Stephen Brooke

They told me I should seize the day,
grab it before it slipped away;
the day turned and hit me,
it struggled and bit me!
This day I will let go astray.

Stephen Brooke ©2025
#limerick #poetry

The great thing about #writing in first person is that any grammar mistakes can be blamed on the fictional narrator.

Ten years ago we released the first of Stephen Brooke's surf-and-crime novels, SHAPER. The book and two sequels (Waves and Smoke) are available from Arachis Press site (arachispress.com) as print or free ebooks.

Me

Neither this poem nor the last one
is about me. Tomorrow’s poem
won’t be about me. Somewhere between
pen and paper, I am lost
and some other poet takes
my place. I am not sure if the poems
are about him either. Maybe
he just makes it all up, huh?

Stephen Brooke ©2025
#poetry

As I sometimes have to remind folks, my stories, poems, songs, etc reflect not my personal views but those of characters I have created.

TWO PARTY BLUES Don’t like me no Democrats, but them Republicans is worse Don’t like me no Democrats, but Republicans is even worse The one leads me to swearin’ and the other makes me curse. One blames the other and the other blames the one One blames the other and the other just blames the one As long as they’re fightin’ no work is gettin’ done. When they’re two sides of the coin, which one do you choose? Right hand washes the left, got them two-party blues. Both like them bankers and they aim to please Both like them bankers’ money and they aim to please Take them to the White House and hand them the keys. Lesser of two evils seems to be my only choice Lesser of two evils is gonna be my only choice No matter which way I vote, will anyone hear my voice? When they’re two sides of the coin, which one do you choose? Left hand washes the right, got them two-party blues. Stephen Brooke ©2012

a #blues from a while back (but remaining more or less relevant)

I bury my truths
on the far side of the moon
never to be seen

Stephen Brooke ©2025
#poetry #senryu

Space X has big, destructive plans for its big rocket in Florida • Florida Phoenix This is such a breakable age. Things we thought would last are, to our surprise, now in danger of shattering. You think our state parks will always be preserved? Nope, we’re going to try to put golf c...

Space X is not NASA. It’s just a for-profit business, putting more money into Musk’s already bulging pockets. floridaphoenix.com/2025/10/16/s...

It seems Young #Republicans haven't changed much in the last sixty years. I feel somewhat justified by the way they were portrayed in my Women in the Sun novels, set in the late Sixties (writing as Sienna Santerre).

Facebook Removes ICE-Tracking Group Under Pressure From Trump Regime It's against Facebook's terms of service to reveal the identity of secret police.

Facebook Removes ICE-Tracking Group Under Pressure From Trump Regime https://gizmodo.com/facebook-removes-ice-tracking-group-under-pressure-from-trump-regime-2000672106

Unreliable narrators belong in stories, not in government.

What are Black Catholics hearing when church leaders praise Charlie Kirk? For many Black Catholics familiar with Charlie Kirk's full record, endorsements of his message by Catholic leaders can be devastating.

www.americamagazine.org/faith-and-re...

I'd hardly thought of Harry Harrison for forty years or so, but reading and rereading his #sciencefiction shows me he had a definite (somewhat unconscious?) influence on my own SF. Anyway, I like it just about as much this time around; that's not something I can say about other revisited authors.

Promo of Asanas novel with cover picture of woman doing yoga movements on beach rear cover blurb: Yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow only a vision. Two women. A yoga class, an art gallery. The little Gulf Coast resort town of Tamarind seems to go to sleep when the ‘season’ is over, when tourists and winter residents alike return north. But turmoil lurks beneath that drowsy surface. For Lynn and Karen, their yoga class becomes something more. Workaholic Karen decides yoga instructor Pat is ‘just what she needed.’ But would she ever be what he needs? Lynn has her doubts, as she does about own relationship with a charismatic married artist. Through the heat and storms of a South Florida summer, passions and tensions grow, testing both love affairs and friendships. Life has its own asanas, its movements and postures, as surely as a yoga class, and its own lessons to teach in ASANAS, a novel by Stephen Brooke.

Asanas, my most mainstream-ish #novel, is available in print or as free ebooks from Arachis Press (arachispress.com). Asanas’ setting was influenced a tad (okay, more than a tad) by the Shangri-La resort in Bonita Springs FL where I worked a while as a #yoga instructor. #florida

Readings Might Be Turning Into America’s New Favorite Pastime - Electric Literature Many people arrive looking to meet someone and enjoy a shared cultural experience

Is it finally cool to go to literary readings? (The answer is yes — always has been)

Crates I have placed yesterday on sale, half-priced until we close. After that, it goes into the dumpster with the wilted lettuce and moldy cheese. Let the homeless root about and take the broken pieces. I have no use for them. Crates of tomorrow already wait to be unloaded and placed on shelves. Stephen Brooke ©2013

A piece from the collection Fields of Summer by Stephen Brooke. Available in print or as free ebooks from Arachis Press (arachispress.com). #poetry

If Hesgeth is against beards I guess I'll have to let mine keep growing.

In Dreams In dreams, I have the love you keep from me; You flow into me with the tide of night. In dreams, I find a love that can not be; Yet, with all of my soul, I wish it might. In dreams, there is no other at your side; I feel your heartbeat singing in the dark. In dreams, I would forever more abide, As waking brings realities too stark. In dreams, I take your willing hand in mine, But come unwelcome dawn you slip away. In dreams, I may drink deeply of your wine; The bitter lees, I swallow with the day. So, sleep I shall seek ever, for it seems That I shall hold you never, save in dreams. Stephen Brooke ©2003

An older piece in form. the #poem In Dreams appears in the collection Dreamwinds, available from Arachis Press (arachisprss.com) in print or as free ebooks.

I miss #skating . Including skateboarding. It just doesn't work on the dirt roads out here in the boonies. #countrylife

Draft of Blind Jump, the new Jack Mack #sciencefiction novel, finished at 59,000 words. It might grow slightly with revisions but that's pretty much it.

For quite a long time I thought the word 'excitations' in the #song Good Vibrations was 'eight citations'. Why she was giving him citations I couldn't figure out. Maybe she was a cop.

if it can’t be said
in just fourteen syllables
is it worth saying?

Stephen Brooke ©2025
#haiku #senryu

seem familiar? #freespeech

At heart I'm a libertarian socialist, i.e. an anarchist. Whether it's practical or not.

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once. ~ Blaise Pascal

If one makes it funny, one can get away with quite a bit of info-dumping. #writing

...the writer’s function is not without arduous duties. By definition, he can not serve today those who make history; he must serve those who are subject to it. ~ Albert Camus (from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech)
#writing

I might not be personally guilty of it but it can be fun to write characters who are.

The decentralized web is good for folks on both ends of the political spectrum. Or however many ends there are.
pluralistic.net/2025/09/16/t...

As quickly as data is available these days we could almost do daily reporting.