dVerse Poets Pub

A New Call to Revolution

humanist55
Demonstrators gather during a “No Kings” protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 18, 2025.


A nation birthed by bold revolution
now suffering a jumped-up would-be King
despite the founders’ strong constitution
how could their law be such a broken thing
– poisoned so, by the cunning fascist’s sting…
The tyrant can’t be broken using force
– garnered a band of brutish thugs of course
but being laughed at – one thing he can’t stand
marching in fancy dress, one such recourse
a steadfast, strong and democratic band!

© Andrew Wilson, 2025 – But feel free to share…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Grace in Poetry Forms, invites us to write a Dizain – ten lines of ten syllables and a rhyme scheme of ABABBCCDCD.

Denise and Rich Heinrich in Scottsdale for on Oct. 18, 2025 for No Kings’ Day.

Monarch

humanist55

I am one of the fortunate ones
a member of the last cycle of breeding
in the North American summer
and as such I got to fly South
past California – could have stopped there
but by then I had the travel bug
and I, and many of my cohort
carried on to Mexico, not for the heat
Oh no! We settled in the great pine forest
in the mountains, where it was warm enough
as long as we huddled together
to survive the winter

We curtained the trees with our colour
– the reason we are called monarchs
allegedly – orange in honour of
William the Third of England – William of Orange
– so I guess we were named by the Brits
before the proto-Republicans got their act together
and kicked their oppressors out
– anyway, the name stuck
and no one thought fit to change it
even now, when Americans are driven
to hold “No Kings!” parades – we butterflies
– the most numerous in North America
retain our royal soubriquet
and regal we were as we rose
en masse from the Mexican trees
to head North again for the summer
and it’s not just for the food of course
but for the perpetuation of the species

I would like to tell you of my life
as a caterpillar and later a pupa
but as I overheard a young teacher
explaining to his class
what happens inside the pupal case
is so complete a transformation
it’s as if we liquefy and alchemically
transform into a completely new creature
and with it, gone all memories
of that earlier life – of course
– we see them – the caterpillars
our offspring
munching their way through milkweed
but I can’t imagine their lives
ae very interesting – not compared
to we adults, travelling thousands of miles
seeing the sights, hanging out together
and then becoming one of the sights ourselves
– a wonder of nature!

That teacher also said that
we are of the genus Danaus
Which is perhaps the masculine
of Danae upon whose great- great-grand daughter
Zeus came as a shower of gold
– and that is surely a fitting origin
story for the naming of we Monarchs…

© Andrew Wilson, 2025

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, it is Open Link Night and lillian invites us to submit a poem of our own choice and if possible, to join on Saturday to read them out live…

This poem came out of my writing group, where, after reading The Promotion by James Tate, we were prompted to write the compressed life story of a previous life as an animal…

Reliable Rain After Lunch

humanist55

“Four seasons in one day”
sang Crowded House and
as you draw nearer to the Equator
all the seasons happen
in every day’s cycle

In Tennerife, north side
of the island
you wake to blue skies
and yet already a wisp
of cloud pours over the lip
of Mount Teide like
the tentative sign of
an eruption by this
still hot to the touch
at the top, relatively
sleeping giant, but
as the morning wears on
the cloud finds it’s level
and spreads less threateningly
over the pine forests
below the crater edge
shrouding them in fog
on out over the banana
plantations that surround
Puerto de la Cruz
then on over the city itself
where, just after lunch
they deliver their own
micro-seasonal rain
hardly worth the
unfurling of an umbrella
but nurturing the bananas
as reliable as clockwork
except when the occasional
Atlantic storm disrupts
the proceedings
and having delivered their
promise, the clouds dissolve
and the season of
sunny evening takes their place…

© Andrew Wilson, 2025

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, kim881 in Poetics, invites us to write about “micro-seasons” after the Japanese custom of dividing their year not just into four seasons but into seventy-two “micro-seasons” such as ‘frogs start singing’ and ‘crickets chirp around the door’…

Tomorrow

humanist55

“…Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…”
From “My Epitaph, Written in Sprigs of Dill” Gunther Grass

Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything
The food I eat, though it’s too much
And I don’t want to see my guilt
For taking my small comfort there

Sitting down at my computer
Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything
Thoughts in emails to far-flung friends
Work will intrude briefly, perhaps

Poetry, words of protest hot
Letters within my novel too
Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything
Living my life there on the page

Days of action now mostly past
Memories wrestling with new thoughts
Both are rich seams for me to mine
Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…

© Andrew Wilson, 2025

Over at dVerse Poets Pub,  Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft invites us to celebrate the birth day of Günter Grass who, as well as being a ‘politically engaged’ German novelist, was also a poet…

October No More…

humanist55

October, you are no more the harbinger of Autumn
The green elm with the one great bough of gold
came in late August – the yellowing of drought
stealing the march on your glorious displays
and dooming those boughs to die with your first frost
for those burned leaves made no antifreeze
for the tree to suck back in before the leaves
their final purpose fulfilled
into the grass slip[ped] one by one…
And too came branches near breaking with berries
their colour near drowning out the last green leaves
turning the trees a brown when seen from afar
another false Autumnal hue and a feast too early
for the migrant birds which land in October
they will find the berries gone over, their bounty wasted
and now the land is draped in true October colours
we may be lulled into thinking the season too runs true
but like those birds in coming hunger mired
will Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due,
awake to the unseasonal “beast from the East”
or interminable drought or rain or heat?
October you are not the only month no longer
acting true to expectations – all is climate changed…

© Andrew Wilson, 2025


The italicised lines are taken from “October” by Edward Thomas, 1915.

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Dora in Poetics invites us to trip the October Light Fantastic and although that beautiful display has begun, it is not the whole story this year, and indeed, for coming years, and I find I cannot celebrate with unalloyed pleasure…

They Dream of Solidarity

humanist55

We are The dreamers of dreams
But they are the creators of nightmares
She cannot bear to listen to the news now
He oscillates between feeling fury and futility
They control the narrative with false news
We cannot believe the lies that others will swallow
They wave false flags to justify
Their repressive responses
We wonder where the bullies came from
That swell their ranks
They raise their fists in anger
We throw up our hands in horror
They wave their guns in the air
We waiver in fear for our lives
But he nurtures resistance
And she writes poems and placards
He investigates logistics
She strategizes
They start a movement
Others join the march
All are non-violent but
They shout “We the People!”
And congregate to be counted
He who would be strong
Looks weaker by the day
They garner solidarity
We can push back
I can have hope…

© Andrew Wilson, 2025

The opening line of this poem is taken from “Ode” by the poet  Arthur O’Shaughnessy and first published in 1873.[1] It is the first poem in O’Shaughnessy’s collection Music and Moonlight (1874). In it, he extols the role of artists in creating new worlds and the poem was put to music by Edward Elgar as The Music Makers (Op. 69) – Elgar’s final choral work. Both poem and choral piece should inspire us to come our of the shadows currently being cast by authoritarian regimes around the world today, and to stand together…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub,  Björn Rudberg (brudberg) in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, challenges us to adopt a different POV – through the use of different pronouns, we can move out of our (sometimes) preferred First Person Point of View…

Opposites

humanist55

Black and white
surely opposites?
Yin and Yang
perfectly nested
complete a circle
no mixing, no grey areas

White light is a mixture
of all the colours
whilst dark is the
absence of light
light’s shadow friend
inseparable

For as long as stars
burn bright with light
and there are objects
arrayed to block the light
then there must necessarily
be shadow until
all the stars go out

When we paint we
use chiaroscuro to
bring our canvasses to life
light and dark to throw
our subjects into relief
to shade them – then we see

that shadows are not
universally dark but
illuminated by reflection
of the light from other objects
whose colour has sucked dry
those hues that are not it’s to own

Yellow swallows everything
that we do not deem yellow
and reflected into neighbouring
shadow – a hint of gold
will now suffuse the shade
making it less than black

Nowhere is free from
scattered light and so
no white nor black
are wholly pure
Yin and Yang
a pure conceit

Shadows are shades
of other colours who
are merely filters that
absorb some wavelengths
reflect back the rest
to our miraculous eye

Watercolourists work
with transparent hues
whilst oil painters apply
solid, light-absorbing paint
and TVs shine out light
and print must duller be

We swim in a milieu
of light and filters
making shades of hues
and dappling shadows
with subtle colour – we are all
in reality, impressionists…

© Andrew Wilson, 2025

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Grace is hosting Open Link Night when you can post a poem of your own choosing. This one was written for the monthly poetry group at my local library, a small and distinctly analogue group whose subject this month was Opposites…

Finding Happiness

humanist55

The pursuit of Happyness
is not a straightforward path
signposted clearly for each of us
to follow to our heart’s content

Stumbling on happiness
is nearer the mark – a series of
Happy Accidents amidst the
inevitable unhappy stumbles

One person’s happiness
is another’s purgatory
so distrust universal guides
like The art of happiness

Happiness cannot be regulated
and a Ministry of utmost happiness
would never dare be adopted by
any government for fear of failure

to meet the metrics and achieve even
More happy than not let alone promise
a triple locked happiness
quota for all…

Happiness is a choice asserts
Neil Kaufman but try telling that
to one who is not
Stumbling on Happinesss

and can happiness be described
without reference to it’s opposite
The Happy Prince is a tale that
will leave you moved to tears

So when you find your own source of
happiness, don’t proselytise for it
to be universally adopted but
carry your flame wrapped in your heart…

© Andrew Wilson, 2025

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Punam – paeansunplugged in Poetics, Uncategorized, invites us to write about Happiness and offers a series of titles which we may choose to use one or more of – not wanting to make any of the authors feel left out and unhappy, I went for all of them…

1.The pursuit of Happyness by Chris Gardener

2. Happy Accidents: A memoir by Jane Lynch

3. The ministry of utmost happiness by Arundhati Roy

4. Stumbling on happiness by Daniel Todd Gilbert

5. The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde

6. The art of happiness by the Dalai Lama

7. More happy than not by Adam Silvera

8. Happiness is a choice by Neil Kaufman

Health Conscious…

humanist55

Give me not statins
those white little pills
give me good greens
let me not eat too much red meat
whose production decimates
our blue marble planet
white meat takes a lesser toll
I will not eschew the yellow yolks
of eggs and go full vegan
limited to the orange, brown
and greens of lentils
the gold of grains the
white of rice and others
of the blond grasses
but let me sway more
in their direction
– to healthy balance
whatever colour that is…

© Andrew Wilson, 2025

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, invites us to write a poem with a colour motif and optionally, an Imagist poem.

  • take one or more literal colours (not a fancy colour name)
  • repeat the colour word(s) throughout the poem (e.g. refrain; anaphora, epistrophe)
  • use colour synonyms
  • employ colour with its specific meaning to the poem’s theme
  • let your colour motif(s) also become symbolic
  • Your poetry style is optional but you may want to experiment with Imagism. If so these are the guidelines:
  • Use language of common speech. direct and economical, using common words and phrases.
  • Embrace free verse. Disregard poetic meter but rather, focus on the rhythm of your phrases
  • Your choice of subject should reflect real life