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One Day I Saw…

July 30, 2026July 30, 2026humanist55

One day I saw that the hypothetical
mortality I had considered since
teenage years, was now a sure thing
and sooner rather than later…

A comparatively isolated childhood
had given me time to consider
many things that never occur to
some people until they do…

Is sex before marriage
a club to which members
recruit others to assure themselves
of their righteousness

Is there any point arguing
with people who believe in
irrational things like God
or the supremacy of the British

One day I saw that the struggles
of Feminism had largely failed
let alone broken the glass ceiling
and temporary wins are being rolled back…

One day I saw that World Wars
had not ended all wars
but only driven the game into
smaller battlefields fought by proxies

Even the MADness of Nuclear Deterrence
and the sanity of Non-Proliferation
were undermined by countries that possess
without confessing

And other countries elected demented
monsters to have their finger on the button
or to threaten to use the unthinkable
or assert that tactical nukes would not count…

One day I saw the world was sunburnt
because politicians count on being gone
before the bill for sun caused cancer
becomes due against their grandchildren

That the world ending less with a bang
more with a whimper due to overpopulation
was the least of Gaia’s problems
which no amount of Attenborough will fix

One day I saw that truth was no longer
binary and has, in any case, been smeared
until most people don’t know what to believe
and it seems pointless to care or have cared

One day I saw that another generation
would have to take up the fight
with new weapons like fact-checking
or digital abstinence, with

keenly honed humour targeted at
would be kings, and activism that
won’t lie down and be quiet
and disdain for status symbols

One day I saw that post-war boomer goals
were the exception and not the rule
and that the next world war
needs to be a war for the world

And then one day I saw that
I could relax a little, offer insight
when asked, without leading the charge
and just enjoy the day that’s in it…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Grace in OpenLinkNight, invites us to post a poem of our choice and this one was written for my local Keighley Library Poetry Group (the prompt was the title)and since I have now read it there, I feel like it deserves a bit more circulation…

Back to the Garden…

July 30, 2026July 30, 2026humanist55

**Henri Rousseau, *The Waterfall* (1910), oil on canvas**

When the white men came
Left their priest here with his tales of Jesus and original sin
we of course recognised the Garden of Eden
For is not the place we live in the very same

If we want to talk to God we go to the waterfall
We know our God is everywhere
In plants, and beasts, and soil – the rain that feeds the river
But it is here that we do truly hear her call

God waters the grass we bend to make our huts
Where even now the priest leads evening prayers
But I prefer our God’s song –I do not care
For wearing clothes, or to hear his stories -of which he has lots

Just like the snake, the priest would give us knowledge
Of our nakedness, our nature as sinners
But I know we still live in the garden, where we can pluck dinner
From the very trees, or, grateful, take in the life of brother deer

So whilst my kin listen to the priest’s lies
I slip away to the never-ceasing waterfall
Whose plashy tones are our God’s call
Endlessly flowing ‘neath Her created skies…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Melissa Lemay in Poetics, invites us to respond to the paintings of Henri Rousseau. Melissa was in part, inspired by a poetic exchange between myself and Merril about Rousseau on her site Collaborature which you can read here.

27th July: Ten Things of Thankful

July 27, 2026July 27, 2026humanist55

Things for which I give thanks this week…

1.- We have had some rain after days of strong sun or strong wind – which equally dry out the garden – even more critical when everything is in containers…

2.- The Stargazers are all open bar one and it is an annual marvel – especially for a flower that we more often see as a cut flower…

3.- I continue to be fascinated by this last Allium – by its slow development and by its morphology – it has now developed more pronounced florets on the underside whilst the to looks much the same as two weeks ago…

4.- I have, today, completed 32 out of 62 Poetry Postcards – the rest to be completed by the end of August…

I cannot show you the poem that was on the back of this card yet, but it was about the fact that all the posters on the many student walls, of Che Guevara, show him looking very serious as befits a revolutionary – so this smiling picture would not, I think, make the grade…

5. I am in the middle of another Speculative Poetry Mini-book and it is taking some work for such a tiny thing – watch this space…

6.- I talked to my Writing Critique partner yesterday – he and his wife have arrived in Eureka California for a few months before moving to L.A. for a few years from their home in Minnesota. Their cabin in the woods, runs in the Redwoods, sound divine, with deer at the window and other wildlife. The other evening, whilst watching a police drama on TV, the characters were smoking marijuana and suddenly they could distinctly smell skunk. At first they thought someone was smoking whilst passing nearby, but on opening the front door, they found three skunks gambolling outside lol…

7.- Barbara is no better but no worse…

8.- When I speak to my sister in Nova Scotia, every other week, she likes to hear me read one of my poems, so I typed up this one, and since it won’t appear anywhere else on the blog in the foreseeable future, i thought you might enjoy it… It was written in my Writing Group (on holiday break at present) and the prompt was to include a line from a favourite song…

Cause the Trees Don’t Need To Know

Trees, it turns out
are no slouches
when it comes to communicating
co-opting networks of fungi
intertwined with their subterranean
roots to talk to their fellows
“Salmon season is nearly upon us
Gaia bless those little bears for
dragging their food deep into the woods.”
“Yes, bless them indeed
they don’t even know
what they do for us trees!”
“I’m being attacked by those damned
Leafcutter ants—anybody got
anything bitter to make my leaves
unpalatable to the little blighters –
most obliged, dear neighbours.”
“There’s a sapling here who’s struggling
– let’s feed him up a little so he can make it
till one of us old guys pegs it, and
he gets his shot at the light…”
Slow, thoughtful communications
as befits elder statesman
of the forest—unknowable, ineffable
but now the threats come too thick, too fast
drought, unseasonal snow,
floods and forest fires
there is little we can do now
too late to intervene so
let us whisper these perils quietly
when we walk in the woods
‘Cause the trees don’t need to know…

9.- The Inkspots…

10.- This supportive community…

Have a great week everybody and may you get whatever weather you need or desire…

My Love is at Sea Now…

July 24, 2026July 24, 2026humanist55

My love is at sea now, quite lost in the blue
A blue funk has claimed her, she’s quite lost to me
No message of love works, they do not get through
My love is unmoored now, completely at sea

No pills or bright potions
Can bring her to land
Albatross on the ocean
We don’t understand

My love is at sea now, amidst darkest waves
The darkness crept up and it turned down her flame
Just bring back my loved one, it’s all that I crave
The mind is a mystery, that merits no blame

No pills or bright potions
Can bring her to land
Albatross on the ocean
We don’t understand

My love is at sea now, please return her at last
I fire up the lighthouse to guide her way home
The dark storm that took her, is now in the past
There’s still life worth living, if back here she’d come

My love is at sea now
Please return her at last
And pray let her see how
Depression can pass

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Björn Rudberg (brudberg) in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, Poetry Forms, invites us to write a ballad using strict metre and rhyme scheme. You may sing this to the tune of Red Sails in the Sunset which Bob Dylan purloined for “Beyond the Horizon” on his album “Modern Times” for, as he says, songwriters always steal, so if its good enough for Dylan, its good enough for me…

These I Have Loved…

July 23, 2026July 23, 2026humanist55

These I have loved
songs from The Sound of Music
in glorious surround-sound kitsch,
High on a Rocky Ledge, which is
a more quirky song about Edelweiss
from Moondog, the Viking of Sixth Avenue

The gravelly voice of late period
Billie Holiday – Strange Fruit
gut-wrenchingly poignant
but you are commanded to listen
much as broken Robert Wyatt
for whom Shipbuilding was written
and when you realise the real subject
was the Falklands War, you can
never unhear its meaning

On a more cheerful note
if you’ll pardon the pun
almost anything by
The Electric Light Orchestra
but for its lugubrious intro
as smooth as melted chocolate
let’s slip Need Her Love
onto the turntable

And whilst we’re listening to love
another song whose slight delays
stretch the heartstrings achingly
it has to be UB40
Please Don’t Make Me Cry
whilst at the opposite end of the scale
(another musical pun)
Deep Purple’s Hush
hurries the beat and
raises your heartbeat
with an excitement that
threatens to burst all bounds
on the cusp between pop
and heavy rock

Yet another driven classic
unmistakable from the first notes
of it’s Electric Bass accompaniment
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
The Night will also set your pulse racing…
I could go on, for music comes
in endless forms and variations –
but these are the cream of the crop
– today…
All these have been my loves…

High on a Rocky Ledge

Edelweiss

Strange Fruit

Need Her Love

Please Don’t Make Me Cry

Hush

The Night

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, kim881 in Poetics, invites us to write a list poem in the shadow of ‘The Great Lover’ by Rupert Brooke, and to begin and end our poem with lines taken from the second stanza…

Psychosis

July 21, 2026July 21, 2026humanist55

I can’t face myself in the mirror anymore, bloodshot eyes from too much coffee, and the twitch, the nervous tic – it’s too much – it scares me almost as much as sleep, as you…. I haven’t slept in days, well, I have tried not to, even though my body is screaming out for rest and relief, I dare not go there. I fall anyway, fitfully dozing, into the waiting nightmare and come to with a start mere moments later – for you are always there waiting for me, remorseless, relentless, implacable hunting me down, chasing me ceaselessly away from the light, away from reality, your mantra always ringing in my ears “I am the creature who smells your darkest thoughts”. Is there no help for me?

“We’ve got you now.” I hear a voice say far away. ”Nurse, start him on Olanzapine 2.5 milligram’s…”

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, merrildsmith in Prosery invites us to write Of Jaguars and the Night, prose—fiction or nonfiction— up to 144 words, not including the title and incorporating a line from “Jaguar Song” by Artur Sze.

20th July: Ten Things of Thankful

July 20, 2026July 20, 2026humanist55

Things for which I give thanks this week…

1.- The lilies are flowering – this group 0f Stargazers now top six feet high and are scenting this corner outside the front door…

2.- Grats and Hypograts…
On Thursday, I set out for work and at the roundabout where I turn onto the dual carriageway, I gunned the engine rather too suddenly and rounding the corner, I heard something snap.

Luckily, I was able to roll far enough from the roundabout to be reasonably safe but I nevertheless got out an stood well away from the car.

After a reasonably quick recovery, my local garage said they couldn’t look at it until halfway through this week due to staff shortages, they did look underneath and confirmed, as I suspected, that the drive shaft had snapped.

My daughter, Beverley, was off on holiday for two weeks to Ireland with her newly (early) retired husband Don who has just left a very stressful job. She agreed to lend me her car and put me on her insurance (£41.00)

On my way to catch the train to see the dental student in Leeds, I filled the car up with £50 of petrol only to find that the student was ill and hadn’t booked in the appointment and then, on getting home, had a call to say that they had fixed the car already, although it was going to cost twice what they had initially suggested since drive shafts are usually sent off to be refurbished but in this case, as it was actually broken, that couldn’t be done (£380.00)

I was glad to collect my car the next day since I hadn’t really liked driving Beverley’s car – the clutch seemed slack compared to mine, and Beverley will refund the petrol since I didn’t use more than a thimble full… All’s well that ends well and I am resolved to be gentler when accelerating – diesel engines have a lot of torque power…

3.- Whilst at the station, I noticed this nicely framed view of our lovely surrounding countryside and include it for you delectation…

4.- Also at the station, I paused to photograph this bank of self-seeded “weeds” – simply amazed at how many different species there were…

5.- Whilst at the garage, I was intrigued by this unusual vehicle. I am not really a petrol head, in fact quite the opposite, but having briefly owned a VW T4 campervan, I do have a soft spot for the breed. It turns out, this one was built in the ’70s by a company called the Jurgens Caravan Company. VW made a specially strengthened chassis’ with a cab only and Jurgens built a caravan onto it. This particularly rare model with the “Luton” box over the cab, was released in 1977. Pretty good shape for a vehicle made when I had just left university 49 years ago…/

6.- Barbara has not left the house for two weeks despite my best efforts – I am going to have one last go after finishing this, to get her to go out even if it is only to the supermarket to do the week’s shopping – she could then choose her own meals…

7.- The Poetry Postcard Festival is going well – due to being on two lists and therefore having 62 postcards to send, I need to complete 8 each week and have now sent 24! This week, still on the cyanotype kick, I have designed some cards to illustrate poems about famous people (Photoshop, get a picture, fiddle with contrast, posterise, turn black and white, turn negative, make cyanotype) and although I can’t show you the poem as it hasn’t reached the recipient yet, I will eventually be posting them on the PoPoFest Facebook page and I will show you this particular one in a month or so…

8.- This practice of gratitude (not forgetting hypograts) and the support and encouragement that all your lovely comments give me…

9.- Although we have plenty of sun, there is cloud too and a breeze so its not too hot and so far we don’t have a hosepipe ban yet…

10.- found ten grats and am now allowed to go visiting others…

Have a wonderful week everybody…

A Baker’s Dozen

July 17, 2026July 17, 2026humanist55

Ask a baker for a dozen rolls
and he may give you
out of the kindness of his heart
thirteen
a baker’s dozen
so with the Poets Pub
you go there not merely
to read and listen to poems
but for that bit extra…

Artwork in collaboration with Midjourney and unknown artists…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Mish in OpenLinkNight, offers us the chance to post a poem of our choice but it is also the 15th Anniversary of the pub opening its virtual doors to poets from all over the world and so I have decided to repost this poem, my 11th on the site, from back in 2023 since the pub was the subject of this poem…

The Man and the Moon

July 15, 2026July 15, 2026humanist55

Franz von Stuck, “Shooting Stars” (1912)

I thought myself chosen
as the moon kept pace with our car
speeding home through the night
my sister’s squabbling
before falling asleep
I told no one of how the moon
was watching me
occasionally, hiding behind clouds
but always reappearing
the face of the man in the moon
communing with me

By teenage years
I knew the truth
the moon was, well, just a moon
a celestial body orbiting the Earth
sloshing its waters around
to create the tides
and allegedly influencing
lunatics and mayhem
in the general population

If a god had made the world
then what a trickster
to make the circumference
of the Moon, the same
as the Sun seen from Earth
giving rise to panic-inducing
eclipses when peoples as primitive
as my younger self
felt their personal connection
to the god’s of the heavens
imperilled

Eventually, I owned a telescope
and gazed at the moon afresh
as it moved slowly across
my field of view, its details
craters and “seas” in sharp relief
and at the outside of the sphere
the crater walls visible as
a ragged edge and I saw
with newfound clarity
that we live on a planet
with a companion moon
in the vast space
between the stars
and I was once more in awe…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Dora in Poetics, invites us to write about the night and the night sky in particular…

12th July: Ten Things of Thankful

July 12, 2026July 12, 2026humanist55

Things for which I give thanks this week…

1.- The slow-growing Allium flower has now reached it’s final size and fully coloured up…

2.- Talking of slow-growing plants that require patience – we have had this Yucca? for at least 15 years and this is the first time it has flowered – clearly worth waiting for…

When is a weed not a weed?

3.- We live on a backstreet and a bloke from the council comes around with a weed killer spray at least once a year, but this is not really enough to keep the weeds at bay and perhaps also, with this year’s weather, the weeds have flourished but some of them are too pretty to be considered weeds and so the answer to the riddle is “When they are garden escapes!”

No idea what this one is but I award it “Weed of the Week!”

This one is surely a garden escape – some kind of Campanula?

4.- This weed may have struck terror into the hearts of those of you who garden, even in a photograph, or brought on apoplexy, and you may feel that it is inappropriate to allow it anywhere near a gratitude, but i have a sneaking admiration for Equisetum, or Mare’s Tail since in the Carboniferous period, it grew to the size and form of rainforest trees and composes much of the coal that formed then…

5.- This plant is growing in a garden, indeed has been deliberately planted by a neighbour, but it grows wild – hence a weed and so is the opposite of a garden escape lol…

I think it is a Mullein if not a Great Mullein?

6.- Grateful for Municipal plantings…

7.- This butterfly was, I’m sure, grateful for this (weed) Thistle, of some kind…

8.- I awoke to the rising sun reflecting in a tiny beam from the neighbouring houses and striking the net curtains in my bedroom, which have a rather nice pattern of birds, leaves and bird-cages and the sunlight has melded the curtains with the garden plants seen beyond…

9.- My grandson and his girlfriend have just moved into their own flat in London, he is a Doctor and she is P.A. to Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) so they have been able to afford somewhere in London which is quite a feat in this day and age. They have long desired a large painting of mine of a box of fish in a shop doorway in Naxos and so I have given it to them as a house-warming present. it leaves a large hole in the painting array in my bedroom but I’m sure I will fill it… I used to paint so infrequently (still do really) that I hung onto paintings as if to remind me that I still could, but I am learning to let go now…

10.- The Poetry Postcard Festival has begun and somehow, I hav been put on TWO lists and I can hardly withdraw from one so I now have 62 cards and poems to send before the end of August. Good job I have picked a simpler theme of printed cards this year…

Another Cyanotype print – this one near Kettlewell nearby in the Yorkshire Dales. The effect is rather as if the photograph is taken in moonlight…

A random music like which popped up on my Spotify playlist and which I am grateful to a friend for introducing me to…

Have a great week y’all – hope it is neither too hot, too wet or too windy where you are…