April Poetry Dump (2026)

Wednesday is about books and writing. (And reading). Once a month or so I share the latest poems I’ve written. Here’s the poetry reflections from April of 2026.

I guess it was in 2024 that I started this thing, so we’re into the second full rotation now. At the beginning of a new month I share the previous month’s batch of poems. I’m writing them when and where I can, sharing most of them on this site, I then gather them all in a ‘dump’ here at the start of each month for those that prefer to read them in a group, as part of one of the official newsletters that appear during the week. To give you an idea, and in case you missed it, here’s last month’s — the March Poetry Dump:

I reckon I experimented with form, and length certainly, a lot more in April than for a while. Some different vibes with these poems, which I liked a lot. We also had the second Say The Thing for the year, which was fabulous, and a great turn out with some excellent readings:

To kick off that night, I read two of the poems that you’ll see below — first outing for them both. I’ll include a recording of that at the end too, but for now here’s all the April new poems I created:

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EMPATHY IS THE GREATEST LUXURY:

Some people’s empathy
ends at the driveway.
I know they say Charity
begins at home.

That doesn’t mean
it needs to end there
too. We’re all renting
space on this rock —

own all you like.
Buy what you must.
But one day it’s ashes,
the next day it’s dust.

---

PAINTED, FROM MEMORY:

The chipped-paint deadened smile
carrying dead skin cells
and dried cough spatter —

frozen in a silent scream,
never able to say
what it saw —

static-fried hair, a missing end
of a thumb; the rest of the fingers
in a knotted clump —

dress, a paler shade of white,
now excised from
the parochial harem —

and the thousand yard stare
on a 45 year old doll,
which was always dead —

yet it still might dream
for someone to give it a new home.
Forever drying on a shelf.

---

AN OLD SCHOOL MOAN:

walked around the old school
with my new dog — his nose
further out than mine,

both of us sniffing around.
There’s the old pool
where I first saw a Metallica t-shirt;

got the bug, possibly several.
The field was silent but for the hum
of those quarter-century conversations…

add a few more years to that,
I thought as I groaned to bend
and tie the bag full of shit.

---

ARTEMIS II:

Like you, I read that man just waved
from the window of the spaceship;
apparently this is the furthest we’ve gone.

I didn’t think, as a species, we’d traveled
all that far, and certainly not very well.
The Commander-in-Thief now swears

in his Tweets; Mr Potato Head as CEO
of New Zealand won’t take a stand
on anything — and it’s not just because

of the wobbly shoes. Hey, the anti vax
crowd have still not been killed
by the virus, the vaccine, or the biggest

threat yet: Their own stupidity.
But hey everyone, wave to the man
on the moon. There is no fuel crisis

in New Zealand. We are clean, green
and climate-change free. We are
right where we’re meant to be:

Under the impression we are punching
above our weight. Over compensating
about under-delivering.

Making Hollywood Run-Off.
Drinking their beer here.
Singing our own praises as usual.

---

MISSES:

The teacher made us stand on the desk
to recite times tables. She kept a bucket
of disinfectant filled with recorders —

it was the only way to stop them screeching.
She dunked a kid’s thumb in the bucket,
then stuffed it back in her mouth.

This foul method was to stop thumb-sucking.
When I wanted to know what a paragraph
indent was (the second word threw me)

she jabbed hard into my leg,
and said — “That’s an indent!”
She definitely left an impression.

She drove really fast to and from school.
But even before we saw that we all knew
she just did not want to be there.

---

FOUND POEM FROM THE AI BOT THAT WILL OPTIMISE MY PODCAST SO GOOD AND SO HARD:

To: simonweetman

I took a brief look at Sweetman Podcast
and a pattern was obvious.

Each episode is strong individually,
but without search context, they’re buried in results.

The good news is surprisingly easy.
No new episodes. Just matching

your existing content
with what YouTube is built to promote.

Can I walk you through this? Takes 20 minutes.
I can explain where the gaps are.

Your next audience are actively looking.
They just keep finding other channels.

To: monicachambers

Beautiful poem,
Thank you!

---

SMALL CALL FOR A MORATORIUM ON THE WORD ‘WOKE’:

When they said slavery ended
there was still a gross imbalance,
a total immersion in the subversive
intoxication of power — and so
a people developed a word.

They said ‘Woke’.

They said it to warn each other,
to stay awake, alert, aware —

They said ‘Woke’.

They said it in the hope
they would one day be okay.

Now, so many years on,
and a whole group of people
sits angry and dismissive
but they don’t quite know why.

So when they can’t make a point,
or know what to say, cannot
articulate any true evidence to support
garden-fence rage —

They shout ‘Woke!’

They say it as if they’ve just scored a point,
and they’re running back — the stadium cheering.

They shout ‘Woke!’

They say it is as it means anything.
And like it sums up everything.

The way the word ‘Woke’ was once used,
has changed — sure. It has, like a lot of language,
taken on new meanings, and is capable therefore
of being harnessed for new demeanings —

But the people saying it like some kick-ass
pejorative; like some secret code that cuts
right through rebuttal (those stadium hacks)
aren’t aware that woke is not a punchline.

It’s hard to know that I suppose,
when punching down is the default position;
the idea of power.

They should know that saying it
the way they do is reinforcing the original need
for the word-as-code; for the way to say
“Woke” as warning, as watchtower cry.

I wondered today if the Mayor that refused
to engage in a proper Civil Defence response
(for a storm that raged) because he thought it
“Too Woke!” — knew that people crawled through fields
at night, without sleep, to make their escape,
even after it was said that slavery was over.
They would sometimes whisper “woke, stay woke!”
to younger friends and family
in the crawl-line for hopeful escape.

Staying
on mission,
on message,
on guard.

Now that language has changed.

But there’s an irony when you use the word
to dismiss the actions it hopes to inspire.
A moratorium, please, on use of the word ‘Woke’
by old white fucks in shirt collars with jobs,
with houses and garages, with wage increases
and petrol in their tanks, with the world
on their string, and everyone else hanging
by its thread.

---

ECONOMICAL:

Word on the street:

Dangerous

Word in the book:

Safer

Word of advice:

Don’t

Word in your ear —

Listen

Word to the wise:

Wasted

Word of the Day:

Economical

---

WHEN WE WERE CHAD:

There we were in our school sports colours, white faces shining with our then so secret privilege. It was the 1988 Olympics, and the whole school was given a country each — not the obvious ones: No France, Australia, America, England. The idea was that we would learn about new places. New to us. We would study the geography. We would draw the flag and wear it with suddenly inherited pride. We would make our own anthem, and walk into an ‘Olympic’ sports day, performing the anthem. We were given the country Chad. We made the tri-colour flag. We pinned it to our bright yellow clingfilm shirts. And to the tune of Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’ we vaguely shouted, “We’re Chad. We’re Chad. You know it!” No one knew anything back then. Many years later we would carry cancel devices in our pockets. These surveillance machines had built-in cameras to capture Cultural Appropriation. Agents around the world would argue furiously with their fingers. In a way they now host their own Olympics. They do not give out medals. They take them away.

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PHILIP GLASS TEXTS HIS WIFE TO SAY HE IS ON HIS WAY HOME FROM WORK IN THE STORM:

L. Op

H o Ng. No. O. A. I

N O N by. I by p on o. NBC P. A comm

M

O m bc h

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O yo

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One o h o

Op Pop

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Hogpopp pyo. O

Lo lol. o o

Xoophoooo

O.

O o

O o o Lo

L o mom.

Oo mug z

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Opine km

O

---

DELAYED ECHOLALIA:

I only repeat the things
Shakira sings.

---

ART — OFFICIAL:

I wrote this poem without any help
from the AI — and that’s not just
thinking for myself, it’s the smart

way to be creative. What use
do robots have in any of this?
They’re there to stack dishes,

drive cars, deliver goods, track
the shopping and other things
stopping us from being creative.

Oh, wait? We do all of that too.
Including driving the machines
by prompt, to only later wonder

who is working for who, and just
what we’re giving up to give up
on certain things we have deemed

a chore. So I’m following
the right instinct. I’m doing
the heavy lifting myself.

This poem is doing a lot of work,
even if scratched out in a break
from my real job —

even that em-dash above?
Yes, I did that. Here’s another —
So. There!

---

SPARKS:

Not much is lit
But I have my music.
Well, the music has me —

My ears fill with songs
other people wrote,
it influences my work,

always, it accompanies me;
holding my hand, or my heart,
or harrying my head

(in a good way most often).
The best thing about work
is being paid. The worst

is the actual work.
I’ve longed for satisfaction
in a job — found sparks,

but never fire. So I listen
to Sparks. This town ain’t
big enough for security,

happiness, purpose and pride.
Pick one, and another
might follow. Aim higher

elsewhere. Maybe
you’ll get to sing Sinatra.
Your way. (One day…)

---

LEAN:

Mark my words, he said.
She put an ‘X’ on each one.
They tumbled from his tongue
through the curve of her back.
New home for old sentiment.
Secret breath for a rise in flesh.

---

C-90:

We swapped tapes. Hope for the best.
The music held our secrets. Tap and shake the case.
Each song in order. Wound tight with a pencil.
Chosen with precision. Not too many slow songs in a row.
Always such care. You didn’t want to give it away.
You didn’t want to give it away. Always such care.
Not too many slow songs in a row. Chosen with precision.
Wound tight with a pencil. Each song in order.
Tap and shake the case. The music held our secrets.
Hope for the best. We swapped tapes.

Hope for the best. We swapped tapes.
Tap and shake the case. The music held our secrets.
Wound tight with a pencil. Each song in order.
Not too many slow songs in a row. Chosen with precision.
You didn’t want to give it away. Always such care.
Always such care. You didn’t want to give it away
Chosen with precision. Not too many slow songs in a row.
Each song in order. Wound tight with a pencil.
The music held our secrets. Tap and shake the case.
We swapped tapes. Hope for the best.

---

OLFACTORY:

When the curtains are pulled
all through the day, or a light
is left on — I can hear the music

from a Playstation game
in my head; can smell the fug
of the purple heads.

The poo-stained Formica
of instant coffee as instant mess,
and a stockpot on a stovetop

with beans growing fur.
Stolen pizza sauce
in a pint glass in the fridge.

All of this makes me rush about
to open blinds,
and windows, and doors.

There’s two types of nostalgia,
and we only want
to let the right one in.

---

SAD SONG:

Sons need fathers to care.
God made man in his own image.
Though, back then, the only

real job was feeding a flock.
Now, there’s all sorts of footsteps
to follow, and only so many hours…

So when Lou Reed started
writing songs about not suffering
the whips and chains

of outrageous foreplay,
it was not what his dad wanted.
That’s why there’d been

the electric shocks, and the
job as a typist; office lobotomy.
The band fell in on itself.

Lou Reed carried sadness through anger,
across addiction; not making him better,
only keeping him bitter.

Words like tiny fists. Hurting
all the time. Bleeding across
the lines. Hoping his dad might listen.

---

So that’s all the new poetry for April, dashed out on my phone while waiting for a bus, or laboured over on the computer. Either way, it’s done here for you to see.

By my count, seventeen — which is a bumper crop!

And here’s a reading of the poems, Olfactory and C-90 from earlier in the week:

See anything you like? Or really do not like? Let me know what you think. And see you end of May with whatever new poems arrive between now and then.

Thanks for reading.