2026
Like a single soggy cornflake left in the bowl, you’re a disappointing ending.
Like a pubic hair on a hotel soap, you’re an intimate violation, offending.
Like a hiccup in a eulogy, you break the moment with awkward spite.
Like a sock perpetually damp from a leaky boot, you’re a stinker, all right!
Like a wet handshake in a steam room, you’re a clammy compromise.
Like a toothache in a novocaine dream, you’re a dull, persistent surprise.
Like the squeak of polystyrene on a filling, you grate on my very nerves.
Like a vibrator in a library, you’re as deeply inappropriate as deserves.
Like the tang of a coin pulled from a wishing well, you’re metallic and tainted with bad taste.
Like a vulture circling a car with a flat tyre, your hope is morbidly misplaced.
Like the fungus on a neglected potted plant, you’re a sign of a deeper rot.
Like a terrible sixties movie remake, you are from the land that time forgot.
Like the last roll of toilet paper, clinging by a perforation, your support is single-ply-thin.
Like a fire alarm test during a nap, you’re a shrill and scheduled ruin.
Like a cigarette break in a downpour, you’re a miserable, fleeting treat.
Like the ambient laugh track on a cancelled sitcom, your joy is canned and obsolete.
Like a participation trophy made of corroded tin, you celebrate an empty try.
Like a pixelated pornographic blur, you’re where the details go to die.
Like a mayfly with seasonal affective disorder, your brief life is also glum.
Like a jellyfish beached and melting into grit, you’re a failed, gelatinous crumb.
Like the X-Ray of a swallowed wedding ring, you’re a costly, internal mistake.
Like a pigeon with a gammy leg, you inspire the pity of a nagging headache.
Like the click of an empty water pistol in a standoff, you’re an anticlimactic threat.
Like the silence after a whoopee cushion at a funeral, you’re a joke no one can forget.
Shared with dVerse Poetics – Similes! This write is very much inspired by John Cooper-Clarke’s Twat, which you must read here.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Fear Is A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Succumbed to what was dreaded,
is it only the paranoid who survive?
Self-control keeps us level-headed
and able to continue to thrive.
Not My Beach – 29th January 2026
Pixels, faith, dust
Beaches I will never swim,
blue and bright;
Mock me with your gourmet food
under the moonlight.
You thrust a quiet knife in
with each sunset post;
As I eat my thinning stew
with old dry toast.
Share if you must
Shared with dVerse Quadrille #240 – trip. I didn’t use the word ‘trip’ in this, but ‘sunset’ could be easily replaced with ‘trip’s’. I prefer it this way, though. This poem is a reference to complaints about people posting their holiday photos online without regard for how that might affect others. I personally don’t know how I feel about this either way but that could be because I have been in a position to be able to experience beautiful beaches and gourmet food.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Keep It Simple
Everything can be as simple as said
This problem may be your last
The complexities are all in your head
How soon it has all passed
Born Into It – 25th January 2026
Nothing could be plainer than the things that have been done
And there can be no mystery in what is yet to come
It’s now that howls at nothing; It’s now that runs and hides
It’s now that winds its spineless coils and slithers out of sight
On my arrival, all I learned was from those gathered round
I had no memory of my past, no future to be found
Books that were given to me only spoke of victory
To be treated as our truth and proof of our history
When I began to question things, the lies soon followed on
All the wars, what were they for, and did they help anyone?
It seemed that all this time had been wasted to the extreme
One step forward and two steps back, I realised I had been
Born into a damage that’s real and worn by everyone
Nothing could be plainer than the things that have been done
The cause and effect are forever flowing through our lives
We all know how it will end and how no one will survive
Shocked by our own ignorance, we clutch at the old pretence
Trapped within the falsehood of our manufactured suspense
The echo arrives before the shout has even begun
With the dreams of our past, we believe we’ve already won
Storm warnings were ignored because the sky was always blue
This wasn’t the future but the past that was coming true
Here we go again and again, it’s all been said and done
And there can be no mystery in what is yet to come
We no longer finish thoughts before we get distracted
We’re just a character in our own game to be acted
If we shout a little louder, the truth will be drowned out
No longer noble, it’s the animals that know more about
Survival means we must forget about turning the tides
We’re speeding towards the canyon in our dopamined rides
Now, we’ve made your bucket list, are we ready to defend
Our right to make sense of it all, and so not to pretend
When it all catches up, there will be less ladders than slides
It’s now that howls at nothing; It’s now that runs and hides
We’re sold maps as mazes, that’s why we can never be found
Always searching the skies for treasures buried underground
Blame is passed hand to hand, decisions forever deferred
Flexibility only bends its way to the absurd
Moral neutrality used as camouflage every night
Wraps us in complexities that took away all our fight
Rooms arranged to forget there was anything ever here
A never-ending spiral stairs watches us disappear
With a perfect avoidance, it can quietly dim the light
It’s now that winds its spineless coils and slithers out of sight
Shared with dVerse MTB prompt to write a glosa. My quoted lines (italicised) are taken from the song ‘Now’ by Nomeansno. Finding lines to work with was a challenge and the whole write took a fair few hours. I’ll struggle to get the song out of my head tonight as I go to sleep.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
The Only Prize
The more things we desire
The more we have to earn
Freedom no longer stokes the fire
If more prizes are your concern
To Rise – 14th January 2026
Shared with dVerse Quadrille #239 – smile, which immediately made me think of the Fall and so I went investigating the lyrics of their album containing the titular song. The italicised words are taken from various songs from the album Perverted By Language.
Repetitious history
Disease-ridden southern spectres
To fall, to rise again
Back to trade, back to barter
War is over with no shots fired
Undone, the strife-knot
For it’s…
The death of the dimwits
That makes US smile
Global majority
Once perverted by language
Definitive
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Cut The Strings That Pull Your Mind
Fear, suspicion and desire all may beg
For your time and attentions
A spark may be lighting the powder keg
To blow up your pretensions
The Seven Mountains Mandate – 6th January 2026
The Seven Mountains
1) Family
Vows are hammered into hinges,
genders stapled to locked doors.
Obedient to the Bibles;
The cradles are nailed to the floors.
The dominion of the supreme
begins in the caucasian stables;
Penetrating the hearts of those
white-washed brains of Western fables.
2) Religion
All the steeples report to a single inbox,
apostles with Wi‑Fi, prophets push notification;
Every creed is poured into the same jar,
hymns auto-update to the latest revelation.
Bug fixes, patch notes for heresy.
Your faith, imported; kept in the cloud.
Mono-denomination default settings,
dual logins are disallowed.
3) Education
Orchards replanted in straight lines,
discipleship needs an iron fist.
Chromosome combinations unapproved
will be quickly dismissed.
Microscopes tilt toward Bethlehem;
Maths will subtract the deviations;
History will match the doctrine
of the chosen ones’ observations.
4) Media
Breaking news of the devils trending
as every headline lands baptised.
With commentary lighting every doubt
because evil is always disguised.
On camera confessions sung like hymns
single note songs of divine opinion;
Here’s John, making the weather
100% chance of dominion.
5) Entertainment
Scripts scrubbed until jokes stop sinning,
audience triggered by canned laughter
Donate now and pay salvation
to the never-ending hereafter.
Keep the sermons and cut the kissing,
rehearsed repentance on the count of four;
This is the Kingdom theology
that evangelised entertainment is made for.
6) Business
CFOs reassign the spreadsheet cells
so that the wealth flows like a river up the hill.
Coins are passed down as tidy miracles,
smaller pockets are easier to fill.
The market wears a crown of certainties,
the tides baptised and taught not to turn.
Forever and ever in expansion;
Quarter’s profits are the Kingdom’s concern.
7) Government
Every sermon is a filibuster,
committee meetings adjourn for prayer.
Laws paved with verses that do not bend
so that the illusion of choice seems fair.
The New Apostolic Reformation
writes the new biblical constitution,
to take control of the seven mountains
and be the singular institution.
Coda
They said, “Climb,” but meant, “Conquer.”
Said, “Kingdom,” but meant, “Yours, then ours.”
The mountains are moving without consent,
replaced with unattainable ivory towers.
The cathedrals make the most of the shadows;
The valleys must play a game of pretend;
These steeples demand your worship;
The gods are just around the bend.
Written after reading this concerning article by the ever-reliable Brian Dunning:
Don’t look now, but your church might be legitimately evil.
While you’ve been paying attention to other things, the New Apostolic Reformation has been rolling its tank tracks over the skulls of both secular democracy and traditional Christianity.
If you are from the USA and perhaps even more so, if you are also Christian, I recommend reading this, even if only to share your point of view.
16th Jan 2026 – shared with dVerse OLN, hoping to get a few more eyes on this.
Today’s Daily Stoic poem:
Where, Who, What and Why
Where do you stand? Who are you today?
What are you doing with yourself? Why are you doing it anyway?
Superficial-sounding questions are pointing towards the deep
Are you able to answer them? Or are you still asleep?
Sunset On Al Dera – 29th December 2025
I walked down the old, sandy wooden steps
to the beach
I had been here decades before
everything looked different
but the smell was the same
a salt that cleared the nose
and spits in your face
time
and time again
I remembered the flashing lights
reflected on the water
all the good cheer
the dream that this day will never end
up before the sun
patiently impatient
the horizons are soon to reveal the truth
…but
this Christmas
I wanna die
I’ve seen Satan and Jesus
in a crimson-bloodied sky
angel wings pummeling the city to dust
Shared with an AllPoetry.com contest by Bad Jonny, who gave us the italicised lines as starters. I decided to use both and link them.
30th Jan 2026 – Shared with dVerse OLN #400
You Can’t See Me When I Close My Eyes – 17th December 2025
Shared with dVerse Quadrille #238 – hibernate.
The initial line is taken from Jae Rose’s poem ‘Coax’.
It is hard to
live fully above ground.
The nail that sticks
up gets hammered down.
Protected in silent procrastination
like a seasonal hibernation,
sleeping through until cessation.
When things settle down
I’ll return once more,
But until then, I’m
waiting for the thaw.
Belly Up – 16th December 2025
The belly up dog
rolls in recognition;
celebrating the leash,
revelling in submission.
In a democratic house,
its institutions sing
“we are free” until
it doesn’t mean anything.
The belly up dog
doesn’t need to be told
he’s free to roam
the lonely nights of cold.
Inspired by a couple of quotes:
we now live in an era when the slaves celebrate their slavery.
Nick Tosches
Democracy is a con game. It’s a word invented to placate people to make them accept a given institution. All institutions sing, ‘We are free.’ The minute you hear ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, watch out because in a truly free nation, no one has to tell you you’re free.
Jacque Fresco
