Randy | April 13, 2025
This poem was inspired by two utterances of Wisdom from wellsprings I drink from routinely. The first is this segment from Maestro Adam Crown‘s exquisite Swordmastery YouTube channel, being a four minute video titled The Law of Conservation of Combat — Bogart’s Fencing Lesson. The other is a story from the website of the Ronin […]
Randy | October 17, 2024
“Darkness, as it inspires me, isn’t limited to expressions of evil, mayhem, and bad outcomes. Something can also be considered “dark” if it is unknown, misunderstood, or incorrectly interpreted. So, depending on your sensibilities good reader, I believe that if the title of the series, let alone its author, didn’t dissuade you from stepping inside, […]
Randy | October 14, 2024
In this age of divided loyalties and unending crisis, some cower. Some assert themselves from the perceived safety of throngs screaming a common slogan understood differently by each throat and hearing ear. Some look to a saviour. Still others understand that if there is a saviour, in the hour of need it’s going to have […]
Randy | October 12, 2024
The elements of the picture at the top of tonight’s Dark Sentiment combine thoughts placed here seven years ago as Dark Sentiments Season 8 — Day 3: Of Mini-miracles, Odd Synchronicities, and Sublime Messages, and more recently in On the Weihnachtsjäger Trail. The feather gifted to me, and spoken of in the former, is the […]
Randy | October 11, 2024
“Best day ever!” An all too common utterance from the mouths of the same subset of the Great Unwashed who seasonally prattle on about their “Resolution” for a new year, and the check boxes (most of them fated to remain unchecked) on their “bucket list”. Spoken as though the speaker is dead but refuses to […]
Randy | October 9, 2024
People really need to be careful of the tattoos they get put on themselves. Marking yourself with a character from an Asian language you don’t speak yourself, only to find out too late that it means something embarrassing, isn’t even close to being the worst thing that could happen. Some languages were never meant to […]
Randy | October 6, 2024
It is a not uncommon experience among Writers to feel as though the words being put upon the page are being dictated from somewhere else. So it is with tonight’s Dark Sentiment. A nonsense poem of sorts, Dudley’s Shop was written in a state of flow, exactly as you see it here, and while it […]
Randy | October 4, 2024
Tonight’s Dark Sentiment grew out of two inspirations. This oft quoted witticism: “Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.” ~ Celtic Proverb And the other, the life of Scottish soldier, prize fighter, Swordmaster, brothel keeper, notorious duellist, and all around self-made sonofabitch, Donald McBane (1664 – 12 April 1732), author of The […]
Randy | October 2, 2024
There are those who live their lives, and would judge all others, by standards excremental (to paraphrase the Esteemed and Right Honourable Master At Arms James A. Keating). Their mettle never tested, forever self-excused by the acts of others, their only measure of strength is relative to how far an audience can be drawn to […]
Randy | August 10, 2024
Songbirds By LFM When you think of “songbirds” and sweet melodies they make, What you’re about to learn will seem a terrible mistake, But Truth is Truth, however harsh and earthy be the song, Uncaring of opinions where things do and don’t belong. I speak, of course, of Crows, long may they flock and croak […]