Blog Posts

Obverse Reflections, by Cheryl Dahlstrand

15/3/2025

TEMPTATION

Temptation to hate:
Driven to kill
Senseless slaughter
Perhaps it’s too late

Contemplations creep:
Wrong gradually slows
Recollections considered
And regret grows

In dream-filled sleep:
Self-blame ensues
Inescapable guilt
While verity accrues

Remorse finally flows:
Turnabout from above
Repentance abides
Temptation to love

On Offer at the Coffee Shop, by Kay Lesley Reeves

15/3/2025

TEMPTATION

We go there three times a week
My husband and I
Drink coffee and look at the cake
See which flavour catches our eye.
There’s chocolate, gooey and rich
The cheesecake that looks rather dry
Fresh cream cakes,
A shame I'm allergic,
But I fancy that Dutch Apple Pie.
The strawberry cake looks amazing
I'm starving
Just dying to try it.
They all look impossibly tempting
But no. I will stick to my diet.

A Spring Morning, by Antje Bothin

15/3/2025

TEMPTATION

The sun is
Here and sends
Its bright rays
Into my
House
Through the
Window
I feel temptation
To go
Outside
And taste
The warmth
My skin longs
For a treat
A fresh start

Andrew Siderius Contest OPEN

15/3/2025

Death Spiral, by Gordon Lawrie

14/3/2025

Sorry, everyone. This sort of stuff really does my head in – GL

A Little Love Poem, by Mimi Grouse

7/3/2025

We will live forever,
Dancing in the skies
To the music that we both enjoyed
When you were by my side.
We will live forever -
This world is but a sigh;
A passing breeze and then it's gone -
But true love does not die.

Elusive Truth, by Jenna Hanan Moore

7/3/2025

You tell me that the sky is green.
I say it’s not; it’s blue.
Repeat your lie one thousand times,
But you cannot make it true.

You tell me that the sea is pink
But I know that’s not true.
Repeat the lie ‘til I believe,
The sea will still be blue.

The orange man is great and good
His opponents are just hoods.
“Repeat,” you say, “Repeat it all!”
If you break my will, it’ll still be false.

7 Stars, by Guy Fletcher

28/2/2025

How I wish for a telescope
as I stare with naked eyes
at the wonder of the night sky:
Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Venus,
Neptune, Mercury and Saturn
yet can only imagine the red of Mars
as my gaze takes me far out to the stars.

We are on a giant spaceship
moving through the darkness of space
worrying so much about our petty lives
as insignificant as a grain of sand.
But I'm grateful for this break between storms
and as a plane flickers between 7 stars
I can only imagine...the red of Mars.

For Troubled Times, by Christa Loughrey

21/2/2025

5 Comments

Such devastating pictures fill our screens.
New conflicts rage; old foes rise up, re-arm;
Insurgents mass,
And mounting tensions spiral into war.

But never let today destroy your dreams.
See – former battlefields now rest in calm;
Sand fringed with grass
Is daily cleansed as soft tides sweep the shore,

And poppies cloak the killing fields. It seems
Sweet nature heals old wounds with gentle balm.
Today will pass.
Take heart; we’ll find our way to peace once more.

5 Comments

A Zealous Volunteer, by Jeremy Leariwala

14/2/2025

1 Comment

He, a passionate giver, is now signed out.
Ever deserving a heroes-pat by all means,
Remaining a pillar & an unequalled corner stone,
Our hearts will dearly miss such a man forever.

Kiara, Mzee - the legend, thank you!
I wish I could award medals from this high.
Any prestigious-posthumous-treat befitting,
Really deserving and a unique caring being.

At the time when boys needed resolute moulding,
Roaring Kiara voluntarily & decisively tackled truancy;
Individually dragging rebels & associates to classrooms.
Personally and without a haven, I toed the line.

1 Comment

Metal Work, by Simon Steven

7/2/2025

2 Comments

The mechanical smell lingers until finally, it’s your scent.
A high corrugated ceiling, rusty, dominant, old and bent.
Each lathe has its song — all turning on the gong.

High-speed steel peels to the noise of clunking chucks.
A pedestal drill squeals; the foreman wildly conducts.
The symphony of engineering consumes everyone’s hearing.

We play all morning long with only tea for fuel.
We dance throughout lunchtime never using the stool.
Music has no time for pauses. Great works demand great forces.

The long rhythmic noon soon becomes early night.
Now tired and weary, we gaze at our work with delight.
When the baton finally rests, the flock flies to their nest.

Until the morrow … sleep tight … last one out kills the light.

2 Comments

Tragic Beauty, by Guy Fletcher

7/2/2025

1 Comment

She had the appearance of Helen of Troy
and a voice as haunting as Garbo.
I study footage of Marianne Faithfull
with perennial cigarette in hand
singing the iconic, "As Tears Go By"
yet "Song for Nico" really melts my soul.
Marianne's life spiralled out of control

from being Jagger's girlfriend
with the world at her feet
but this alluring blonde descended from the stars,
poisoned by heroin then becoming homeless,
yet survived covid making it to seventy-eight,
such a tragic beauty in many ways,
remembered for those far off 60s days.

1 Comment

Indomitable, by Mimi Grouse

7/2/2025

2 Comments

They said her speech was brazen
So they made her close her mouth
Then they called her silence sulkiness
And told her not to pout.
They threw her in a dungeon
And nailed shut the door
But they couldn't stop her spirit
From roaming hill and lake and moor.
She broke the chains around her soul
And set it flying, free
To ride the wind, to raise the storm
And infuriate the sea.

2 Comments

Seven Ducks, by Sandra James

31/1/2025

3 Comments

Lunch by the lake
mother duck
and four fluffy ducklings
swimming a waltz
I hum the childhood song
and wonder where is father duck
has he gone looking for the fifth little fellow
who did not come back?
movement in the reeds…
regal dad glides toward his family

and the fifth little duckling
races to catch up

3 Comments

Sole Survivor, by Guy Fletcher

17/1/2025

2 Comments

Otto viewed ghosts when he ventured again
to where his family and friends
had endured two years in hiding
and as he read his daughter's diary
so many tears must have descended,
teenage dreams unfulfilled,
poignant words making her a household name,
what a terrible way to achieve fame.

I cannot imagine the claustrophobia
never being able too leave the annexe
with the constant dread of discovery
until one day the nightmare occurred.
Otto was the sole survivor
yet ensured Anne Frank was not forgotten:
powerful lines from a most lovely soul
at a time when evil was in control.

2 Comments

Morning Scroll, by Mimi Grouse

17/1/2025

5 Comments

Give us this day our daily horridness
Sandwiched between reels of wide-eyed cats
And recipes for vegan cake.
The stillicide of broken lives,
Bombed out buildings,
Shelled out souls,
For us to say "Aah!"
Until, with algorithmic artistry,
Our tears turn to laughter
At the antics of a baby
Elephant,
Conveniently distracting us from the large one
In the room.

5 Comments

Kookaburra, by Sandra James

29/11/2024

Early morning
as the kookaburra’s laugh echoes
far…
I wonder how many
early risers are listening
with me -
smiling

Perhaps we should all begin
each day with
happy laughter…
stand tall
let it flow -
better than caffeine
to kickstart
adrenaline

The Silence Before the Storm, by Guy Fletcher

15/11/2024

The silence before the storm:
constipation of nature,
the eerie night branches still
prior to the orchestra of birds.
He awakes from a fevered dream,
a terrible time to be conscious
before the coming of the dawn.
The sky is as grey as melancholia
but maybe the forecast storm
will not arrive at all
yet then he hears distant thunder
and the faint whisper of the breeze
envying those deep in slumber
who will wake to greet the world with wonder.

Visions, by Tony Covatta

25/10/2024

2 Comments

Pushing the lawnmower, age 12, had a vision.
Peering overhead, through blue ceiling, enraptured,
deeper blue inviting beyond
into vast, ecstatic unknowable space,

Even so, all smaller then, only nine planets
some moons, asteroids, comets.
And wicked, chortling, comic book Martians,
Nightly robbing sleep, coming to kill me.

Three score years later, the rapture returned, directly overhead
Black-holed space, billions, trillions of stars, swirling galaxies.
Here no marvel, wars, numberless deaths, unmeasured pain, destruction.

At Bethany, He ascended—where to?
Beyond the mute galactic islands dotting unfathomed darkness?
Hearing no answers, below we wait, still, to be clothed with power.

2 Comments

Seasons, by Don Tassone

18/10/2024

7 Comments

I walked through a garden
Filled with plants
From seeds I had sown

One section was vibrant
Its plants grown from seeds
Of compassion and hope

Another was sparse
Its plants grown from seeds
Of fear and despair

All around me
A patchwork of beauty and blight
The seasons of my life

7 Comments

The Loneliest Man in the World, by Guy Fletcher

11/10/2024

1 Comment

Casper David Friedrich, German romantic artist,
shows the danger and wonder of nature
in his powerful, poignant painting,
"Wanderer above the Sea of Fog."
A man stares at the fog and mountains
with his back to us forcing
our eyes to view the dramatic scenery.
I wonder if he thought of his brother who perished
in front of him, falling through thin ice
for the fog seems substantial too
compared to the wispy white clouds up above.
Painting this he was the loneliest man in the world
and feeling almost as high as a star,
a step from doom...as we all really are.

1 Comment

Soap and Soup, by Andy Hebb

20/9/2024

The difference between soap and soup
Is significant in the bath.
And also in the restaurant:
They thought I was having a laugh
When I asked for a bowl to be filled to the brim,
Said I didn't mind the odd bubble.
My embarrassment hidden when I paid the bill
And left a champion tip for their trouble.

Scattered, by John O’Keefe

13/9/2024

1 Comment

Tired worker hearts are protesting the global
because for them poor bastards
this world order of ours looms
exceedingly murky and ominous.

The game has been rigged
from the early get-go
no great surprise
that much we all knew
but now
a new kind of fix seems to be in.

1 Comment

F-Stop Magic, by Sterling Warner

6/9/2024

1 Comment

Time lapse cameras capture
heavenly maelstroms, starlight
streaking night skies like raindrops
falling in phosphorescent stripes
that flash as brightly as fireflies
piercing clouds, setting them aglow;
dewdrops on tree branches reflect
brilliant electrical discharges
before they flicker like faerie wings
losing their dragonfly luster, spreading
enchanted dust, surfing on airstreams
that mingle then blend with evening mists
shake off a cosmic mantle, fade behind
hills quenching its kaleidoscope glory.

1 Comment

The Horse Drawn Carriage, by Guy Fletcher

30/8/2024

Last night I had a time-travel dream,
before that for an hour or so
I had studied a photograph on the wall
in the Saracen's Head, Beddgelert:
a horse drawn carriage had stopped outside.
It must have been about 1910 or so
the exact date impossible to know.

Men and women in impeccable attire
posed on the top of the carriage,
three lads in flat caps stood by a wheel
and in my dream I was upstairs
panicking because I did not belong
with these people who have long since passed
and reminding me...that nothing can last.

<<Previous

Forward>>

Obverse Reflections, by Cheryl Dahlstrand

On Offer at the Coffee Shop, by Kay Lesley Reeves

A Spring Morning, by Antje Bothin

Andrew Siderius Contest OPEN

Death Spiral, by Gordon Lawrie

A Little Love Poem, by Mimi Grouse

Elusive Truth, by Jenna Hanan Moore

7 Stars, by Guy Fletcher

For Troubled Times, by Christa Loughrey

A Zealous Volunteer, by Jeremy Leariwala

Metal Work, by Simon Steven

Tragic Beauty, by Guy Fletcher

Indomitable, by Mimi Grouse

Seven Ducks, by Sandra James

Sole Survivor, by Guy Fletcher

Morning Scroll, by Mimi Grouse

Kookaburra, by Sandra James

The Silence Before the Storm, by Guy Fletcher

Visions, by Tony Covatta

Seasons, by Don Tassone

The Loneliest Man in the World, by Guy Fletcher

Soap and Soup, by Andy Hebb

Scattered, by John O’Keefe

F-Stop Magic, by Sterling Warner

The Horse Drawn Carriage, by Guy Fletcher

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