iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

Accomplishments #poetry #poem started out as light verse but put on a little weight as I went along

Accomplishments

I feel I am accomplishing things;
it could be an illusion
but I’ll just keep on plugging away,
ignoring reality’s intrusion.

Each day another page gets written,
a bit more lawn gets mowed;
each day I grow a little older
and travel down my road.

I count up these accomplishments,
I add them to life’s sum,
while ever avoiding asking myself,
will there be more to come?

Stephen Brooke ©2026

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

The Last Hurricane That’s it for another hurricane; how many it makes, I don’t know. I quit keeping count quite some years ago. I hope that’s it for the season, but I’m sure old Neptune could throw another one (or two!) into the Gulf of Mexico. Stephen Brooke ©2026 #poetry #hurricane

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I suspect I'll sleep on the couch in the studio tomorrow night when the #hurricane passes. It's sturdier than the house.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

What Bird Calls #poetry somewhat in the shape of a #sijo

What Bird Calls

I know not what bird calls across the dusk;
seeking southern forests, it will sing there tomorrow.

Silent wings beat through my darkened skies; in dream
only can I fly, to distant sun-lit lands.

Sleep now; morning comes and I must once more
prepare for winter, not expecting spring.

Stephen Brooke ©2026

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I suppose this could be labeled cowboy #poetry An older piece with a new graphic

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

It becomes more difficult if a significant other dragged you there.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses. ~ Terry Pratchett (‘Thud’)

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

One thing I particularly like about a first person point of view is that one can put all sorts of crackpot theories and explanations (not to mention odd opinions) in the narrator's mouth and the reader needn't mistake them for 'the truth.'

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

a somewhat silly #song from a while back, I Used to be a Libertarian

I USED TO BE A LIBERTARIAN (But I’m All Better Now)

I used to be a libertarian,
but I'm all better now;
I've seen the light and carry on
with one less sacred cow.
Yes, I like my roads and parks,
all the public can endow;
This doesn't mean I follow Marx —
well, Groucho I'll allow!

Once, I thought that I was all
I needed to succeed,
but spring and pride precede the fall —
now I have gone to seed!
Some say that being good is good,
some say so is greed;
be greedy for some brotherhood —
you'll find that's what you need

The other day I saw Ayn Rand
lunch with John Stuart Mills;
they talked about supply and demand,
the use of men's free wills.
But they failed to come up with a cure
for all of mankind's ills,
for Ayn claimed that John's heart wasn't pure,
he said Ayn gave him chills!

Yes, I am a proud individual
but if I am free
I'll be more than that old residual
lizard deep in me.
I know he's back there in my brain,
coveting all we see,
but I can choose and so I'll gain
the person I should be.

This doesn't mean that I've gone Lefty
or read from Chairman Mao,
but each man's load is far too hefty
for the sweat from just his brow.
I've seen the light and carry on
with one less sacred cow;
I used to be a libertarian
but I'm all better now!

Stephen Brooke ©2012

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Asanas, a #novel of #Florida from Stephen Brooke and Arachis Press Available in print or as free ebooks at arachispress.com #yoga

promo for the novel Asanas by Stephen Brooke, with cover and blurb

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

We should call #ebikes mopeds like we did sixty years ago. The concept is the same, just the motor has changed. I included a Solex moped in my Women in the Sun novels (written as Sienna Santerre), remembering one of my classmates in Sixties Naples had one. Noisy, with a decidedly minimalist design!

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Saw Grass Day, a #song from a few years back about where I grew up #florida #everglades

SAW GRASS DAY

Dragonflies hover above the sea of grass;
glitter in the sun, bits of colored glass.
Watch them dart and dance with an ageless grace;
dragonflies of morning, wings of silver lace.

So I greet another saw grass day
and in its turn, it will pass away;
dragonfly and I beneath the Florida sky,
time will bring another saw grass day.

Golden haze beneath deep blue cloudless sky;
swallowtail kite gliding on high.
Shadowed in the cattails, great blue heron wades;
wind waves whispering across the Everglades.

So I greet another saw grass day
and in its turn, it will pass away;
heron and I beneath the Florida sky,
life will bring another saw grass day.

Mist clings to the hammocks, barred owl calls her last;
dawn is on the Glades, as in ages past.
Morning air is humming like a thing alive;
it's good to see another saw grass day arrive.

So I greet another saw grass day
and in its turn, it will pass away;
dragonfly and I beneath the Florida sky,
time will bring another saw grass day;
life will bring another saw grass day.

Stephen Brooke ©2016

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Now? I've been depressed pretty much forever.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Those of us who are a bit older remember when Richard Nixon wanted fanciful #uniforms too and put the White House guard in them. His were more Banana Republic than Starship Trooper.

Nixon's uniforms with lots of gold braid

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Like the trolls of Discworld, I think my IQ goes down as the temperature goes up.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I've never intentionally used AI and continue to avoid so doing. It's too much like speaking with a person, which I also avoid.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

As writers, some things we are told are wrong are simply out of style. And some, of course, are wrong.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I switched back at the time 'Gulf of America' was announced

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

A seasonal #poem possibly for a children's book, should I write any more of them

We Go

Our seasons here are nearly run;
it’s time to seek the Southern sun.
In the fields the farmers mow;
we gather now in each fence-row.

We go, we go;
this is all we know.

Heeding Summer’s fading song,
telling all we not have long;
when the cold winds start to blow,
when the weather cocks all crow,

we’ll know, we’ll know,
it’s time for us to go.

Dawn comes late now, chill and gray,
as leaves scatter, borne away,
and we too must join the flow;
our world has been ever so.

We go, we go;
this is all we know.

In night’s darkness voices sigh;
brothers passing through the sky.
Far below us, stag and doe
make their passage through the snow.

we know, we know,
it’s time for us to go.

Stephen Brooke ©2026

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I am inclined to see those who enjoyed their school years as suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

'telling stories' ... was worse than lying; it was trying to make lies interesting. ~ Terry Pratchett (‘The Truth’)

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

All the actors I imagined in roles in my first #novels are now too old for the parts.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

I almost always have a blurb completed for back cover and advertising before I have finished #writing the book. Condensing what the story is about helps me write it.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

if you can see what the plate is made of the portions are too small. ~ Nanny Ogg

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Nobody knows the trouble I've seen. So I make sure to tell them every opportunity I get.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I swam in #Florida lakes as a kid but wouldn't think of it now. Incidentally, I mention this concern/danger in my novel 'Asanas.'

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

a short passage from Mission Delayed #scifi

“Tub,” spoke Billy, “I am standing at the starboard hatch to the central control room. What lies directly aft of me?”
“Three point four-eight-two meters of open space.”
“Metrics? I guess I should have known they still used them back then. Do you two know how to convert them?” I asked.
“Our devices do,” answered Jock. Billy nodded in agreement.
“Remember they used a decimal system of numbers, too,” I reminded them. Not the sensible base-twelve we employed.
“How’d they manage to get anything done?” wondered Billy.

from Mission Delayed by Oliver Davis Pike
a novella available in print or as free ebooks
from Arachis Press – arachispress.com

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

The writing of vast books — setting out in five hundred pages an idea which could be perfectly expressed orally in a few minutes — is an exhausting and impoverishing piece of extravagance ~ Jorge Luis Borges #writing

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Hmm, yesterday the storms were moving north to south, and today it's south to north. I suspect it's the same storms wanting to get a second crack at us.

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Stephen Brooke @stephenbrooke.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

The main purpose of the first line is to lead the reader to the second line. #writing

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