Stoical Geezer

Wild Ice: Dancing with Dimitry Tsarevski & Katarina Wolfkostin YouTube video by Will Strathmann

Wild Ice Dancing: An ode to fleeting forms and beauty on wild ice in the Colorado mountains.

Trump Makes 'Most Blasé Admission of a War Crime by a US President in History' | Common Dreams "The ship was unarmed," wrote one war journalist. "That’s why Trump and Hegseth chose to murder them."

www.commondreams.org/news/trump-i...

Between Words and Power The words are clean on paper— right of conscience, democratic process. They sit politely in a sentence like candles in a quiet chapel. But outside the chapel the streets are louder. Ballots questioned. Lines made longer. Maps bent like wire around the will of the people. Elsewhere, bombs rise from quiet runways while the public learns the reasons after the smoke. Names are sorted, faces examined for the wrong ancestry, the wrong language, the wrong prayer. And in the courthouse corridors power leans close to the scales of justice watching which way they fall. Still— that small sentence remains like a stubborn candle. The right of conscience. The promise of the vote. A fragile architecture of hope standing between what we say we are and what we choose to become. The Stoics would remind us: no constitution has ever been stronger than the character of those who live beneath it. They knew the world rarely obeys its own ideals. So the Stoic asks a smaller, harder question: Is your own conscience still free? Do you vote with your voice, your conduct, your refusal to lie? Governments may tilt, laws may warp, history may stagger. But the final republic is interior— a quiet senate of reason meeting each morning inside the mind.

Laws declare our ideals;
character determines whether they survive.

#FreeVerse #Poetry #Conscience #Democracy #Justice

#OnThisDay March 10, 1849, Abraham Lincoln applied for a patent for a device to lift boats over shoals using expandable bellows. He remains the only U.S. President to hold a patent. Though never manufactured, his original scale model is preserved at the Smithsonian. It was granted on May 22.

@jason-h-abbott.bsky.social
#2WordPrompt for 09-MAR-26 is: Stone & Stamp

I licked a tiny stamp,
stuck it to a stone,
and dropped it in the mail.
The postman took offense—
my rock is going nowhere.

#Prompt

@mwplovesmusic.bsky.social
#emoetry prompt for 3/9 is #jolted

Jolted by war, humanity weeps:

Jet engines tear the quiet.
Oil stocks burn in silos.
Lines of trade go cold.
Tremors shake every market.
Empires shift their weight.
Darkness claims the map.

#writingcommunity #poetry #acrostic

#OnThisDay 9 March 1776: Adam Smith published 'The Wealth of Nations'. A foundational text of classical economics, it introduced the "invisible hand" and division of labor. Smith argued that free markets and self-interest drive prosperity, shaping modern capitalism and economic policy.

@mwplovesmusic.bsky.social
#Emoetry prompt for 3/8 is #incensed

News without ending—
each headline another wound.
Smoke on the horizon.
I grow incensed at our kind,
yet the killing never stops.

#writingcommunity #poetry

Wow! Ordered yesterday, arrived today! The speed of this Lenovo Chromebook Plus is incredible. That 14" 2K OLED is stunning—deep blacks and vibrant colors. With the Kompanio Ultra 910 and 16GB RAM, runs like a dream. Perfectly smooth performance. Absolutely thrilled! #ChromebookPlus

#OnThisDay
7 March 1876: Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for the telephone in the US. Just three days later, on 10 March 1876, Bell made the first successful telephone call to his assistant, Thomas Watson.

Old Companion Nine years— a quiet partnership of keys and thought. My Google PixelBook, faithful as a good pen, and quality paper, carried drafts, doubts, and small morning revelations. Today it went dark! I am gratified for the long service given, yet disconsolate at its sudden silence. But the desk is never empty for long. A new machine arrives tomorrow— Lenovo, bright with promise, its MediaTek Kompanio heart eager to wake the screen again. Hope, like a cursor, blinks— patiently waiting for the next line.

#Emoetry prompt for 3/6 is #Gratified

Gratified by nine faithful years—
disconsolate at the sudden silence.
Still, hope powers on.

#writingcommunity #poetry

Thx, rage politics.

"The U.S. was the only country surveyed where a majority had such negative views of their countrymen."

US: 53% say their fellow citizens are morally BAD.

Canada: 92% say fellow Canadians are GOOD. ❤️

wapo.st/4d4DgLi via @pewresearch.org @washingtonpost.com

#OnThisDay 6 March 1899: Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is patented by Felix Hoffmann at the German company Bayer. Aspirin was first sold in powder form and later in tablets (1915), becoming a top-selling global drug.

#OnThisDay 5 March 1853: Piano company Steinway & Sons is founded by Heinrich Steinweg (later Henry Steinway) in New York City. Due to massive success, a factory was later opened in Hamburg, Germany, to supply the European market, while the Queens, New York factory serves the Americas.

@jason-h-abbott.bsky.social
The #2WordPrompt for 04-MAR-26 is: Buffer & Wire

Morning—
like a wire
stretched tight,
tension resonates
with things unsaid

I step back,
sip the steaming cup—

a small buffer
between dream
and demand.

#Prompt

@mwplovesmusic.bsky.social
#Emoetry prompt for Pi day 3/4 is #empty

Eager for inspiration
Mind poised to write
Pen hovering bravely
Thoughts… nowhere in sight
Yet another coffee first.

#writingcommunity #poetry #acrostic

Fever in the Strait The sky is no longer a canopy, but a grid of coordinates and heat. From the tower of a carrier deck, the birds of steel take flight, shaking the salt of the Mediterranean from their wings to find a target in the dust. The desert does not heal; it only waits. The old map is a jagged wound, torn open by the sound of a thousand suns blooming over Isfahan, and the silence of a compound in Tehran where the shepherd is gone, but the fire remains. Between the dome and the drone, the air is thick with the ghost of diplomacy— a paper bridge burned at both ends. We watch the horizon for a sign of morning, but find only the glow of a closing strait and the steady, rhythmic pulse of a region breathing through its teeth.

@jason-h-abbott.bsky.social
The #2WordPrompt for 02-MAR-26 is: Wound & Tower

Maps are just paper until they bleed; then they become a debt that fire cannot pay.

#Prompt

'Unlike the United States,' Says Security Chief, Iran 'Has Prepared Itself for a Long War' | Common Dreams ​"Trump plunged the region into chaos with his 'delusional fantasies' and now fears more American troop casualties," said the secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larjani.

Interesting, and concerning, perspective ...

www.commondreams.org/news/iran-re...

#OnThisDay 2 March 1959: Ceremony to mark the start of construction of the Sydney Opera House at Bennelong Point in Sydney, Australia; estimates of $7m and four years to complete project balloon to $102m and 14 years.

Tonight’s moon hangs luminous and self-possessed, a burnished coin pressed into a cobalt sky. Craters etched in quiet relief, it floats beyond branches, serene and indifferent to our small concerns. Captured on a Pixel 8 Pro—yet the real marvel is simply looking up.

@mwplovesmusic.bsky.social
#Emoetry prompt for 3/1 is #Bitter

Political folly is loud in the moment
and obvious in the aftermath.

#writingcommunity #poetry

My #contemplation for 2026-02-28
Do not confuse stillness with stagnation.

Stillness is a state of being; stagnation is a state of stuckness. You can be perfectly still while moving toward your highest self, just as you can be incredibly busy while remaining completely stagnant.

Under headlines that howl, Nothing feels steady. Claims swell beyond fact. Outrage outruns reason. Metrics bend to narrative. Falsehoods travel fast. Opinions pose as proof. Rumors dress as research. Truth arrives winded. Algorithms applaud extremes. Balance looks naïve. Loudness wins the hour. Even the patient grow uneasy.

@mwplovesmusic.bsky.social
#Emoetry prompt 2/28 is #uncomfortable

When lies grow louder than facts, the honest grow uncomfortable — and the shameless grow confident.

#writingcommunity #poetry #acrostic

A new journal is not a new life—
only a cleaner mirror.

#Poetry #Freeverse #Journaling #Fountainpens

@mwplovesmusic.bsky.social
#Emoetry prompt for 2/26 is #withdrawn

Withdrawn from the noise,
I gather what I control—
breath, thought, steady will.
The world shouts beyond my reach;
I answer only with calm.

#writingcommunity #poetry #tanka

#Contemplation for 02-26-26

If you keep your footing, that is success.

To the Stoic, success is internal. The world provides the storm, but you provide the stillness. If your character remains upright while the chaos swirls, you have achieved the only victory that matters: self-mastery.

Sterling on the desk today: three quiet companions in silver — two fountain pens and a pencil. Weighty with intention, they carry the patina of years and the promise of fresh ink and graphite. Tools for thought, for letters, for the slow pleasure of writing by hand. ✒️

#fountainpens

#OnThisDay 24 February 1932: Malcolm Campbell sets world land speed record speed of 253.96 mph driving his famous Blue Bird car at Daytona Beach, Florida. He eventually exceeding 300 mph in Utah in 1935.

#OnThisDay Feb 22:
1732 – George Washington born in Westmoreland County, VA
1819 – The Florida Purchase (Adams–Onís Treaty)
1879 – First Woolworth’s store in Utica, NY.
1978 – GPS is born with the launch of Navstar 1
1997 – Dolly the Sheep, first mammal clone from an adult cell

#contemplation for 2026-02-22: Release the need to correct every error you notice.

An act of radical acceptance, shifting focus from "fixing" to "being," saving energy for what truly matters. Letting the world be imperfect, prioritizes internal peace over external control. Presence over perfection.