a faraway shore

do you think of me
walking past that ferris wheel
in the desert dark
long after the meadowlark
has left for songs yonder rue

do you think of me
standing on that worn jetty
a faraway face
framed within lost time & space
on abstracted rueful sands

do you think of me
hearing the song of the sea
near that ferris wheel
in a desert shell to heal
from rue the day we parted

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

a collapsed star

i was the sun made incarnate
& it was there that i did opine
pearls dripping with red wine
wisdom for the ages
but do you remember now
how you’d demanded this of me
if i was to earn your love
then i would first need to burn

the day you took my hand
entangled it in your bracken blest
i knew i wanted forever like this

when i was klept in awe of you
when sang you into my clenched fist
when the deafness of your devotion
enkindled my blindness
each bluff was rendered null & void
& every dot became a star
then from between your thighs
an akeldama enflamed the earth

the day you stole this land
entangled me in your bracken blest
i knew i needed forever like this

but then you spurned me
forsook the lifeblood of us
it had taken two to tango
& three to dare enshroud
four became a muffled roar
five fingers pressed to make a fist
of shared remonstrations

the day you withdrew my hand
untangled it from your bracken blest
i knew forever would end like this

so i guttered & then i waned
darkness fell across the earth

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // The Poet Care by Victor James Daley

Care is a Poet fine:
He works in shade or shine,
And leaves, you know his sign!
No day without its line.

He writes with iron pen
Upon the brows of men;
Faint lines at first, and then
He scores them in again.

His touch at first is light
On Beauty’s brow of white;
The old churl loves to write
On foreheads broad and bright.

A line for young love crossed,
A line for fair hopes lost
In an untimely frost,
A line that means Thou Wast.

Then deeper script appears:
The furrows of dim fears,
The traces of old tears,
The tide-marks of the years.

To him with sight made strong
By suffering and wrong,
The brows of all the throng
Are eloquent with song.

by VICTOR JAMES DALEY (1858-1905)
Public Domain Poetry

smoking kills

today our god smoked a lot
just look at those heavy clouds
then he took a massive piss
for nine hundred sixty hours

noah chopped huge planks of wood
did it with his chopping fist
slapped together a wee boat
before the waters could rise

the re’em poked its nose inside
but noah shooed it away
It was crowded & stuffy
re’ems were bigger than blue whales

upset, the re’em craned its neck
& pricked god’s arse with its horn
upset, god smote the re’em back
right up its almighty crack

then the firmament crackled
& the waters subsided
like gurgling down a drain hole
along with the re’em’s remains

noah’s wee boat went aground
atop a big arse mountain
creatures piled out & ran off
scattering every which way

noah then got himself drunk
pitched a tent, slept in the buff
put one son in a tizzy
the others covered his bits

happily ever after
multiply & fill the earth
venerate or freaking else
these our smoking god decreed

as a sign of his good grace
covenant with man & beast
a rainbow was set in clouds
then the gays came & stole it

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

fumes & booms

don’t light a cigarette
in a house of oily rags
if you do, be ready to
extinguish your reeky buns
‘cos methane doesn’t come
only from cross volcanoes
& farting has never been
an insured accident
so, eat way less baked beans
if you really want to live
or better, just stop smoking
go on a jet ski trip instead

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024