Hitting gravel while going twenty eight
Speeding on an ebike your life you'll hate
Go flying into a great big slide
That's not the way to end a ride

Head on crash with a car door
Takes your new ebike to the floor
Shoulda just gone with the motor bike
Wearing full leathers and a helmet, like

Going 28 in your flip flops and those shorts
Maybe you should have chosen a different transport
Now look at what kind of crash
Would leave you with no skin due to road rash

I dunno about you but I'd rather go slow
Than go 28 miles per hour though
Maybe you don't have to pedal much
After spending two weeks in the hospital as such

#ebike #BikeTooter #poem (human)

Running away from a herd of elephants
Bit by a crocodile
He bled to death on a riverbank
The creature it did smile

He tried to beat off the croc
With a very large stick
But the animal got a a big bite in
The man bled very thick

Alas what is the tale here
That I dare not dream
Avoid annoying elephant herds
And no diving in a crocodile stream

(with apologies to the man's family, of course).
#poem (human)

Running away from a herd of elephants
Bit by a crocodile
He bled to death on a riverbank
The creature it did smile

He tried to beat off the croc
With a very large stick
But the animal got a a big bite in
The man bled very thick

Alas what is the tale here
That I dare not dream
Avoid annoying elephant herds
And no diving in a crocodile stream

(with apologies to the man's family, of course).
#poem (human)

Build me a bridge over the stream
to my neighbour’s house
where he is standing in dungarees
in the fresh morning…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Neighbour”
published in NEW COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2011)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857549607/new-collected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #IainCrichtonSmith

Hitting gravel while going twenty eight
Speeding on an ebike your life you'll hate
Go flying into a great big slide
That's not the way to end a ride

Head on crash with a car door
Takes your new ebike to the floor
Shoulda just gone with the motor bike
Wearing full leathers and a helmet, like

Going 28 in your flip flops and those shorts
Maybe you should have chosen a different transport
Now look at what kind of crash
Would leave you with no skin due to road rash

I dunno about you but I'd rather go slow
Than go 28 miles per hour though
Maybe you don't have to pedal much
After spending two weeks in the hospital as such

#ebike #BikeTooter #poem (human)

Build me a bridge over the stream
to my neighbour’s house
where he is standing in dungarees
in the fresh morning…

—Iain Crichton Smith, “Neighbour”
published in NEW COLLECTED POEMS (Carcanet, 2011)

https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781857549607/new-collected-poems/

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #20thcentury #IainCrichtonSmith

I know this has been shared many times before but never by me and I did want to share it for that one person who may not know it yet (or didn't know who wrote it)

#activism #marwanmakhoul #poem #poetry #war #antiwar #antifascism #antifa

I know this has been shared many times before but never by me and I did want to share it for that one person who may not know it yet (or didn't know who wrote it)

#activism #marwanmakhoul #poem #poetry #war #antiwar #antifascism #antifa

Distantly

Keep the light burning,
a lamp in the window, fire
from a lost homeland;
this, the one hope through my dreams,
that the darkness will not last.

© Simon J Ashcroft, 2026

#tanka #poem #poetry #PoetryCommunity

Distantly

Keep the light burning,
a lamp in the window, fire
from a lost homeland;
this, the one hope through my dreams,
that the darkness will not last.

© Simon J Ashcroft, 2026

#tanka #poem #poetry #PoetryCommunity

New #poem up on my site, blackout work carved from a 1974 newspaper ad for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

It's titled "Massacre" - read it here:
https://hpkomics.com/2026/01/poetry-massacre/

#horror #amWriting #blackoutPoem

#haiku #poem #poetry #book #BlurbBooks
Minor Transient Documents of Everyday Life are three line recipes, short stories, jokes, riddles, science projects, love notes, horrors, confessions, and memories. A collection of haiku written between the years 2022-2024. buy it - https://www.blurb.com/b/12425046-minor-transient-documents-of-everyday-life

Today, 2 February, is Candlemas. As well as being a Christian holy day, it is one of the four Scottish Quarter Days, when rents were due.

The Scots poem “At Candlemas” by Marion Angus (1865–1946) is a typically unsentimental look at how swiftly youth turns to old age:

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Candlemas #Scots #Scotslanguage #womenwriters #20thcentury #aging

Today, 2 February, is Candlemas. As well as being a Christian holy day, it is one of the four Scottish Quarter Days, when rents were due.

The Scots poem “At Candlemas” by Marion Angus (1865–1946) is a typically unsentimental look at how swiftly youth turns to old age:

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Candlemas #Scots #Scotslanguage #womenwriters #20thcentury #aging

Today, 2 February, is Candlemas. As well as being a Christian holy day, it is one of the four Scottish Quarter Days, when rents were due.

The Scots poem “At Candlemas” by Marion Angus (1865–1946) is a typically unsentimental look at how swiftly youth turns to old age:

#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Candlemas #Scots #Scotslanguage #womenwriters #20thcentury #aging

I think that authors’ ghosts creep back‍‍
Nightly to haunt the sleeping shelves‍‍
And find the books they wrote.‍‍
Those authors put final, semi-final touches,‍‍
Sometimes whole paragraphs.‍‍
Whole pages are added, re-written, revised…

—Muriel Spark, “Authors’ Ghosts”
published in COMPLETE POEMS (Carcanet, 2015)

18/18

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #poem #poetry

I think that authors’ ghosts creep back‍‍
Nightly to haunt the sleeping shelves‍‍
And find the books they wrote.‍‍
Those authors put final, semi-final touches,‍‍
Sometimes whole paragraphs.‍‍
Whole pages are added, re-written, revised…

—Muriel Spark, “Authors’ Ghosts”
published in COMPLETE POEMS (Carcanet, 2015)

18/18

#Scottish #literature #MurielSpark #20thCentury #WomenWriters #poem #poetry

Thinking of all those people who protect the brutality of the powerful and those who have fought at such cost to themselves to fight for justice #epstein #trump #monarchy #MountbattenWindsor #poetry #poem

Noise

Let the stars clamour
unheard, until the sky clears
and they sing again.

© Simon J Ashcroft, 2026

#haiku #senryu #poem #poetry #PoetryCommunity

Noise

Let the stars clamour
unheard, until the sky clears
and they sing again.

© Simon J Ashcroft, 2026

#haiku #senryu #poem #poetry #PoetryCommunity