don’t cry
we’ve a full life, don’t we
with full bellies
& you are here by my side
with love aplenty to fill our sail
own nothing & be happy
is what they’re bound to say
yet we’re happy anyway
are we not
you are mine & i am yours
too many fish in this world
are fighting to be upstream
near the lighthouse seen
no such thing as water in nets
only good days & some regrets
so, let’s be mindful, love
time is a loose spool
& the river winds on
by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025
one life to live, one chance to give
two sides to every story & a chasm between
three words that mean everything: i see you
four pillars of living: compassion, kindness, loyalty, grace
five w’s to every situation: who, what, when, where, why
six degrees, the closest you’ll get to kevin bacon
seven wonders of the world that everyone should see
eight sneezes & you have an orgasm
nine ways to get to sunday
ten minutes, one sixth of a precious hour
by CASSY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025
I found myself among the trees
What time the reapers ceased to reap;
And in the sunflower-blooms the bees
Huddled brown heads and went to sleep,
Rocked by the balsam-breathing breeze.
I saw the red fox leave his lair,
A shaggy shadow, on the knoll;
And tunneling his thoroughfare
Beneath the soil, I watched the mole
Stealth’s own self could not take more care.
I heard the death-moth tick and stir,
Slow-honeycombing through the bark;
I heard the cricket’s drowsy chirr,
And one lone beetle burr the dark
The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.
And then the moon rose: and one white
Low bough of blossoms grown almost
Where, ere you died, ’twas our delight
To meet, dear heart! I thought your ghost…
The wood is haunted since that night.
by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN (1865-1914)
Public Domain Poetry
Gone! and they return no more,
But they leave a light in the heart;
The murmur of waves that kiss a shore
Will never, I know, depart.
Gone! yet with us still they stay,
And their memories throb through life;
The music that hushes or stirs to-day,
Is toned by their calm or strife.
Gone! and yet they never go!
We kneel at the shrine of time:
‘Tis a mystery no man may know,
Nor tell in a poet’s rhyme.
by ABRAM JOSEPH RYAN (1839-1886)
Public Domain Poetry
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o’er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labor be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
And things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence, ripen, fall, and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
by ALFRED LORD TENNYSON (1809-1892)
Public Domain Poetry
unbolt me 