Category Archives: Doggerel

April 4, 2026

 

The Seconds Learned to Run (Pure Distillation)

The day began as a pale shimmer,
a thin ribbon of light unraveling
across the floorboards
as if it had forgotten how to be morning.
The air tasted faintly of old flowers
and something sweeter —
a memory that hadn’t happened yet,
pressing its forehead against the window
as though asking to be let in.

 

The clocks kept their distance,

hovering in the corners

like shy animals

that no longer trusted their own instincts.

Their faces glowed faintly,

not with purpose,

but with the soft embarrassment

of creatures who know

they’ve lost the race

to the very thing they were built to measure.

 

You appeared beside me

with that drifting, half-awake grace,

your outline wavering

as if the room couldn’t decide

whether to keep you or dream you.

Your hand brushed mine

and the moment stretched —

thin as a soap bubble,

fragile as a whispered apology —

before snapping back

with a quiet, startled gasp.

 

Outside, the sky folded into itself,

a slow, deliberate motion

like someone closing a book

mid-sentence.

The trees leaned inward,

their branches trembling

with the weight of too many seasons

arriving all at once.

Even the wind seemed confused,

carrying fragments of conversations

that hadn’t been spoken yet.

 

I felt the hours slipping past my ribs,

soft and luminous,

like fish moving through shallow water.

They didn’t hurry out of malice —

only inevitability.

The minutes blurred into streaks of color,

gentle and insistent,

as if painting over the edges

of everything I thought I recognized.

 

You rested your head on my shoulder

and the world tilted,

just slightly,

just enough for the future

to spill a little into the present.

We breathed in unison,

trying to anchor ourselves

to something slower,

something kinder,

something that wouldn’t dissolve

the moment we touched it.

 

But the seconds had already learned to run.

They darted through the room

like silver insects,

leaving trails of warmth

that faded almost instantly.

I reached for one,

just to feel its shape,

but it slipped through my fingers

with a soft, apologetic hum.

 

And still we sat there,

two silhouettes in a room

that couldn’t hold still,

listening to the quiet acceleration

of everything around us —

the gentle, unstoppable rush

of a world forgetting

how to move slowly.

 

N.P.: “A Different Drum” – Peter Gabriel

April 3, 2026

 

Dream #3326 – The Archivist at the End of the Garden

I found the Archivist again tonight,
kneeling in the frostbitten garden,
feeding passwords to the snails.
He said the moon was misfiled,
that someone had switched its label
with a jar of counterfeit memories
left humming on the back shelf
of the sky.

He asked if I remembered the Agreement.
I told him I’d misplaced the paperwork
somewhere between the dream
with the burning carousel
and the morning I woke up
with someone else’s heartbeat
ticking in my throat.

He nodded –
as if this were the most predictable
of catastrophes –
and handed me a cracked teacup
full of static.
“Drink,” he whispered,
“before the clocks notice you’re awake.”

So I drank.
And the garden folded inward
like a paper fortune-teller,
and all the snails began reciting
the names  of people
I haven’t become yet.

The Archivist smiled,
wiped the moonlight from his hands,
and told me gently
that the world would end
three times tonight,
but only one version
would remember to write it down.

N.P.: “Early To Bed” – Bjorn Berge

December 21, 2025

Solstice

The sun gives up early, slipping out the back door
like someone who knows they’ve overstayed their welcome.
By late afternoon the sky is already bruised,
a slow-moving storm of ink and cold breath.

The longest night arrives without ceremony.
Streetlights blink awake one by one,
their halos trembling in the wind
as if even they’re not sure they can handle
what’s coming.

The world feels paused –
a held breath, a skipped heartbeat,
a hush that settles over rooftops
and creeps under doors.

Out in the fields beyond town,
the trees stand like a congregation of silhouettes,
their branches raised in some ancient,
untranslatable prayer.

The ground is stiff with frost,
cracking softly underfoot
like old bones remembering weather
from centuries ago.

Somewhere an owl calls out,
a low, resonant note that feels less like sound
and more like a reminder
that darkness has its own custodians.

And yet the night hums –
not with menace, but with a strange,
almost tender gravity.

As if the world is leaning closer,
whispering that this is the hinge of the year,
the pivot point,
the place where endings and beginnings
blur into the same breath.

People sleep behind their windows,
unaware of the quiet negotiations happening
between shadow and dawn.

But you – wanderer, insomniac,
keeper of small, stubborn hopes –
you feel the pull of it.

The reminder that light is a fragile thing,
and still it returns.
That even the longest night
has a seam somewhere,
a thin line where tomorrow
is already leaking through.

So you stand there,
listening to the cold wind thread itself
through the bare branches,
and imagine your own vow –
not carved in stone,
but carried in breath:
To keep walking.
To keep watching.
To keep a spark alive
Even when the dark feels endless.

N.P.: “More” – Miazma

December 20, 2025

 

The Democracy of Dirt

The streetlights flicker their last tired breaths

as the night settles in, thick as damp velvet.

Somewhere beyond the trees,

a siren wails and then thinks better of it.

The world exhales.

Here, in this forgotten cemetery

where the city’s glow dies at the gate,

the gravestones lean like old drunks

whispering secrets to the moss.

The names carved into them have been sanded down

by rain, wind, and the indifference of passing centuries.

No one remembers these people. No one visits.

Even the crows have moved on to better neighborhoods.

And yet the place hums.

Not with ghosts — nothing so theatrical —

but with the quiet, stubborn dignity of

lives that never made the history books.

The butcher who sang to himself while sharpening knives.

The seamstress who dreamed of Paris but never made it past the county line.

The boy who wrote poems no one read and

buried them under his mattress like contraband hope.

They lie here now, equal in the democracy of dirt.

The world never saw what they could’ve been.

Maybe one of them had a mind sharp enough to split atoms or write epics.

Maybe one carried a heart big enough to save someone who needed saving.

But poverty, circumstance, and the grinding machinery of daily

survival swallowed their brilliance before it ever sparked.

The city rushes past them,

headlights slicing through the fog,

unaware that it drives over a thousand unwritten stories.

And the speaker — me, you, whoever wanders here at dusk —

feels the tug of that anonymity. The reminder that

ambition is a fragile thing, easily crushed under the weight of

rent, illness, heartbreak, or the simple fact of being born in the wrong century.

In the end, the grave doesn’t care about résumés.

But there’s a strange comfort in that. A leveling. A mercy.

So I stand here, listening to the wind thread itself through the iron gate,

and imagine my own epitaph — not carved in marble,

but drifting somewhere between the branches:

A wanderer who tried.

A voice that cracked but kept speaking.

A heart that beat, stubbornly, against the dark.

And whatever walks here — memory, time, the echo of the forgotten — walks with me.

 

N.P.: “Worlock” – Skinny Puppy

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day, dear reader!  In honor of this auspicious day, I’ve written a poem.  It’s called Take Yo Mama to Brunch.  To wit:

Take yo mama to brunch,
Oh, don’t you dare delay,
She’s dealt with all your bullshit,
Now it’s her time to play.

She’s wrangled your tantrums,
Survived your disgusting smells,
And answered your dumbass questions,
Like, “Do pickles have shells?”

Now she deserves towers
Of waffles and cream,
A buttery croissant
And an endless mimosa stream.

Pile her plate with pancakes,
(Bacon on the side!)
chocolate-dipped bananas
And some sort of French toast slide.

The waiter arrives
With quiche in his grip,
But Mom grabs her fork
And takes a wild dip!

She’ll laugh as she slurps
From a fruit smoothie shoe,
Then orders an omelet
Made for an entire crew.

You’ll sit there observing,
Mouth open, aghast,
How can one tiny mama
Eat so goddamn fast?

Then she’ll pat her tummy,
Smiling and sly,
“Oh sweetie, what’s next?
Shall we order some pie?”

Take yo mama to brunch,
She’s earned every bite,
But don’t you dare forget
To tip her just right.

For her love is a buffet,
Endless and true,
And that’s why your mama
Deserves a brunch for two (or three…or nineteen, depending on how many her appetite can destroy in one sitting).

N.P.: “Take Your Mama” – Scissor Sisters

October 28, 2024

In the moon’s cold and silvery glow,
A figure stirs in shadows below.
With eyes like coals, it prowls the night,
A specter born of endless fright.

Cloaked in darkness, it silently creeps,
Through misty woods where the night wind weeps,
Its fangs gleam sharp, a predator’s grin,
As it hunts for the life that sustains its sin.

Behind closed curtains, hearts quicken with dread,
For the vampire’s thirst is far from fed.
It whispers softly through creaking doors,
A chilling promise of blood and gore.

The village shivers beneath starlit skies,
Where once calm dreams now harbor cries.
A shadowy wraith with a timeless stare,
The vampire’s touch a silent snare.

In gothic halls where candles flicker,
Its presence lingers, the air grows thicker.
With every heartbeat, terror spreads,
In its wake, only cold and lifeless beds.

Beware the moon when it rides high,
Casting its gaze on the midnight sky.
For in its glow, the vampire roams,
To claim the night as its eternal home.

N.P.: “Vampires” – Night Club