Tag Archives: Loneliness

field & sky (second look)

those ravens, they tell me to get happy or else
but an empty smile is all they’ll get from me

they cannot possibly see
these hellish thorns inside of me
(scraping me raw)
my tired hollow bones
inside a mess of straw & meat

it’s so hard to be alive
so much easier to be dead
but neither thing seems to like me
look, i’m still here

scarecrow in a grain fed wind
tossed by amber waves
coasting in a lonely life
there’s no way out

those vultures, how can they understand
they say if i’m not happy then to get lost
don’t they realise i already am

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2009

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

sometimes…

sometimes a lone leaf on a tree
has more poesy than a whole book
sometimes a lone page in a book
has more mosey than the hole in me

sometimes a lone me in a tree
has no more pith than a hole for a heart
sometimes a lone hole for a heart
has no more kith than cliff and scree

is this how it’s gotta be
an empath tipping from reality
into the inscrutable

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2023

GUEST POST // After Goodbye by SonOfDewangan

Two winters have already passed by
Two whole years without sadness, without joy.
The memories are still alive & fresh in my mind
Not alone, but still lonely most of the time.

Imagine a world where the past was different
Where we wouldn’t hurt each other
Our suns shone alone on different skies
Where our tears still rolled out
But not through each others’ eyes

A butterfly passes me by,
wings carrying storms of your place.
Sunlight reflects on its wings.
As if a long forgotten melody it sings

Carry on, as if it doesn’t matter.
We have been long alone together

Carry on, it doesn’t really change.
The fact that our lives we live are strange.

Carry on, Carry on till the piper plays.
Carry on, till the our paths cross again.

by SONOFDEWANGAN
© All rights reserved 2020

SIX WORD STORY #74 // Winter…

…built a frozen tower of solitude.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020