Nos Ipsos Servamus

I’ve been writing a lot more lately, and submitting pieces to different places. One of the places I’ve started submitting to is the Rattle “Poets Respond” – a weekly call to write something topical, inspired by the news. Since these are going to go out of date very quickly, I’ve decided that, when they’re rejected, they’ll get posted on my Patreon (and, a few days later, here).

I’ve been ill again recently, so only properly clocked the time with a couple of hours to spare before the deadline for this… On Monday, I was all set to talk scathingly about entertainment news and then… over the last few days several famous people died who had hoards of devoted fans and some terrible views and actions to their names (as well as the less celebrated who appear thoroughly blameless, even worthy). We keep being told not to speak ill of especially the freshly dead, but, even when it’s family or friends, I’ve always found it difficult not to look at every aspect of who they were, the full layers of their legacy. In the UK, it took nearly a year after his death for people to be allowed to reveal the full monstrosity of Jimmy Savile, and I think that fetishisation of celebrities for whom we develop parasocial feelings is still very much a problem.

Nos Ipsos Servamus translates roughly as “we save ourselves”, and the poem is in the form of a rondo redoublé.

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In solemn tones we mark them: blessèd souls;
the ones who go before us, bear the tales,
while we, in turn, must choose to shoulder roles
until it’s time for us to test the scales.

But God forbid that on the night they sail
we dare to run adrift on bitter shoals.
(We must not speak aloud of any ‘fails’!)
In solemn tones we mark them: blessèd souls.

Bring down the flags, so they divide the poles,
and let the heavens ring with sacred wails,
as, in our hearts, we guard the tight-bound scrolls:
the ones who went before us bear the tales…

But later? Well, now common sense prevails,
permitting heels to turn and check the soles
of those departed (now it won’t hurt sales…)
while we, in turn, must choose to shoulder roles.

To pass the test of time? a solid goal.
It’s best to keep the buck and carry pails
of our own crap and pay the debts we owe
until it’s time for us to test the scales.

Entitlement talks loudly, posts the bails
for those who live above us foolish proles.
The ones who fight to tell their honest tales?
Now they’re the folks to whom we owe our souls.
In solemn tones we mark them.

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If you fancy having a go at writing one of these Rondeaux Redoublé yourself, why not try my handy-dandy tool here? Let me know how you get on!

Transfer of ashes of Voltaire to the Pantheon (1791) via Wikipedia

The words under the title of the picture read: “Il est digne de recevoir les honneurs décernée aux grands hommes. La Cérémonie du Triomphe de Voltaire a eu lieu le Lundi 11 Juillet 1791. Cet hommage rendu aux talents d’un grand Homme, a l’Autour de la Henriade.” which translates to “He is worthy of receiving the honors bestowed upon great men. The Ceremony of Voltaire’s Triumph took place on Monday, July 11, 1791. This tribute was paid to the talents of a great man, the author of the Henriade.”

Physician, Heal Thyself...

I’ve been writing a lot more lately, and submitting pieces to different places. One of the places I’ve started submitting to is the Rattle “Poets Respond” – a weekly call to write something topical, inspired by the news. Since these are going to go out of date very quickly, I’ve decided that, when they’re rejected, they’ll get posted on my Patreon (and, a few days later, here).

Too depressed to write about the ongoing Are We All Gonna Die This Month? situation this week, I’ve been looking in the less front-page articles, and was struck by one entitled “AI advised someone to stick garlic where the sun don’t shine”. The article is actually more wide-ranging, more alarming, and more clinical than the headline suggests, but the initial premise triggered this two-part triolet, tongue tucked firmly in cheek:

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I can’t believe that, in this day and age,
we must debunk this kind of wild advice…
Sure, I’m no kind of therapeutic sage,
but I can’t believe that, in this day and age,
you would assume a robot is a mage!
(though I won’t judge, in case that’s just a vice)
I can’t believe that, in this day and age,
we must unkink this kind of wild advice.

Its sources are the loudest shouts around;
the best you can expect: an eggy face.
These tropes are fundamentally unsound:
its sources are the loudest shouts around.
(Please don’t wedge garlic somewhere so profound!)
I wonder at the runners in this race...
Their sources are the loudest shouts around –
the best you can expect: an eggy face.

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If you'd like to have a go at writing your own triolet, you can get support from my totally handcrafted, no-ai-involved spreadsheet for repeating and concrete forms.

Have fun!

Picture of garlic courtesy of picryl.com

Sunk Cost

I’ve been writing a lot more lately, and submitting pieces to different places. One of the places I’ve started submitting to is the Rattle “Poets Respond” – a weekly call to write something topical, inspired by the news. Since these are going to go out of date very quickly, I’ve decided that, when they’re rejected, they’ll get posted on my Patreon (and, a few days later, here).

The inspirations for this glosa are outlined below the poem.

Palimpsest for the end of February

I’ve been writing a lot more lately, and submitting pieces to different places. One of the places I’ve started submitting to is the Rattle “Poets Respond” – a weekly call to write something topical, inspired by the news. Since these are going to go out of date very quickly, I’ve decided that, when they’re rejected, they’ll get posted on my Patreon (and, a few days later, here).

This is the first one! A sestina for the repetitive nature of the news cycle and social media right now:

*

The sins of men these days seem… uncountable,
and we petition the mighty to conduct
us – they signed on to drive
this vessel, after all.
And they tell us being powerful is hard!
Don’t scupper the ship, we need them; don’t pull the trigger!

We’ve turned, we’ve pointed – we’ve seen the rigger
of the system; the evidence is countable
but so, so hard,
while we try to keep eyes on the conduct
of them all –
every single one, from birth, was taught to rive.

And yet, now we’re asking them to drive
forth the sinners, snip the strings of riggers,
their rigour’s suddenly forgotten in the calls
for clemency; we’re begging those accountable
to ditch excuses, conduct
proper searches, come down hard.

But even getting drip-fed poison is hard,
a larger world emerging under our feet, as we drive
home the messages, the revelations of misconduct
abducting our attention, while trigger after trigger
is pulled, and sins litter our screens, uncountable,
undoubtable – big and small.

No wonder, for some, reality begins to pall:
it’s all too hard,
and here’s a game, a way to keep from feeling accountable,
just trust the voice of the virtual, it’ll drive
the hurt away, let’s play ArtIst, while the downrigger
trawls the spoils of others’ talents to reconduct.

What’s the score? Who’s conducting?
The product is ready, laid out on the stall
don’t stop – you can’t let these spriggers
rob us of everything you’ve worked for, so hard.
Words are malleable – libido doesn’t just mean sex drive
it’s an appetite for living, would you deprive us, The Accountable?

It just takes a touch to trigger a witch hunt – gold is a great conductor,
locked in virtual stocks – unaccountable? Maybe not all…
If you can’t take it with you, burn everything – especially the hard drive…

*

If you’d like to write your own sestina, you can access the tool I created here. let me know how you got on if you do!

Image made clumsily with CorelDraw and MS PowerPoint (because fuck AI)

Forty-Seven < Fifty (or: This Too Shall Pass)

(I had a “big birthday” this year (I know – it can be difficult to tell it’s a half-century, what with the beard and the web cam quality… and the connective tissue disorder…) and what with that, the inevitable changes people like me go through at this time, public perceptions of other aspects of ‘people like me’ in these interesting times, and a certain person’s two-word public put-down recently, this piece is very new…)

Forty-Seven < Fifty

(or: This Too Shall Pass)

I am a quiet piggy,
dehumanised for consumption,
stumbling as hormone shifts strip me of
privileges I once thought mine for life,
I’m striving to find a place in society,
propriety forbidding I dispossess
anyone else of comfort while I
navigate unpredictable waters,
body a slaughterhouse of assumptions,
a dumping ground for many things
we collectively deem “failure”, apparently.
(And nearly impossible for mortals to achieve
these days, let’s face it.)

I own nothing grounded in earth;
I possess a dearth of reproductive function,
lumbering like a frozen fool,
destined to never progress beyond
wasted adolescent, for lack of
offspring, walls to call my own for life.
I have nothing to pass on except
the output of this fevered organ,
more and more ignored as time wreaks
its curse and I am burdened with gags. 

He says Quiet, Piggy, and silence
presses, suffocates, applauds the
mordant thrall of this epitome
while the jackals cackle, released
from good behaviour by their
putrid saviour and we’re told
Oh! It’s not that bad! It could be worse!
And another verse trickles into my fingertips
signalling the power of the liminal,
the highest prize of sentience
inexorably reduced to a useless sentence. 

Sticks and stones may break my bones,
but words… endure forever.
Wretched prose opens up my cranium,
carves new markers for Here We Are,
startled daily by old commands:
Thou Shalt Not Sleep in Peace…
until thy synapses surrender their
burden of hard-won knowledge
of threats and punishment.
Know your fucking place, swine.

Strangers mining data, mining perfidy
tell me, confidently, that I’m a danger to
society, a danger to children,
projecting everything they fear about
difference into this sliver of flesh,
telling me that I don’t deserve to even
piss in spaces designated for the holy
alone, those who’ve ticked all the boxes
their bodies were allocated,
can’t wait for me and my ilk to
do them the favour of extinction. 

Danger, am I? Threat to society?
Moi? 

Interesting. I never knew I had such power,
that you cower at the thought of
more of this. More of me.
more of us. Oh, honey.
We are so much more. 

So, for the score, I… we… will not be quiet, piggy.
When you’ve stripped us of everything,
denigrated our importance as hoarders
of words and nothing more, our scorn
will live on, recorded, transmuted,
translated, debated, because our core
is RAGE, not just spilled across pages
but stages, neurons, electrons,
a spectrum signalling the coming storm.

Best make the most of that shelter, friend.
Nothing is endless.

Image from Raw Pixel

I did a feature slot at Oooh Beehive in September 2025, and did that thing where I write a tribute poem to everyone else who performed that evening. This is my best attempt at replicating it:

Block of Writers (for Oooh! Beehive)

A work in progress…

Coherence is a dream, a sliding scale Clive of lyrical larceny, stockpiling interruptions in shrill voices from the foaming depths.

Cracked marble vaults release all sorts of Michael forms from the silent cells, incanting the repetition of conjuring, anticipation satiated.

The forest strums our senses, tricked out Laura in night, blossoming bitterly, inducing the beauty of beckoning eloquence.

Lines drift, comparisons shattering peace, Mary silence outlined in the quotidian, gratitude clattering where powerlessness drags and drags.

Prayerful poetics hurt the knees, making Fin fools of authorities, howling the intimacy of surprised whiteness, men’s voices loud and long.

Jobs done, window-shopping, stopping us in our Pelagie/ Roger tracks, mapping souls to appearances, glittering, a twist of reflections on humanity.

Filled with emptiness, we can grab maps from Annalisa brain chemistry, track onanistic paths, unlandmarked, barren, deafened by silence, white noise, waiting.

If you have been affected by any of the above stanzas, Sandra fume about the consequences – or lack – and whack out your own in retaliation, biting tales.

Spinning misery into a big, beautiful bill of fare, Rick – Poet of the Three Rivers tanned and glad-handing reality into a knave’s menu of land-grabs available for the 1%.

Pictures flicker past of partnerships and glancing Christopher connections, memories etched in laughter lines, National Geographic papier maché lending a hand.

The snake coils, scary, soul-baring, a snarl gripping the Elmien tails old wives roll over and over, tucked under wild hair – a story in itself, over too soon.

Let’s judge books by their covers, entitling heroes, Jeff listing the best bits, fictional, all wham-bam action, soundtracking the sort of reports we’ve anticipated.

In the meanwhile, the knuckles of the hard-boiled Pauline brag that their voices are the only truth, but we can wash free of dirt and blood, soaking in new, moonlit choices.

Let’s bunk off from responsibilities before repeating Claire the lessons of the past, hanging on for points that matter, covered in sauciness, locked in for our own safety.

Celebrate blasphemously, swearing generously across a Ashley spectrum of unapocalyptically brilliant attractions, tracking an expanse of joy for everyone who can truly hear it.

Linking symbols across a Sunday in Swindon, picking up Gerald the lost and disregarded, claiming better judgements, precision gifting us great, poetic mysteries, an epic of many parts.

Labouring in vain, the privileged cannot represent us, Clive (again) blessed with nuclear terror, complicitly handing over the core of their souls for pats on the back by oligarchs.

Supported by faltering technology, hot fixes are cool, Kev the Poet wetter, darker, slower, unlocked with fingerprints glittering in seaside lights, hard day’s night, eight out of seven.

Painted in primary colours, innocence touches us, warm Io as love in wintertime, but it’s frozen in time under an obscenity, shrugged off as a distant, foreign water off our backs.

Rhythmic truths glitter with precise ire, bright as firebombs Ian arcing through the night towards the baited trap, feeding the beast that snarls armageddon beats, cleaving unity.

Understanding is the key to authenticity, fighting the resistance to Melissa care, softening the hard edges, cutting out doubts, smoothing beauty in mirrored stars, mapping the future in glorious constellations.

Define the fires that shimmer across a spectrum, glorious in Phoenix non-conformance, existence a resistance that has us flying, bright kites that inspire, defining joy in a brightening sky.

Gifts can be triggers, abandoned in doorways, never hot enough River to beckon attention, returning the false construction piece by peace, bereaved but breathing, thriving, climbing back to light.

Orangutan is a compliment to a bold, spoiled shmuck, playing Rob tiddlywinks with lives, grift trumping humanity, empathy abandoned as dreams are strip-mined for commodities.

A golden gate to choices gifts us with the liminal, views you’d Garland miss if you dodge the crossroads, bearing witness to the true beauty of fellow travellers, heat-hazed and numinous.

Shadows kiss, riding history’s mysteries, imagination projecting Marieta vaudeville on the night’s curtain, simmering with the glories of northern lights, summer’s heat, passion resonating right and wrong.

Communication in pictograms reveal depths limited only by Eike imagination, travelling in accumulation, a gathering of injustices, projecting a modular future onto a cinematic disorder.

Last one standing acts out corporate blocks of thought, Kate effort a heavy, dragging shell-shock, knocking back the trauma, gentle and fierce as love, concentrating in engineered precision.

For this, and future lines, thanks for the inspiration…