do the right thing

now i see that i
add not a jot of value
shall i lay me down
let them press on with their days
fruitful afore & after

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

the distance

the eyes that skew away again
from what i have known all along
betray i’ll never be one of them
a stranger to their bonny world

their monuments hold to gravitas
even when living memory fades
as i maunder these streets alone
dust sieves through my pantomime veins

a thousand years ago today
the only space i’ve left for feeling
when i realise that no one’s waiting
that their light is all yet not in all
then i’ve never felt so far away

well, it’s not always been suffering
they tap me whenever i’m of use
yet their smiles mask the expiry date
a time to back off, to know my place

& i see that their sun too has left
will not anchor me to my shadow
that their moon with its pinprick halo
will not grant even slenderest grace

a thousand years ago today
the only space allowed for feeling
when i realise nobody’s coming
that their light is all yet not for all
then i’ve never been so far away

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

numen mentis

there’s whale song lilting in my brain
e’er beyond a distant shore
away from the fever dreams i
had circumnavigated
to be with you

in stoic avoidance i’d
edged between foam and dune
got shipwrecked in lieu of belonging
and realised this place was ne’er home
nor bullion of promises meant for me

was it e’er only me
this resolve i had to follow you

had it e’er been the face of god
that mine hands held out to enfold

there’s waters swelling o’er that shore
nigh on the embankment of my brain
and the whale song serenade
decrying happy e’er once upons
i finally see that i was satan all along

and ‘tween these flashes of meaning i
espy twin trails o’er bleary sands
one forged with longing, the other you
anchored away from expectation
the fading proof of our story

had i e’er only been
this resolve straining for you

was it e’er truly the face of god
or mine hands beheld to the prints of darkness

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

never wake

it feels like i’m falling away
like you don’t want me to care
then tell me, why am i here
tell me why i’m anywhere

all that i’ve held onto
i guess it doesn’t mean a damn
fain just let me disappear

the nothing i had, you burned it all
so at least let me be warmed a little while
gift me a last unbeholden smile
then tell me why, why won’t i die

all that i’ve clung onto
i guess it isn’t worth a damn
fain just let me disappear

it feels like you don’t want me to feel
i’m the face you’ve unseen behind the door
don’t tell me to dry my tears
don’t tell me anything at all

everything you said
was all i ever knew
everywhere i trod
was to keep pace with you
everything i felt
now everything imbued
i’ve never needed you more
to enslave myself to you

you’re the stone that weighs within me
beneath this binding arc of decay
lo, i am death, lo, i am sleep

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2018

ABSURDIS EXTREME // Case Study #643 [23/09/2977] by B.A. Loney

This is the story of a strange phenomena. It was a lonely phenomena that kept happening in all the wrong places to all the wrong people, so naturally it was feared. But you shouldn’t blame it, truly. Its intentions were the right ones, and there’s nothing wrong with trying to make the wrong places and wrong people right, eh?

So, how did this lonely phenomena present itself to the world? Well, in the only way it knew how. It was a presence in a room—the darker the better. It’d sneak up to the wrong persons and whisper the right things, right into their ears. Yes, the right things. Right into their ears. No wonder they shat blue lights! Anyone would. And as they shat themselves, the dark room would become lighter and bluer so that there was no darkness left at all.

The lonely phenomena thought it was doing a good thing, but when the room became well lit, the people it had whispered to would see that there was nothing there, and shit themselves even more. They’d freak out, maybe even cry a bit, and run screaming from the room. And so it was that everything became wronger. Wronger and wronger. So wrong, in fact, that the lonely phenomena eventually gave up and stepped off a very tall building one day.

No one has had anything scary—or even a little untoward—happen to them since.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2019