“A Mind's Minotaur - A Soliloquy by Stewart Stafford In a labyrinth’s mental corridors, prisoner of consciousness, Fleeing a Minotaur I fear is me. Achilles' heel, masked by strength hath shown, An arrow cometh from Time's swift flight, For those with bountiful time enow, Find themselves slain in a heroic light. When thou dost gaze upon the world below, And scorn its depths, thou canst not comprehend The truths that pool o'er its shadow, glow. No tears stain that meadow of solace, A phantom limb, tickling in memory's store, Galley slaves in hurricane's heart so lashed. Transient madness and renown, conjoin on pomp’s bridge, Champions of the joust wave paramour's kerchief, Revered statues limp from a pedestal's ridge. The signs of pride and brittle ardour, The hubristic bite of isolation's cur. The death warrant quill must ne'er be stilled, For authority doth stifle beauty's song, Staged chaos through the written word is willed. Phantasy's balm to verity's scourging, A cleansing soak of battle-scarred minds, And in the dark, imagination reigns. He who hath fear of the dark hath vision keen, Whilst those who see but naught are dull and plain. Thus, let us not be swayed by others' lore, But splay in error, heal to prosper once more. Idolatrous moth to lechery's candlelight, In lover's tongues, passion's seared delight. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” ImaginationHuman NatureReflectionExistentialismMortalityPsychological FictionPhilosophical PoetryGothic PoetryShakespeareanSoliloquy Author:Stewart Stafford
“In the digital age, we may become self-important enough to be recognised, but never truly important enough to be known or valued.” IdentityFameSocial MediaExistentialismAlienationSocial CommentaryDigital AgeInternet CultureDigital FootprintFifteen Minutes Of Fame Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Tentacled Maws by Stewart Stafford Unhook the mind, Put honesty in dispute, From chosen blood, Comes officious brute. Tentacled things taking, Malicious, maladroit maws, In a hubris blizzard blind, Behind lupine power doors. Irradiated golden pockets, Ragged wretches starving, Dynasties sprouting weeds, Names on plaques for carving. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” PoetryPovertyGreedExistentialismDystopianSurrealismSocial CommentaryAllegoryPolitical SatireCosmic Horror Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Scavenger's Ledger by Stewart Stafford The scratch of a nib on paper Tells me I am alive, I think. At this Heaven/Hell midpoint— A torn throat for a poison drink. The horizon lit up again tonight, Rebels fight for futile freedom, Happiness, a cold, distant stranger, No gifted transfusion to bleed him. Willingly failing the audition of life, Food appears to have lost all taste, A numb tongue or cheap ingredients, I cannot let one crumb go to waste. They’ve finally cured me of love, Stripped every vestige of me away, Carrying my grave upon my back, Their snail slithers from day to day. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” PhilosophyDespairIsolationExistentialismDystopianGothicTotalitarianismContemporary PoetryDark PoetryOrwellian Author:Stewart Stafford
“Ambiguity is your ally: an interpretive dance with universal truths, not an observation post. An artist enlightens; the interpreter chooses to bathe in that light. Or, fearing being 'wrong' or lacking critical thinking, they await spoon-feeding. Being Irving The Explainer is not the artist's job. You don't go to an art gallery to ask a painter what their painting means (they have wisely left the scene of the crime!). You either get it or you don't, and it should wash over you and be appreciated either way. Impose the tyranny of explanation upon it, and you may kill any meaning, if there is any to unearth. Artists may not even know their intentions when putting something out into the cosmos. Ambiguity, then, is the fertile hinterland between The Emperor's New Clothes and the Highlands of Pretentiousness.” ArtCreativityMysteryExistentialismInterpretationAmbiguitySubjectivityMeaning Of ArtPhilosophy Of ArtArtistic Critique Author:Stewart Stafford
“Ebb and Flow by Stewart Stafford Happiness, briefest harbour in a squall; Tempests funnel us to splintered docks, High-seas missions to a last port of call, Fading feast taste of a haven of stasis. Weather springs with raging misprision, All things far beyond fingertip calculation, If we go off course with Fool's Gold vision, The reefs of avarice shall starkly claim us. We set sail or are torn from fragile sanctuary, All these stays, noted in the strangers' ledger, The Fate Morgana's captain - marine actuary, Virtual kin crew with fish and fowl companions. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” FateExistentialismMortalityImpermanenceNauticalDark PoetryGothic PoetryMaritime StoriesSea PoetryOcean Poetry Author:Stewart Stafford
“CheckFate by Stewart Stafford Now hear this about Fate! Its coils squeezing around you, Directing your every move, It is your second skin glue. Scream unilateral lockdown, As in Covid fever dream years, Fate is your silent partner, Lifer cellmate chained to all your fears. As you hide in a shack in the Andes, Fate's squatter gatecrashes to stay, Tracked by a big cat in the Pampas, Jaguar-spotted stalker in your DNA. Fate deals its stacked tarot cards, Catch-22's lotto winners - broke and few, A drill sergeant drones' whipped parade In lockstep as one of Fate's crew. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” DestinyFateAnxietyExistentialismHuman ConditionDark HumorFatalismContemporary PoetryDark PoetryLack Of Agency Author:Stewart Stafford
“Idolatry is inherently paradoxical. Were we an ideally-flawed replication of the divine, free-thinking, history-repeating links in an outcast chain on a smaller, mortal scale, or is our imperfection a special dispensation? Are we a sly thought experiment? Shouldn't those we admire reflect this duality and our shared humanity — not a perfection that never was and never will be?” PhilosophyHuman NatureExistentialismRebellionImperfectionLearning From MistakesIdolatryIntellectual FreedomShared HumanityHistory Repeats Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Philosopher’s Weight by Stewart Stafford Philosopher in my peripheral vision, Pouring watery wisdom rapidly Into my ear, then stepping back, Smiling, he bid me go on my way. What he said made my way clearer, But added to the burden on my back, While lightening his own load, In guiding a stranger through the dark. What advice did the wise one give me? "Follow one step with another and live, My son, use any difficulty you find As a beacon on your journey to salvation." © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” InspirationalWisdomPoetrySpiritualityPhilosophicalSelf DiscoveryExistentialismMetaphysicalAllegoryShort Read Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Storm Stranger by Stewart Stafford Were I to shed forty coats, Or forty layers of this skin, I'd stay an intruder in myself, At a crossroads in a storm. Stranger in my own country, Pariah to everything beloved, Organ rejection by my own body, A lantern wanderer in limbo. All foul, cast out by my lamp, Saving those mistreating me, Traversing sanity's outer rings, I turn my collar up and trudge on. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” LonelinessMental HealthExistentialismAlienationSelf ConsciousnessWandererIdentity CrisisLimboEternal WanderingsJack O Lantern Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Liquid Pantomime by Stewart Stafford Time is life’s shareholder: Youth’s dark angel investor, Midlife’s white shark creditor, The old's Arctic blood liquidator. Debt, the fledgling's terra incognita, Misfortune's looking glass kvetch, Chicks for the boardroom wolf pit, Waddling forth in immature escrow. Margin call missives arrive at thirty, Backstick pressures piping up, Distressingly hostile AGM invites, Disbelief morphs into resignation. Cracking knees bear bankruptcy, Written off in a balance sheet's glance, No hibernation in a bear market, Phased out for new stock issues daily. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” Life LessonsTimeExistentialismHuman ConditionAgeingBankruptcyStock MarketMemento MoriCorporate WorldShareholder Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Mortal Tempest by Stewart Stafford In the tranquil, shaded crypt, Life's storms batter no more, Historia, the isolated remnant, Of an interior remembrance. The howling gale, a mourner's cry, Icy tendrils reaching to exert, The only possible pressure, On a shell in heedless slumber. A post-mortem death wish, Phantom projection of the morbid, To vacate an urn and soar, Swirling ash in the mortal tempest. © 2021, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” DeathPoetryLossGriefMourningExistentialismMortalityDark PoetryElegyDeath Poems Author:Stewart Stafford
“Space Boot Hill: The Urbane Frontier by Stewart Stafford Red hot, white hot, then what? Nostril fleas dancing at dawn, Creating Frankenstein rivals, Great Whites slumming as prawn. Melon farmers of the world unite! We like them big, ripe and juicy, See all the Vegans next Tuesday: Barbara, Doris, Amy and Lucy. And so we dodge the cosmic bullets, Of an Atraxis gunslinger, non-ritual dead, Playing possum, we slip away, Chiming life's aria, eternally spread. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” HumorSpaceHumourScience FictionWesternExistentialismSatireSurrealismSocial CommentaryAbsurdism Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Architect’s Prologue: The Occupation of the Void by Stewart Stafford “Lost are the seekers of miracles. Only in the end, in the telling and re-telling of the tale, is the miracle seen — Life." I crave the blank space that once was nothing— a silent void, an impatient canvas, a domain unclaimed. The emptiness that sired every iota of art on earth, fashioned by those daring hands to cram with humour, fear, obsession, logic, love, or passion. The human animal’s cursed superpower — consciousness — Finitude’s simultaneous scalpel and wound, lock-picked instinct’s shackles, freed this chosen being, to the detached observance of its kind and the world. As the only creature gifted enough to ask “why,” it sought meaning and virgin-birthed the quadruplet firmaments of art, theology, politics, and philosophy— the golden ignition of the divine spark of creativity writ large. Feast upon the field of canary yellow rapeseed Translucent on a day of blinding sunlight. See how the colour transcends structure and lives, dances, and breathes— Nature unveils its primordial palette, inviting insects to pollinate and Man to dare to dream of creating torch-bearing vibrancy, shockingly intense, and timeless. If your written words become literal nails to crucify you with, Then you have done your job well. You provoked a reaction. Writing that moves not is a body without a soul— a comrade of the anonymous unknown soldiers of literature. Let untouched parchment be our stage, and the vacuum our rousing scene, Promethean agency as alchemy’s fire— not supplicant-sought from unseen forces, but struck from the living earth itself. When golden boughs spring from rotting trunks, mortal man resists their provenance; yet the evidence of his eyes is the blinding truth. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” PhilosophyInspirationPoetryNatureCreativityPowerCreationMetaphorExistentialismPromethean Author:Stewart Stafford
“Knowhere by Stewart Stafford Poleaxed by vampiric tapping— rattling timeline of a loop lapping— Hypochondriac paranoid toothache, tasting everything I see and break. Showed my tongue to an undertaker; licked his face — proved I’m no faker. A measured, grim diagnosis followed, matter from a cardiac pump hollowed. Draped loosely in a tea towel shroud, resurrected—naked, loud, and proud— Rocket to the pub for a post-wake baptism, a ploughman’s lunch with relish schism. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” PoetryExistentialismSatireDark HumorSurrealismContemporary PoetryAbsurdismGothic PoetryHorror PoetryBritish Humor Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Risk Assessor's Audit by Stewart Stafford An actuary at the butcher’s table, Serpentine watch-chain, strung as a noose, Each second, costed with surgical élan, Logging the theft in Babel columns loose. The paper catacomb lies crumpled, Its tenant, a doorway hobo in arrears, The knowing leaseholder's smile worn, Who'd changed the locks on all the years. The mutilated currency of memories, Clipped coinage set for melted dooms, Dried blood trickles in the hourglass, Turnkey guardian of vast, derelict rooms. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” DeathPoetryPhilosophicalExistentialismMetaphysicalContemporary PoetryDark PoetryGothic PoetryHorror PoetrySurreal Poetry Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Sensitive Scarred by Stewart Stafford Bizarre monolith world, We waylaid pilgrims tread In a whirligig of fair and ill Serrated lots for drawing. Consider those without armour, Senses wounded beyond measure, With struggles incomprehensible, The burdened head asphyxiates. Devoid of several layers of skin, Internal organs lacerated—daily, A ribcage so spinelessly cracked, Clarity's chains relentlessly taut. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” TraumaPsychologicalVulnerabilityExistentialismHuman ConditionSensitivityEmotional PainDark PoetryGothic PoetryScarred Souls Author:Stewart Stafford
“Interstellar Corduroy Roy by Stewart Stafford Taunted since he was a boy, Thorn-crowned “Corduroy Roy”, Hurled across sanity’s border, A reluctant thundercloud hoarder. His spacesuit? Pants! - Shade? Maroon! Playing soccer-tennis on the moon, Astronaut dust, his alma mater, Hitched to Earth in a pocket crater. Leapfrogged back to terra firma, Just in time for his dog’s dewormer, Gravity’s cords in the machine, unclean, Freed himself from the lunar silt routine. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” MoonExistentialismBullyingSurrealismWhimsicalAbsurdismDark PoetryStewart StaffordBathosPsychological Poetry Author:Stewart Stafford
“Antiseptic Awakening by Stewart Stafford See the rainbow spattered With dark blood moon juice. This creeping haemorrhage, A lacerated spectrum merged. Bruised trickles not halting, Violations in crimson stealth. Impotent, alleged lifeforms, Ashen foot-dragging below. Casually surrendered hues, The arterial strain's zenith. No colour in cheek nor sky, Bleached by antiseptic snow. © 2026, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” ExistentialismSurrealismColorsDark AcademiaContemporary PoetryContemporary LiteraturePhilosophical PoetryGothic PoetryUrban DecayStewart Stafford Author:Stewart Stafford