on tenterhooks: summer in central Portugal 2025
based on a true story as we watched wildfires creep closer around the mountain and viewed the bloody sun through the ubiquitous veil of smoke that filled both the sky and our lungs…
matters of concern (aka trust the science?)
Matters of conCERN (aka Trust the Science?) Did the Great Collider really openA Stargate to another dimension?Will researchers dine off stories‘Til they receive their pension?Was the unknown entity merelyHaving an inter-dimensional laughWhen it joined them at their tableThen made off with a scarf? Are ‘chemtrails’ real (as some insist?)Are air-borne nano-particles an issueIf they float-down […]
thinking happy thoughts
“Thinking happy thoughts” … Hence a reflective ‘work-in-progress’ inspired by my previous studies and current investigations into AI.. The Price of Innovation Kondratieff waved at me and said “The world will change before you go to bed. Before you sleep there will be many tears And any remnant hope there is will Come liberally spiced […]
‘reality’ (they say…)
Sitting in the shade in contemplation… this is what happens (work in progress first drafted 07/06/2025 16:30hr Lisbon time) ‘Reality’ (They Say…) They say that none of ‘it’ is realThey say that ‘it’ doesn’t existWe’re living in a simulation(Though opinion on this is mixed) They say we experience dualityCreated from ones-and-zerosAnd we should simply bow […]
enlightenment
Quickly drafted, it might yet ‘evolve’ if I become more switched-on… a response to lights going out all over Portugal when the system got so easily overloaded in Spain (April 2025)!! Enlightenment Across the PeninsulaDarkness descendedAll were disempoweredAnd life was upended Sticky jams on the roadsStopping trains, grounding planesShops could not take cardsAnd so chaos […]
some of all things
some think this, others that: it is the foundation of human individuality, but also of division… and yet no one truly knows who if anyone is right and who wrong… except in some obvious cases 🙂 Some of all things… Some people speak of karmaAnd some believe in fateThere are those who think you face […]
the nihilist
something or nothing? post-christmas nihilism. a momentary inspiration that resulted in the following poem: the nihilist I’m making a nihilistI’m checking me twice(Still trying to find outIf I’m “naughty or nice”) If life is just futileAnd nothing has mattered –Won’t it have been pointlessWhen all brains are scattered? If cities should crumbleAnd the planet implodeAnd […]
some passing thoughts on death
(initially written as a brief response to the suggestion that ‘people aren’t afraid of death but afraid of the uncertainty of what comes after death’:) even ‘Death’ can become a matter of ‘fight or flight’. But if there is fear then I think that it is not so much the fear of what may be […]
homage to sir john betjeman
I had a fondness for Sir John Betjeman back in the 70’s. His influence has since often left an imprint on my own output, dare I suggest? But now It’s intriguing, and not a little disturbing, that his spirit can be so readily invoked to live on… A new poem prompted (by me — which […]
what did nostradamus see?
another short poem for the moment… ‘The Seer-Saw’ Is this what Nostradamus saw? In quatrains foretelling earthly Hell Of fires and strife, of flames and war Such scenes as these it seems could well Have been what filled the seer’s mind And made him wont to write of doom Of burning lands and angry mobs, […]