A Cloud of Ragged Butterflies (new sonnet)
Sometimes when weariness of world takes hold,
I cry out, “Why should I remain on earth?
What point in watching tragedy unfold?”
(Forgetting just how much one’s life is worth).
Metaverse [new song video]
LIVING-ROOM VIDEO #88: “Metaverse”. Here’s a new song, for which I completed the lyrics yesterday and the melody today. The so-called Metaverse is a virtual universe, which, according to its social media promoters, is kinda-like the next stage in transhumanist “evolution”. 🙄 Frankly, I think that the metaverse is already here, in that so many folks are living their lives virtually rather than realistically and are being sucked into an A.I. existence. And that’s what this song addresses. Here are the lyrics:
Behind that smiling profile
lie a thousand broken dreams;
and the myth you have created
masks the part of you that screams.
But your avatar’s inviting
all those men to want you so;
while the girls find you empowering
and your followers just grow.
Song Video: “Pure Feeling”
LIVING-ROOM VIDEO #93: “Pure Feeling”. Here is a video of a new song. The lyrics are self-explanatory. The emphasis is on the purity rather than the emotion. 
Such purity is unassailable by anything dark, whether human or otherwise. I hope you find it uplifting and anything else that is good. It comes with love. The full lyrics are as follows:
[1st Refrain]
There’s a pure feeling I’ve not felt for so long,
and that pure feeling’s what I send through this song.
And I hope if you listen you will know what I mean,
about the pure feeling that’s been often my dream.
The Time Has Come (new song video)
LIVING-ROOM VIDEO #89: “The Time Has Come”. Here is a new song which I just completed today. I don’t need to say anything about it, for the time has indeed come. The lyrics speak for themselves. I hope you find them interesting and encouraging. Read on, and here they are:
Read the rest of this entry »Blood in the Dew (new song video)
LIVING-ROOM VIDEO #87. “Blood in the Dew”. This song woke me up in the middle of the night last night, begging to be written. There it was. 4 verses of lyrics, the refrain, and the melody. So I wrote them down, then added two more verses today. It is a song for our time and it speaks for itself. I hope it resonates. Here are the lyrics:
Read the rest of this entry »Songs are Poems with Wings (new song video)
LIVING ROOM VIDEO #86. “Songs are Poems with Wings”, just written yesterday. It’s about where the best songs come from and how (so they’ll never dry up). It’s also really one big Metaphor. 😉 Just me and my guitar. (Needs a band really). I hope it encourages you 💝 Here are the lyrics:
When all the songs that write themselves
have by you all been writ —
& you’re thinking “Should I throw my pen
into the sea and quit?” —
just stand upon some golden sand
from rocks of ancient times,
and feel how wind and water work
and then will come your rhymes.
STATE OF THE WORLD ADDRESS, 2022
[I would not normally publish this on my Naked Troubadour blog as all my articles now go on my Diakrisis Project blog. However, the subject matter is so important that I am exceptionally putting it here as well]
THIS MORNING I FEEL MOTIVATED to create what I’ve somewhat pretentiously entitled the ‘State of the Word Address 2022’. It was going to be a video of me as a talking head at my desk. But I thought if I put out the transcript of my talk as a little article, it would be better than exposing my ugly mug to the world, as people can reread sentences rather than having to keep going with the flow of a video recording. So here we go…
Read the rest of this entry »A Knight’s Code to Live By in 2022
AS ANOTHER WATERSHED YEAR WINDS DOWN — having once more shown the true colours of many institutions, organisations and people, and as a new year looms into view — what could be better than living by a code of sanity which immediately sets one against the rising madness of this world. You can see such a code in the image accompanying these words. It promotes some qualities which are less common today, such as honour, duty, honesty, gallantry, diligence, fidelity, cherishment, self-scrutiny, valour, steadfastness, charity, grace, empathy, compassion, etc. Some years ago, I found what was a very brief but pithy 1000-year-old medieval English Knight’s Code of Chivalry which, over the years, I have substantially adapted and built into the code you see here. I have sworn to exercise it with conscientious dedication and to live by it, to the best of my ability. It is not a charter for mere virtue-signalling, for it demands the highest dealings between one human and another and between oneself and one’s conscience. In many ways, I think it sorts out the wheat from the chaff. I hope you find this helpful and encouraging and that you can even adapt it for yourself. I wish you a very fulfilling and growthful year of 2022.
2021 New Year’s Resolutions Revisited
IT’S ALWAYS REVEALING (AND OFTEN EMBARRASSING!) to re-examine one’s previous year’s New Year resolutions. So above is an image of my resolutions from this time last year. It seems that I fulfilled 12 out of the 14 points. However, instead of publishing a book of poems, I began to write a book (on the Book of Revelation), now up to almost 370 pages and 120,000 words, hopefully finished by March. The music album ambition has to be shelved until the madness of the world is more favourable (if ever!). So, all in all, not a bad score. The same resolutions again for 2022, though now including the publication of a book and something unspeakable that I’ve never done before… 
That Dark Maelstrom [new song lyrics]
Double-vacksed or triple-vacksed,
quadruple-vacksed or more —
they’ve got your body and your soul;
they’ve fooled you, that’s for sure.
If I were you, I wouldn’t brag
about that little prick.
Those companies that gave it you
just love to keep folks sick.
The Naked Troubadour 