Month: November 2024

Old Dragon

humanist55

I am an old Dragon
To be precise an Old Draconian
Old in man years anyway
Almost three score years and ten
Though that is probably young
As dragons go – joined in ‘62
Leaving class of ‘66.

We wore a uniform of
Rufty-tufty, navy-blue corduroy
No namby-pamby
“How To Train Your Dragon” this…
Boys with siblings from older clutches
Inherited the faded battle dress style
Uniforms – wore them with pride.

We learned to swim in a river
Conquering our fear of Willow roots
Reaching for our doggy paddling legs
And on the playing fields in late summer
A whole barrel of cherries would appear
For our delectation and at another time
Also, we presumed, the gift of an Old Dragon
A crate of pomegranates appeared
To introduce our tastebuds to the exotic.

Seasonally, we played marbles
Tricky enough when our playground
Sloped from all directions
To a central drain and my best friend
Espying the gathered horde collected there
Lifted the grate and clawed up
Aggies, bottle tops and common spirals
But lost a nail replacing
The heavy cast iron piece
Causing blood to flow
Unfelt with the shock.

Most Dragons scions
Of the rich and good of the land
Knowing their path to wealth
Would be smoothed at every step
But I came from humbler stock
Yet my parents, believing that
Rubbing shoulders with the best
– Though not a comfortable experience
For the young dragon, I was-
Suffering mildly from imposter syndrome
– Would alone be preparation
For life’s later battles
They scrimped and saved
That I might attend
The Dragon School, Oxford…

Andrew Wilson, 2024

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, kim881 in Poetics invites us to write about Legendary Creatures which as you have read, I, albeit modestly, must count myself amongst…
https://www.dragonschool.org/

Fake News

humanist55

The last time that the president-elect was indisputably seen in public, was at his inaugural rally at which a third presumed unsuccessful attempt on his life resulted in his being whisked away and out of sight.
After a night of panic by his supporters, a reassuring video was released of the now President, sitting up in his hospital bed and raising a fist in a defiant gesture. Thereafter, the POTUS made no live appearances, his team stating that three attempts on his life were quite enough.
The irony was that the techniques which had served the president during his candidacy for re-election, to smear opponents, were now used to supplant the presence of the ageing and unstable would-be dictator. Deep fakes, AI-generated speeches flowed forth, for God knows, there were enough speeches to train the AIs in the rambling, vitriolic, and emotion-soaked appeal that was the President’s trademark. The crew that had pushed the president forward over the last four years, not to mention his long-suffering wife, breathed a sigh of relief and prompted the AIs to generate a more coherent presidency which went exactly to plan…

Winter has come forth
freezing forever the fruit
of misbegotten dreams…

Andrew Wilson, 2024

Over at dVerse Poets Pub,  Frank J. Tassone in Haibun Monday dares us to create a sci-fi Haibun…

Wind Riven

humanist55

Two types of wind encircle the earth
Trades, Westerlies and Easterlies
Blow steady and dependable

They let wind sailors venture forth
West-East, East-West, trade routes they plied.
Moving Saharan red dust fabled

Steering the cyclone’s rushing curse
Yet land too creates strong breezes
Sometimes too, quite seasonable

Hot, cold, blowing for all they’re worth
Wet, dry, flood, drought, make people flee
Winds can smash man’s plans to rubble

Or bring the life-sustaining rain
 – Wind never the same – blows again…

Andrew Wilson, 2024


A ship sailing in very light winds leaving the Doldrums from “Sailing Round Cape Horn” by Gunther t. Schultz – an artist’s record of the last days of commercial sailing ships. 1954 – London – Hodder & Stoughton

Over at dVersePoets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, invites us to write a Trillonet on the subject of Wild Winds…
A Trillonet is a special form of sonnet comprising:

14 lines
4 tercets (3 line stanzas) ending with a rhyming couplet
rhymes scheme is ABC, ABC, ABC, ABC, AA (or BB or CC or DD)
in iambic pentameter of 10 syllables (5 feet) per line
or iambic tetrameter of 8 syllables (4 feet) per line

Fouling the Nest…

humanist55
Image by Andrew Ridley

Are we in the Autumn of our days
will civilisation as we like to call it
fade to red and wither beneath
climate over warmed skies

when skies are hanged and oceans drowned,
the single secret will still be man*
who has fouled his nest
which is the whole world

watching the world go by for lockdown hours
viewing live streams from the ISS
the Booker winning author of ‘Orbital’
reflected on our devastating impact

mostly at night the impact of man’s
expansion to every corner of the Earth
can be seen spelt out in light pollution
other damage scarcely visible from space

damage like smoke from wildfires
once natural – now stoked by climate change
more frequent hurricanes and worse…
and one-time lakes and reservoirs now dry

these things you may see from space
however pristine the planet appears
but the truth is out there
and space itself is littered with debris

a layer of debris – mainly plastic
marks the Anthropocene
and future, alien archaeologists
may label the sign of our demise as –

fouled nest syndrome…

Andrew Wilson, 2024
Last night down the dVerse Poets Pub, Melissa Lemay in Poetics offers us reflection as a prompt of the photo above paired with the italicised lines marked *. The lines are taken from “[what if a much of a which of a wind]” by E. E. Cummings.

Whatever…

humanist55

If it’s true we grow to look like our pets
what possesses someone to buy a Sphinx?

What do Gay people look like
and can straight people bend?

What if they’re right?

Whatever we think we are doing with
social media – is it true?

© Andrew Wilson, 2024

Tonight, over at dVerse Poets Pub, whimsygizmo in Quadrille 212 asks us to contemplate What the What?
(A Quadrille is a poem written in exactly 44 words…)

Ubuntu

humanist55

When our humanity falters

In so many places

And what really matters

Is trounced in so many ways

When dictators are not just

A “Third” World affliction

Which “First” encouraged, in moral dereliction

And now is itself spotted like rust

With rampant would-be elite Fascism

We can draw back from the abyss

For democracy is no mere -ism

If. “humanity” no longer resonates, then think on this

There are other words from other places you

Can use so why not try “Ubuntu”?

© Andrew Wilson, 2024

Ubuntu is not just a philosophical concept but a way of life that influences social interactions, justice, and community building. It reminds us of our shared humanity and the importance of supporting one another.

Over at Reena’s Xploration Challenge, Reena Saxena invites us to write about the concept of Ubuntu.