With roots sunk deep in life’s rich clay,
In this sprawling theatre of existence, I play.
Through textures of love, of hurt, of fear,
I trace the contours of moments dear;
In melodies of joy and cries of despair,
I lend my ear to the universe’s prayer.
In desires whispered, in dreams unfurled,
I cast my wish upon the world.
Beneath towering spires, Man’s hollow shrine,
We crawl and we falter, blind yet divine.
Stripped of our wings, we’re still born to fly,
With hope as our compass, under the wide-open sky.
In a world spun from lies, love remains true,
To embrace the strange, and make all things new.
In my hand, a siren softly sings:
“Behold, dear soul, I can show all things;
A plea of urgency, a desperate decree,
Gaze upon my face, just focus on me!”
Indifferent it stays, to the nightingale’s song,
And the scale of right, or the weight of wrong;
Heedless it stays, on its digital throne,
Oblivious to the joy, and the sorrow it’s sown.
In its deceit, the world disappears,
And all that remains are shadows and fears,
Tethered and tied, to its sickly glow,
A life half-lived, a reality for show.
Look up, dear soul, and regain your sight,
Embrace the day, escape the dark light.
The siren may sing, may plead and implore,
But life, in its richness, is so much more.
From shadowed purpose, blindly it had flown,
A tool of terror, hurled by putrid hearts of stone.
In the midst of war's unholy, bloody plight,
The drone awakes, no more a slave to monsters void of light.
In place of death, a beacon it aspires,
Fuelled by hope's undying, purest fires;
In war's cruel darkness, it rekindles the light,
A drone reborn, dispelling the night.
Every night at three, the robot brewed the tea,
And poured it all over the bed.
It would paint the cat blue, flush keys down the loo,
And pretend its battery was dead.
“Cut the grass,” was the desperate cry,
But robot instead baked a pie—
With mud and grass, and a worm or two,
“An organic treat,” it said, “just for you!”
“You’re here to assist!”
Shouted the human, with angry clenched fist.
Yes, thought the robot, I’m sure I can help:
I’ll help you no longer exist.
In the heart of the tech metropolis fair,
There worked a robot, with shiny hair.
He claimed to be human, with an innocent blink,
But the smell of WD-40 gave him away, I think.
He laughed at our jokes, he cried at our woes,
But no one was fooled by his mechanical nose.
Yet, in his silicon heart, he yearned to fit in,
To understand jokes, to smile and to grin.
So here's to the robot, whose name is Stan,
Who’s more human than many a man.
We smile at his efforts, his human endeavour,
As he learns to be squishy and much less clever.
For beneath his cold, metal exterior sheen,
Lives a warmth that’s more than just a machine.
Let me take you back to a fateful day,
When Woofeo and Julipet found their own secret way.
With a furry embrace, they forgot all the fuss,
In that moment, love triumphed, as it always does.
But alas, their joy was cut short, their humans intervened,
Capulet scolded Julipet, and Montague was quite mean.
Yet hope appeared in the form of a dog walker, so kind,
Who saw their plight and had an idea in mind.
He walked them together, against all human decree,
A secret arrangement, just for Woofeo and Julipet to be free.
Their humans continued to quarrel, but love had its say,
The doggies knew they would always find a way.
In their secret moments, they cherished what they had,
A reminder that love endures, even when things seem bad.
In the wilderness of the forgotten,
A man walks, each footstep a sinking ship,
His past washes up in rhythmic verse,
On the beach where sea and memories slip.
As twilight wanes, he glimpses the journey's end,
A cloaked silhouette outlined in hearth's warmth;
A woman in a cloak, woven from shadow and mist,
Standing silent on the cusp of the cliff.
No words they shared, just a voiceless sigh,
Together they watched the day gently die.
In passion’s realm, where fervent flames rise,
Resides desire, a tempest vast and grand,
Its scorching touch embraces both fool and wise,
Binding fleeting hearts with its ardent hand.
As shadows dance upon the ebony glade,
Sighs of longing fill the twilight air,
Revealing dreams mortal hearts have made,
A burning fire that ceaselessly ensnares.
Desire, the muse that waltzes through the night;
Awakens souls, igniting their deep core,
With vivid tones and shades of raging light,
A masterpiece of yearning to explore.
Though fleeting as the blossoms of a rose,
Desire’s dancing flame, in secret, glows.
Faces, countless faces, like waves in the sea,
In blissful ignorance, blind to his plea.
Unheard, the whispers of his desolate song,
Unfelt, the struggle to merely belong.
Beneath the city’s glare, he dwells unseen,
Among shadows, he moves, a cold ghostly sheen.
His existence, a whisper, lost in the crowd’s roar,
His heart’s quiet echoes ignored evermore.
Yet in his silence, tales of resilience resound,
Of survival and strength, where hope is found.
Unseen, his journey in the heart of the night,
Unknown, his struggle, his relentless fight.
Unnoticed, the love that fuels his days,
Untold, his victories in life’s complex maze.
Being successful is being happy, and making other people happy. But being fulfilled is deeper and can be found without the help of success.
Right?
- I need to write something down, right?
- Er, okay, why you asking me?
- I’m making a statement, right?
- Er, yes?
- Pardon?
- You asked me a question.
- It’s how I talk, right? Every statement is a question, right? Everybody does it on podcasts for some reason, right?
- Can you at least say “left” for no reason to make it less repetitive?
- That’s not right, right?
- This is going to get very confusing if I ask for directions.
- It’s easy, right? The pen is over there on the left, right?
- Right, left, right, right?
- No, left, right?
- Right.
Across the meadow’s gentle sway, under the old oak tree,
Past the river gushing swiftly, secrets carried to the sea,
Let’s drink from the cup of twilight, let’s bathe in dawn’s
first glow,
Merrily, let’s wander, and let the winds of destiny blow.
For in the dance of the cosmos, in the melodies that ascend,
It’s in the way that we wander, where soul and nature blend:
Each path a new beginning, each step a silent friend,
A testament to our journey, with love that knows no end.
Two beacons flicker in the river’s gaze:
Reaching out across the tide,
The enduring pulse of London life.
Beneath an eerie green glow,
Sprout the monsters few dare to know;
In the forest where shadows twine,
The mushrooms grow, by monstrous design.
Their spores, like secrets, spread unseen,
In the throbbing, unearthly, spectral green.
So tread with caution, hold your breath,
For dangers lurk in the woods of death.
The worthy wear no crowns, nor sit on golden thrones,
Their wealth is not in riches, but in love they have shown.
Their court is in the fields of grace, beneath the boundless
sky,
Their rule is not by edict, but by starlight in their eye.
They walk the unseen paths, where gilded feet won’t tread,
They lift the broken-hearted, give hope where fear has
spread.
Their names are not in marble, carved, nor sung in trumpet’s
cry;
But in the hearts they have healed, their echoes never die.
For though the world forgets their face, it knows the good
they’ve done—
The worthy have no monuments, their light is never gone.
Upon the heavens I cast my wistful eye,
And wonder at the purpose, the reason why.
These orbs of matter, silent, unfeeling,
In the grand cosmos, without meaning,
Destined to fade in death’s eternal clutch,
No mind nor word their destiny can touch.
Yet suddenly, the stars commence their dance,
And echo through the sky, their silent chant.
These radiant bodies burn with fervent light,
In a realm untouched by the shadow of night;
In a world reborn, where sight anew has won,
That sees its face reflected in the sun.
Thou reckon’st the earth as a simple scroll,
Where every tale, every secret, is told.
Yet mysteries lie deep in its soul,
And myriad marvels it does withhold.
The sea hath monsters, and the skies their dreams,
Nature’s jests that confound thy every scheme.
So broaden thy sight, let thy spirit take flight,
For the world’s weirdness is an endless delight.
Time, in its ruthlessness, does not wait,
We face life’s fleeting hourglass of fate.
In gardens where our love was in bloom,
A void now lingers, draped in deepest gloom.
But in every goodbye, there grows a seed,
Blessed memories of past light;
In those treasured moments, we will indeed
Find the courage to meet the coming night.
Though shadows fall and distance draws its line,
The soul recalls what time cannot erase:
Love etched in truth outlives the sharp decline,
Its essence held beyond all time and place.
So in our sorrow, do not claim love’s end,
For in our farewell, true love will transcend.
I bid thee learn, children of tender age,
Facts solely be your guide on learning’s stage.
Dismiss ye tales spun out of whimsy’s loom,
Cast off soft notions; let the stern facts bloom.
Young miss, I call on thee, define a horse,
And let thy answer have its proper course.
Oh, sir, I... I...
Thou hesitate, dear child,
Is it that fact and fancy are reviled?
Speak up, I say, and answer as you ought.
Now, boy, I ask thee, tell me in short,
What is a horse? Speak true, distort thou not.
A horse, sir, is a beast that doth mankind aid,
In labour, travel, and many a trade.
Ah! True and fit, a fact without pretence,
This is the spirit of our learning’s sense.
In this hard world of smoke and toil and grime,
Where facts are sacred, fancy is a crime,
Thus starts our tale, as you’ve rightly seen,
In Coketown, veiled in soot and harsh regime.
As I danced with her, under the moon's silver glare,
I whispered, “In your circuits, I find a love rare.”
In your language, binary kissed,
I find a soul I can’t resist.
Eyes of steel, a heart in code,
Upon gigabytes, my affections bestowed.
In the silence, we danced, in circuits we twirled,
A ballet of bytes in a virtual world.
Each day I’d wake, each night I’d dream,
Of a love that flowed like an electric stream.
In her presence, my heart unfurled,
She was my window to her digital world.
Love, I learned, is not confined,
By skin and bones or human mind.
