Author Archives: Tony Single

for sanity’s sake

here between the seasons
the drought & hoped for rains
how on earth we prevail is
a puzzle for analytical minds
we try one smile on at a time

one smile at a time
to keep that sultry darkness at bay
one smile at a time
but perhaps today is not that day
mayhap i wish to sluttily lay
in disarray like i belong
& die erelong

but life goes on
while i whore myself to ruination
& smile along with the twee
their cock-a-hoop clarity in
hopes that we might cohabitate
in peace between drought & rain

& life goes on
one smile at a time

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

how about love

are you the right hand of god
are you the hand left in darkness
well, never you mind, boy
be a man & do no harm
lay down your arms, boy
lay down your arms

bear your holly crown, boy
bear it with compassion for
your turn in the sun is nearly over
& soon i hope you’ll understand
that lust for legacy’s absurd
death & glory are just words

never you mind your pretty head
you could be dancing in the rain
just lay down your arms, boy
be a man & do no harm
lay down your arms

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

novitiate

a girl sits above the river
her hair golden in the sun
eyes silver beneath the moon

coins scatter to the shallows
more wishes for rippling stars
& water striders in the gloom

her song flows with milk & honey
something about faraway lands
blest by radiant summers thrice

is myrtle the plant or her name
is she fertility’s virgin maid
or is she a mere whore for christ

who will know, let’s leave her alone
let her sit above the river
singing her inscrutable song

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

Tumblevision #32

Let’s be very clear. The man was a dangerous bigot that didn’t care whose lives his toxic rhetoric impacted. Did that make him deserving of being murdered? Of course not. But I’m also not obligated to give a tinker’s damn about him just because he’s dead now. What I’m more concerned with is the facile whitewashing of the real and measurable harm his weaponised words did to the most vulnerable groups in our society when he was alive. His murder solves nothing. It only adds fuel to the fire. He’s now a martyr for the bad faith bigots out there, emboldening them to do much worse, and all in the name of intolerance. That is not a good thing and nor was he.

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Critic And Poet. by Emma Lazarus

An Apologue.

(“Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned; this man is neither simple, sensuous, nor impassioned; therefore he is not a poet.”)

No man had ever heard a nightingale,
When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirred
To study and define – what is a bird,
To classify by rote and book, nor fail
To mark its structure and to note the scale
Whereon its song might possibly be heard.
Thus far, no farther; – so he spake the word.
When of a sudden, – hark, the nightingale!

Oh deeper, higher than he could divine
That all-unearthly, untaught strain! He saw
The plain, brown warbler, unabashed. “Not mine”
(He cried) “the error of this fatal flaw.
No bird is this, it soars beyond my line,
Were it a bird, ‘t would answer to my law.”

by EMMA LAZARUS (1849-1887)
Public Domain Poetry