Tag Archives: Life and death

overcooked

there’s a flame in the heart of mankind
that time & tide long to extinguish
from the first fires of the cavemen
to the rockets of dim oligarchs

the torches along the tower walk
a monk’s passage towards the heavens
from the gloom of the middle ages
to supposedly more enlightened times

if we cannot adapt
then we are cooked
all the tines in our guts
how are we not forked

a torch is lit in olympia
an eternal flame recalls the war
nothing has changed through the course of time
just the way in which we’ve stored the launch codes

an appetite for self-destruction
burns within the desire to live
the heart of al dente common sense
3-star michelin vaut le voyage

if we will not adapt
then we are royally cooked
all of time in the guts
how are we not forked

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Ode To Man. by Thomas Frederick Young

A man is not what oft he seems,
On this terrestrial sphere,
No pow’r to wield, no honor’d place,
Oft curb his spirit here.

He knows not what within him lies,
Until his pow’rs be tried,
And when for them some use is found,
They spring from where they hide,

To startle and to puzzle him,
Who never knew their force,
Because his unfreed spirit kept
A low and shackl’d course.

Dishearten’d and despairing, he
Had often sigh’d alone,
Not thinking that in other ways
His spirit might have grown.

Not thinking that another course,
Which needed pluck and vim,
Might raise his drowning spirit high,
And teach it how to swim;

To battle with the rolling tide,
That hurries onward men,
And raise his head above the waves,
That come and go again.

by THOMAS FREDERICK YOUNG (1892-1940)
Public Domain Poetry

dum spiro spero

a grain doesn’t know where it falls
it trusts in the hand of the sower
but trust can be as blind as the bat
that beats it down even lower
into the ground

a grain doesn’t know where it falls
it trusts in the richness of the soil
but soil can spoil in the winter
where it becomes harder to toil
into nature’s crown

a grain doesn’t know where it falls
it can only sprout up in bare faith
but faith can be pared down further
by the taxman’s loathing of waste
in for a pound

a grain doesn’t know where it falls
can bloom ‘tween stones with its last gasp
but a last gasp is as transient
as a world that burns in the blast
of a nuked town

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

Tumblevision #43

There is only one of these childhood treasures left now. Rest in peace, Mr Oddie. 😔

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2026

ask nothing

infinity
a crumb, our collective mind
from the day we are born
we’re enmired in longing
& we reach all our lives as if
our slow death has barely begun

infinity
we’re avoiding in the rain again
as it washes away the tears
past stars inert down the lane
dare we to wear our insides out
like we were ever here

who are we to hope for love
as we lift our heads above
the skies could fall any moment
how on earth are we alive

infinity
too many arks on mountains
for any of them to be the one
our jesus is nothing
our buddhas are nothing
so too our drowned expectations

infinity
it’s another god for the blind
yet we feel that white room calling
boundless, all walls fallen away
we’re dispossessed in night’s array
how heavenly the stars

who are we to hope for love
as we lift our heads above
each moment an accusation
how are we still alive

what if infinity left us blind
to vanish beneath the sands of time
& yet we hope
yet we love
we live

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025