“Paparazzi Pepperoni by Stewart Stafford Gladiatrix in an algorithmic arena; Jane of all trades, influencer of none, Duckface pose in a selfie pout, A zillion zombies waiting online. Her fall from filtered grace was swift: A subscribed intimate pact by proxy, Fame, meat for a pixelated lupine mob, Her downfall contracted in a dopamine hit. Fire overnight, smouldering ruins by day, Her virtual world crumbled around her, Stepped off the ledge into digital oblivion, Her fallen camera will fit another’s hand. Posthumous branding in overdrive, Her agent commodified the loss, Only fans devoured the real her, A paywall phantom on cyber-loop. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” IdentityFameGreedIronyWarningDark HumorSocial CommentaryDigital AgeInfluencerMorality Tale 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 human animal craves truth’s stark naked echo, deaf to the prospect that the neutral silence between the white noise of our cognitive biases is the only liminal space where its pure resonance is truly audible.” PhilosophyTruthPsychologyAwarenessHuman NaturePerceptionCritical ThinkingEpistemologySocial CommentaryCognitive Biases Author:Stewart Stafford
“It's bitterly ironic that we place astronomical value on the increasing age of inanimate paintings, antiques, cars, wines and memorabilia while failing to appreciate and adequately compensate the priceless life experience and wisdom that comes with human maturity.” WisdomValueAppreciationIronyMaturityLife ExperienceWorthSocial CommentaryAgeismDepreciation Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Dopamine Paradigm by Stewart Stafford Never so connected, Yet, never further apart, A crowded room's isolation, An aspic suitors' false start. Fear and hatred everywhere, When toxic ideologies stink, Lab rats of our own making, Reward hits go over the brink. Throwing away tomorrow, For a dopamine buzz today, Home fort, don't multiply, A eunuch future staggers away. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” PoetryDatingAddictionIsolationModern LifeSocial CommentaryProcreationContemporary PoetryThe Human RaceThe Digital Age Author:Stewart Stafford
“Shakespeare queried 'if music be the food of love, play on'; Well, I say laughter is life's champagne cocktail and humourlessness its bitterest rigour mortis vinegar. So sup well!” LovePhilosophyHumourLaughterMetaphorShakespeareJoy Of LifeSocial CommentaryRigor MortisStewart Stafford Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Devil's Chapel by Stewart Stafford Spires writhing in audacity's sky, Laced masonry's Faustian high, The Devil's Chapel invites by lie, Embalmed, a cracked stone altar dry. The golden Madonna rises above all, Lucifer's War, in stained glass, tall, In horned shadow, the angelic fall, Dark kingdom formed of a lightning ball. Bartholomew flayed by sadistic chagrin, Bones laid bare, devotion anchored within, Skin in the game took centuries to win, Gargoyles leer in the paying tourist din. Behind the veil of confession wood, The all-seeing eye drips with blood, Trickster's snare in nightmare's flood, A gift shop trades where sacrifice stood. Pungent echoes in incense crawl, Catacombs beckon entombed gall, To witness ornate veneration's pall, Silent to a martyr's last breath call. Croziers rest in chilled silver's display, As pink-veined marble taints today. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” ChristianitySacrificeCorruptionMartyrSocial CommentaryGood Vs EvilChapelDark PoetryGothic HorrorReligious Horror 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
“I don't know what happened, but in a pre-emptive strike, I'm offended on behalf of people who may have been offended even though that wasn't the intention. I'm also offended on behalf of people who may be allergic to apologies. Some people are probably offended by what I've written and I'm also offended on behalf of those people against myself.” HumorHumourSatirePolitical CorrectnessWokeSocial CommentaryZeitgeistMonty PythonTaking OffenseOverly Sensitive Author:Stewart Stafford
“There are some people in life who say things you inwardly agree with in ways you outwardly don't.” PhilosophyWisdomHumorLife LessonsCommunicationPerspectiveSelf AwarenessSocial CommentaryAgree To DisagreeStewart Stafford Author:Stewart Stafford
“Arise Reborn! by Stewart Stafford In cosy choice, the complacent lie, Teasing open the serpent's eye, To outflank, usurp then suppress, A deceiver's mask under duress. Delusion lays a gossamer snare, Flicking forked tongues tasting air, Devotion to clan, a dying dream, Delirious mining of treachery's seam. Battle drums as heroes rise, Saving tribe and land by surprise, The call to action, your country's plea, The broad church of necessity. Lessons echo in infancy's steps, Territory gained, homeland re-annexed, Skirmishes coalesce in a patriot's war, To campfire tales of visionary valour. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” InspirationalHopeStruggleBetrayalResistancePatriotismNationalismHeroismRebirthSocial Commentary Author:Stewart Stafford
“Tomorrow We Starve by Stewart Stafford Grey aftertaste of dawn's biting light, In emptied pockets, lint lesions blight, A funeral march, with posture askew, To a larder bare, options few. A cup of tea's transient balm, Rip open bills in the trembling calm, Hope flickers in redemption's seam, Vanishing as we scratch a fragile dream. Wages held back, our pleas ignored, To cloudy ivory towers, we implored, Shadow people ground to a husk, Tiny crumb specks in the dusk. An overseer's laugh, a cruel facade, The golden rule's sick charade, Fingers sear in the dying flame, The keening wind calls my name. Reflections shatter, a distorted view, Pipe dreams, strangled at birth, through, The shaming shade exacts its cost, Each pore clogged with penury's frost. In darkest siege, a spark may ignite, Defiant ember beacon's twilight, Hope battered, but refuses to die, Whispered lifeline to the coldest sky. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” HopePovertyDespairSocial JusticeResilienceSocial CommentaryContemporary PoetrySocial InequalityRealistic PoetryEmotional Poetry Author:Stewart Stafford
“Bizzaro Time by Stewart Stafford I took dawn selfies on a bridge, Geneva worms conferred in slime, A woman's dog slithered serpentine, It snapped and hissed in bizarro time. A businessman's briefcase in flight, Went public in a philanthropist sky, Umbrellas blossomed into trees, Peacenik pigeon medal caught the eye. Coffee shops served liquid light, Brewed up pagan code of yore, Pedestrians' morphed molten form, Glass-blown in tangerine pour. We shared loop shrugs, muted pleas, Sober intoxication's escapist twist, A uniquely-marketed Tuesday morn, Dreamt up to commodify every tryst. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” TechnologyAuthenticitySatireDystopianSurrealismSocial CommentaryAbsurdismCommodificationSocial Commentary HumorSocial Commentary Satire Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Almighty Jar by Stewart Stafford Protestors in the street chanted: "Crackpot!" Mocking supreme leader The Almighty Jar, Rattling it into swift and oleaginous action, It flipped its lid and sought vengeance. The jar ordered its troops to open fire, On the defiant yet unarmed crowd, But the army flatly refused to obey, Until the jar started oozing sneakily. Too late came a decree that military personnel, Smear Deindividuation serum on themselves, Freedom fighters stormed the jar's shelf palace, Smashing it and replacing it with an urn. © 2021, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” Science FictionSatireDictatorshipDystopianTotalitarianismDark HumorSocial CommentaryAbsurdismPolitical SatireOrwellian Author:Stewart Stafford
“Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General (1645 – 1647) by Stewart Stafford ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ – Exodus, Nor allow legalised killing too cheaply, Twenty shillings of blood money per witch, A charlatan’s extortion for ‘cleansing.’ Witchcraft, the capital crime of the age, Lawyer Hopkins, parasitising laws, Self-appointed Witchfinder General, A reign of terror brought to God-fearing doors. Evildoing’s hunter was its embodiment; A Judas purse wed brutality’s handmaiden, With Stearne, stoked Essex witch hunt mania, Puritanical zeal’s sadistic cruelty. His victims were cast into dungeon pits; Bloodied and broken in outcast desperation; Disease helped some cheat the hangman; The only fortune anyone deemed fair. Extracting confessions through torture’s pain; Their skin pricked to find Satan’s mark, Victims, forced to run until collapse, Sleepless starvation hastened their bleak end. Then to the wicked ducking stool gauntlet, Lowered into muddy ditches or icy water, A survivor’s noose or drowned exoneration? None met the Witchfinder’s imperious eyes. “I, John Lowes, a minister of God, Was martyred so. Hopkins, thou pestilent knave! Bade me to run, held aloft by mocking hands, Funeral rites as I dug mine own grave.” Sensing his gaslit flames turn back on him, Hopkins went to ground with his ill-gotten gains, Slowly he faded, from infamous to obscure, Scars linger on 300 unmarked graves. Some say that Hopkins was executed as a witch, Or faced a tubercular end in his village, Where he is buried, no one knows or cares, Hexed in a barren field for karmic tillage. Rat-catcher to an imagined pestilence, Communities, not covens, he did churn, A toxic chalice for New World lips, Fanning Salem’s pernicious turn. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” InjusticeWitchWitchesWitchcraftSocial CommentaryBritish HistoryWitch TrialsWitchhuntMatthew HopkinsWitchfinder General Author:Stewart Stafford
“The Edge of Reason by Stewart Stafford I do not want to die or take my own life, I cling to the outside of skyscraper metal, Thick, choking smoke rakes my shoulder, Scorching flames lash my back and legs. I showered, dressed and went to work, I arrived early, said hello, found my desk, Then the building shifted, smiles faded, Everything changed, and here we are. God, please take me quickly, I beg you, Bless my loved ones, I hope they understand, A Rorschach test for shocked rubberneckers, I let the air pressure suck me out and drop. The initial relief of vacating impossibility, Turns to violent buffeting in wind currents, Clothes ripped off as I spin, falling faster, Crowds point, the ground rushes towards me. © 2024, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” SurvivalTragedyDisasterDeath And DyingSocial CommentaryWorld Trade CenterExistential CrisisSeptember 11thTwin Towers9 11 Poem Author:Stewart Stafford
“Richard Burton by Stewart Stafford Jester’s coxcomb to a fool’s translator? A brothel-creeper in a neon-puked alley, A bean-counter totalling rice grains; Surreptitious, scrumptious attic grub. Stand back, witness me Manspread! Lease me your lobes while I Mansplain! Overcome, I expire in an orchestra pit From the fumes of acute "Toxic Masculinity." Hear my epitaph: "Women aren't funny... so put on the Earl Grey, love!" Coup de grâce! Many have said where I should stick my opinion, But I leave the worst to the collective imagination. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” PoetryIronySatireSexismPersonaDark HumorSocial CommentaryToxic MasculinityMansplainingManspreading Author:Stewart Stafford
“Dystopolis by Stewart Stafford Phantasmagoria in the mirror, A bribed witness is my whore, Plastic surgery getting dearer, I must go work out my core. Swallowing carcinogen smog, Painful panting, freezing air, Neutered day of the old dog, On my hamster wheel there. Crawled down to the plague pits, Crab-like, they crept up on me, Sour milk séance of the obits, Drowning in a mausoleum sea. Mild convulsions on a night cold, Cram triage bodies in my bed, Fights reheated getting so old, Awake to find myself dead. © Stewart Stafford, 2024. All rights reserved.” FutureDystopianUrban FantasySurrealDystopiaSocial CommentaryFuturisticDystopian FictionMetropolisNeologism Author:Stewart Stafford
“Cycle of the Midnight Ape by Stewart Stafford Janus creature of paradox, Liquid hostage of conscience, Swinging midnight's ape, On cartwheel chandeliers. This being's bender reveal — Of the existential, maddening itch, To sling aside life’s burdens, And slake its raging thirst. An anthropological anomaly, Naked in its contradictions, A déjà vu loop grinds on, This peerless hellraiser royal. © 2025, Stewart Stafford. All rights reserved.” IsolationParadoxExcessHuman ConditionSurrealismSocial CommentaryCoping MechanismPhilosophical PoetryComedy And TragedyParty Animals Author:Stewart Stafford