time is a big black bird
that swallows you before the dawn
a well of days running dry
harrowing youth with utter scorn
you’re stuck in the bird’s craw
like jonah in the whale’s belly
you’re trapped down deep in a well
like hot water & gemelli
time to clip that bird’s wings
to sharpen up the silver knife
cut open its stinky throat
remove the guts of your half-life
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025
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
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
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
There is only one of these childhood treasures left now. Rest in peace, Mr Oddie. 😔
by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2026
