At The End Of Another Busy Day – 20th December 2025

In a quiet, wood-panelled den,
there’s a low fire
crackling in the hearth.
Two leather armchairs

face the flames.
Don and Ben sit

with a small glass
of amber sherry each.

You know, Ben,
a lot of fireplaces….
I’ve known the best of them.
But this…
this one has a good heart to it.

There is a soul in a real fire.
Something

a manufactured flame
can never learn.

Right, exactly.
The phoney ones
spit and hiss.
No respect for the burn.
This wood here…
it’s loyal.
Like good oak.
I have a place,
incredible place,
where the oak burns
like slow gold.

My grandfather’s house
smelled of olive wood.
Old, gnarled branches

that remembered the sun.
The scent was like smoke

and memory mixed.

(Taking a slow sip.)
This sherry…
there’s a story in it.
Some sherries are just vinegar
wearing a fancy coat.
This one speaks up.
You can taste the years.

Spanish, I think, Don.
It has a quiet voice.
A nutty, whispering finish.

Whispering—I like that.
Good phrase.
It doesn’t shout.
It just… sits there,
being excellent.

A log settles,
sending up a shower of embers
that spin and fade.

There.
That little collapse.
When I was young,
I believed each spark
was a tiny story ending.

I like a clean end.
Not a messy one.
Wind, for instance,
is messy.
Whistling through cracks,
no discipline.
A fire like this…
it’s all agreement.
Everything burns on purpose.

Contained, but alive.
There is a dignity in that.

Dignity. Sure.
Look at that flame,
curling up
like it owns the air.
And maybe it does.

It asks for nothing.
Not even our attention.

(Nods, swirling
the last gold
in his glass.)
That’s the real thing.
No asking.
Just being.
We’ll do this again.
With my oak.
Oak that knows
how to hold a flame.

I would like to taste that smoke.

They fall quiet,
two old men
wrapped in warmth
and amber light,
speaking of everything
and nothing
as the fire hums
its slow,
familiar hymn.

Lovely List – 17th November 2025

  • The first coffee of the day
  • Watching our kittens play
  • Whiskey on a winter’s night
  • Holding someone special tight
  • Memories triggered by song
  • Feeling right where you belong
  • Watching all the children grow
  • Teaching all of what you know
  • A great poem that you wrote
  • Inspiration from a quote
  • Causing a new friend to smile
  • Contemplating for a while
  • Watching the river flow by
  • Migrations across the sky
  • A forest walk in the rain
  • Waking up again, again

Shared with Poets and Storytellers United #203 – love/hate

For The Love Of Gods – 4th October 2025

Eros

Passionate desire

A longing fire

Philia
Loyalty, trust

Respect: a must


Storge
Familiar foundations

Comfortable bonded relations


Agape
Grace unconditional

Compassion by principle

Ludus
Playful flirtation

Light dance relation


Pragma
Invested practicality

Commitment and compatibility

Philautia
Understanding self-care
Balanced and fair



Mania
Tormented obsession
Jealous dependent possession

Shared with W3 prompt #179:
Write 5 separate Hay(na)ku poems, each about a different aspect of love, including but not limited to:
Romantic love, familial love, self-love, unrequited love, enduring/timeless love.
Each poem should stand alone but together create a layered meditation on love.


After reading through others’ entries for this prompt, I was inspired to give it another try, particularly after learning more about the Greek Gods of love. Above is the new entry, below the original (titled Curriculum).

~~~

initiation
matures, understanding
flourishing above beasts

~~~

comforted
unconditional inspiration
release and return

~~~

within
mind open
education, experience, esteem

~~~

unanswered
time expands
changes one’s perspective

~~~

beyond
last orders
through all seasons

~~~

Eros

Passionate desire

A longing fire

Philia
Loyalty, trust

Respect: a must


Storge
Familiar foundations

Comfortable bonded relations


Agape
Grace unconditional

Compassion by principle

Ludus
Playful flirtation

Light dance relation


Pragma
Invested practicality

Commitment and compatibility

Philautia
Understanding self-care
Balanced and fair



Mania
Tormented obsession
Jealous dependent possession

Lothario – 28th July 2025

*I found this line somewhere but can’t remember who wrote it now!


If you want to kill someone
fill them with love and leave;*
– Bone is stronger than the heart

Fill up a cup with honesty
designed only to deceive
– and break their world apart

Razors in the chocolates,
A minefield full of flowers;
– Coerced to play the bit part

The Lothario, the Romeo,
contain Casanova powers
– make their torture a work of art

Kaleidoscope – 22nd July 2025

Nothing is ever as good as it seems; float on a sigh,
all my imaginings and their themes float on a sigh;

Alone amongst friends and too busy to wait,
running nowhere and watching my schemes float on a sigh;

With a prod and a push, a light shone on me
where the angelic rainbow streams float on a sigh;

Splitting the prism, wandering in the wavelengths,
watching as your white-winged sunbeams float on a sigh;

So realise it forever, Shaun, you are now one lucky guy,
together we’ll build a world where our dreams float on a sigh.

Written for the GloPoWriMo Day 8 prompt:
write a ghazal that takes the form of a love song.

8th Aug 2025 – Shared with W3 #171

She’s A Puzzle – 16th May 2025

Shared with W3 – The Pararhyme Paradox around the theme of incompleteness.

All the pieces scattered across the floor

like the petals picked off the flower;


She loves me, she loves me not, some days

she loves to imagine how she dies;


A search for corners finds one amiss
this may, for a moment, mildly amuse;


She’s incomplete, though nearly whole,
so the hunt continues along for a while;


The missing part may be under wraps
or lying beyond the end of her ropes;
Every day, a new donning of caps
becomes the method by which she copes;


All your playbooks, now ripped and torn,
watching in wonder, awaiting your turn;
Under a bridge or to the manor born,
there’s a fire inside, ready to burn;
So she’s a puzzle, a partial form,
Yet here she stands, resolute and firm.

A Flavoured Lexicon – 13th May 2025

Tangy, the aftertaste of unsent ink,
words left like fishhooks in my throat.
Of your preposition that held up my sky,
love became my silent film, soon unreeled.

Not to be unzipped, unbuttoned in the dark,
man’s executioner lurks within his whisper;
Best laid plans are left unsaid at the confessional.
Friends echo fallacious words
tonight, the coin was tossed into the sea.

Tongue tastes, a blind snake in a maze;
twisted sheets after bad dreams
and on the bridge that’s always burning,
tied a noose to the rail.

Tangling telephone wires hum my hymns
over the moon-whispered tides;
Our empty cups, save our salt,
simple as a slip, a dark entry,
joyful as the fire laughs at the forest;
Words become the silence.

Tied (again) but now with notes;
Tongue (again) a rusted hinge
knotting the clocks, doing time.

Over (returns) like a skipped stone’s fate,
poems sank to the lake bed;
Often returning to the teacher’s words
spoken into jars and never sealed.

Tangled in a comb’s teeth;
Tongues – final act – stilled by dawn.

Live and maintain pretence, to write
poems on ghost paper.
With the last match in the box,
friends (again) echo their silhouettes.

All the sand left in the glass;
Tongue (last stand) now a relic,
tangled for a final time in this museum.

Word one, we’ll never say again,
@ – a noose around the moon;
The most dangerous definite article on the
wharf where lost verbs go to drown.

Legendary, the stains became
night, the inkwell we dip our days in;
Of (last breath) the last breath;
Tangy – full circle – a foretaste of new
words for scented letters.

A type of mesostic or maybe a skeleton key poem, I’m not sure exactly what this form is called. The first word of each line is taken from the complete poem ‘word tangle’ by Rog Leach. The last two lines reflect back on the first two.
The words are 95% mine, with some original assistance from AI for the base. I kept the line ‘@ – a noose around the moon’ though, as it appealed to me.

A Bucketful Of Sand – 24th April 2025


When you left, I promised myself
to build us a mountain
for our future;

each day, a bucketful of sand;
building this monument
towards the sky.

When you return, in my dreaming,
your journeys at an end;
together then;

each day, the winds of time will take
a bucketful of sand,
until it’s gone

Shared with Momoetry April Poet Month challenge – ekphrastic and WDYS #285 picture prompt and the idea came after reading Time Passes here


Charlie Zero The Poet Music picks & Reviews #19 and my quick thoughts:

Trepaneringsritualen – Getting Neubauten and Keuhkot vibes from this. As others mention at bandcamp – riveting, terrifying, menacing! A good Thursday morning downer.

Haunted Horses – If this was the first time I heard this style or genre then I would love this. Very good.

Gay Beast – This is my kinda thing and already familiar to me. I’m always looking for more music along these lines.

Lunar Mistake – I like this, it could grow on me. The vocals put me off on the first song but are nice on others. Kinda soft-prog. Gonna listen some more.

Atrium Carceri – I don’t have time for this. I’m not a young man anymore. I get all the ambient noise I want at 8 pm in my jungle village.

Unlovable II – 1st February 2025

It felt like love, at least it seemed that way to me
Circumstances made it lighter than it should be
Now we have both learned to carry it differently

Our love was brittle, so as I saw new chances
We both became victims of those circumstances
A quiet candle burns, a little flame still dances

A true story though truth changes over time. Unlovable can be found here.
Inspired by this post on Instagram by muskurahateinn.

Gathering Magic – 13th October 2024

Connections form between young and old
As the tribe gathers at these tables
Every nugget may not be gold
And truths told as if they are fables

The dining room, like a rush-hour train
A gaggle of gossip between gulps of water
The old folks never tire to explain
Love for their new grandson and daughter

Two hands touch to make a familiar bond
Share secrets down the generations
Soft in comfort where love belongs
And meets all expectations

Shared with WDYS #257 picture prompt and also submitted for an assignment at AllPoetry.com as follows:
Write a 12 to 24-line poem in any style that uses simile. Keep the imagery consistent and clear. Make sure that you use two clear examples of simile in your poem using the words ‘as’ or ‘like’ as discussed in the lesson. Try to write in the present tense and incorporate at least one concrete use of the senses in addition to imagery and metaphor, which was covered in the previous assignment.