Leigh Hunt's double quatrain -linked centres around 'Time you thief' ,a bio romantic memory of youth from the nostalgia of old age...a typical recurring happening I can confirm as someone very aged myself
Tide thins over pitted sandstone.
A knot of kelp loosens itself.
Under a skin of clear water,
something palm-sized breathes
among seagrass and Neptune’s necklace.
A bare foot pauses above the pool.
A child’s hand makes a shadow.
Its arms pour through a crack in the stone,
tasting the rock with pale suckers.
The creature answers
with rings of impossible light—
beautiful as jewellery.
Now blue:
not sky-blue, not water-blue—
blue struck from a wire,
blue coins opening,
small halos switched on
around dark centres,
exact as a warning sign.
The tide turns in the pool,
lifting the necklace of beads.
One by one, the blue coins close.
It becomes a dark shadow,
folded into the rock’s breathing—
a small secrecy the tide cannot name.
no thoughts tornadoed continents waiting
our ignited centres spaced dichotomy
unnamed species inhabited surrounds
we knew not of wisdom pounds
too much ayahuasca in the Amazon
__________________________
Gold Winner Poem
Allpoetry August 26
Brevity Contest
Prompt: Hallucinatory
The Big One and the Small One,
They held hands in the cosmos,
Before they came here.
They chose one another,
To learn from,
To try things,
To look back,
To try again.
They didn't know it at first,
But nothing happened out of the blue.
The stars had aligned,
Their sizes different but centres the same.
The Big One...
And the Small One.
Invisible before they were here,
floating and preparing,
Now their hands can feel and their eyes can see.
It seemed familiar, like they'd met before.
The Big One and the Small One,
Always meant to be,
A seed planted at the source,
A flower blooming and cycling.
What a blessing to witness
The End.
Kudos Erin, I salute your gumption, in sifting for the realitys of some intended
Data centres; projected in positive themed
And Proposed assumptions, Millions will be impacted and the environmental hit.! its
Set to make nonsense, of initiatives over 60 Years morhped into laws, with much fanfare and
Moral cheer' grafting into the syncronicity
And awareness of almost everywhere.?From villages through to citys.' Now the
Rug is being pulled, though threadbare
And fraying bad.' With realisation that we've
All been had.? Its simple enough i think you'll find, you can see the change to real sustainability, yet in this you need to find; take
Part and be aware' or as its known you'll
Become the most un-believable square.!!!
Get data smart, don't let them start.' Such Intended centers, strike at the real heart' of all
Eco-log-istics, and world climate resolutions.' Resultant scars on the earth would
Be a hostile intrusion, defacing and squandering available and sustainable resources..I point out the trampling
And tearing of our
Earth.' We must apply all our recourses.'
To arrest such desecration, resist in all
And any manner, be firm stand fast and
Into this machinery, lets throw every
Bloody spanner !
Each ivory tower needs so much power and water
Society is the fall guy for the pie in the sky AI lie
Cultures savaged ravaged caricatures by vultures
Slyly trying to deflower mother nature’s daughter
Dodgy dealing resources stealing planet’s reeling
Preach each data centre like a cultural placenta
Layers peeling players say mentor no glass ceiling
Am a lamenter of break neck tech wreck dementor
No healing waste from haste paste without feeling
We’ve heard it before the computer is our future
Smoke and mirrors AI on the fly the latest suitor
Us all just a data commuter for a leech not tutor
Beseech purloining then coining no way to teach
The conceit of the deceit is an elite cheat ripsnorter
Train bots brain rots turns us into tots & lots of have nots
Only glower of people power can stop the slaughter
quantum gates open
peace centres rotate
light waves and particles jump
non-local, then ~ here-now
peace centres rotate
expanding human frequency
non-local, then ~ here-now
consciousness stretch
expanding human frequency
quantum gates close
consciousness stretch
portals removed
quantum gates close
peace centres blocked
portals removed
light particles stilled
peace centres blocked
cosmos collapses
light particles stilled
human frequency reabsorbed
cosmos collapses
One becomes Void
human frequency reabsorbed
reconfigure openings
One becomes Void
energy vibrations altered
reconfigure openings
dark eclipses light
mountains dissolve
cosmos sleeps
sky purple
humans disappear
cosmos sleeps
light waves and particles jump
humans disappear
quantum gates open ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Placed 3rd : Standard Contest : Jan.26
He’s heard before he enters:
you all know the drill.
He lurks in Shopping Centres,
as purposeful as krill.
Socially successful?
Like a waltz named ‘Emmet Till’.
His outcomes, too, are stressful
(see Wordsworth’s Harry Gill).
The death-knell at your dinner
with his punchline overkill,
a Jeanine Pirro ‘winner’:
each day a No True Bill.
His laugh’s as loud as mowers
or dad’s electric drill,
or over-taxed leaf blowers,
or an angry whippoorwill.
Denizen of the diner,
you know, for good or ill,
he’ll use his new one-liner:
audience feedback? Nil.
Why repeat the spasm?
Get up each morning, still?
He’s conscious of that chasm,
that hole he’s got to fill.
It’s gravity that pulls me down!
Without it, I’d be free to fly.
This robe of clay, this mortal gown
prevents me reaching for the sky.
Hypotheses are often wrong:
“it’s gravity that pulls me down”
suggests the ground’s where we belong,
and “flight” is just an abstract noun.
Professors of immense renown
insist instead on “out” and “in”:
“it’s gravity that pulls me down”
is not the notion to begin
inquiries with. We ought to start
with spheres and centres. But I frown:
no planet draws me to its heart!
It’s gravity that pulls me down.
Call me low birth, make what so fun,
No pink birth, but a proud man’s son,
Fate-bestowed be my birth,
But built I’m by self-worth,
Dare, who’s here ever what I’ve done?
_______________________
Translation | 19.10.2025 | birth, fate, pride, worth
Note: This verse is taken from a Sanskrit play, Veni Samhaar, by Narayana Bhatt of 9th Century CE. It centres around the story of Mahabharata. When Karna is questioned about his birth-- not as blue-blooded warrior, saying that he is just a son of a chariot-in-charge, not a full-fledged kshatriya warrior, he responds with this verse. Veni Samhaar means braiding of hair, a vow taken by Draupadi/Bheema to avenge an insult by Kaurava cousins. Here is transliteration of the text, and feel the force of the Sanskrit verse:
Sootah vaa soota-putrah vaa
yah vaa kah vaa bhavaami aham |
Daiva-aayattam kule janma
mad aayattam tu paurusham || Veni Samhaar ||
I sit watching the news
with tea in hand.
Surplus food. And I despair.
Man-made hunger: ribs like xylophones, crushed.
Reaching for food, they are fed bullets.
A child, just looking for bread.
Warnings that neither warn nor miss.
A kilo of flour costs a life.
Doctors die—from hunger, or from trying to feed it.
Humanity: misplaced.
This is what grief has carved into the world.
Overcrowded. Airless. No refuge.
Aid centres that don’t aid.
The dead don’t get labelled.
Food rots at the border while the world watches.
Months of meals sit still.
A ceasefire whispers.
A spine: a skeleton curled like a fetus.
Mother made family made famine.
Hate is inherited, spoon-fed to children with dust and grief.
And I sip my tea.
It tastes like shame.
But hunger is louder—
and one voice raised
might ignite others.
I sit watching the news
with tea in hand.
Surplus food.
And I despair.
Man-made hunger:
ribs like xylophones, crushed.
Reaching for food,
they are fed bullets.
A child, just looking for bread.
Warnings that neither warn nor miss.
A kilo of flour costs a life.
Doctors die—
from hunger,
or from trying to feed it.
Humanity: misplaced.
This is what grief
has carved into the world.
Overcrowded.
Airless.
No refuge.
Aid centres that don’t aid.
The dead don’t get labelled.
Food rots at the border
while the world watches.
Months of meals sit still.
A ceasefire whispers.
A spine:
a skeleton curled like a fetus.
Mother made family made famine.
Hate is inherited,
spoon-fed to children
with dust and grief.
And I sip my tea.
It tastes like shame.
But hunger is louder—
and one voice raised
might ignite others.
Placed First in Standard Contest
Specular Fugue
Sponsor : Suzette Richards
_____________
watching passivity in activity
sad, sombrely sad
memories from womb rise and fall
little miracles of remembrance
holding the hands of Fate we wait
Wheels of Fortune revolves, race stagnates
we do not cry, hankerchiefs dry
timeless we watch, clock ticking
clock glancing, mindful of time
unseen cry, tissues wet lie around
loss centres, race proceeds
there is no Fate, only Self-determination
every forgetting is a miracle
uterine amnesia ~ stumbling and ascending
sombre joy replicates in silence
active we look away, passive and still
I miss an open fire.
Warmth, these days,
is breathed out of the thin lips
of a plastic vent commanded
by a button.
There is nowhere now
where I can sit
and stare into the depths
of a dancing flame,
enter that sacred space
where thoughts and mystery
meet and reconnects something
in me to its earliest roots.
I miss how an open fire
centres life around its glow,
how it works to draw us in,
gathers us to share
in its living warmth.
I miss how it fills in the silence
with its sounds,
the crackle, the whispering hiss,
the sudden bump
of a falling log. I miss
poking and prodding
the charcoal remains, breaking
them apart and seeing embers
ignite into a bright spill of flame.
I miss the smell
of burning wood, the incense
that first sanctified our ancestors
humble homes and awakened
a wonder that set us off
on our human quest.
I get it that an open fire is now
not an environmentally friendly
choice but a polluting relic
of the past. I know
the romance of it
no longer thrives.
It's rather like old religion,
better gone, but it leaves
a hole in our lives.
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