SAMANTHA TERRELL - POET / EIC, SHINE Poetry Series
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Jan. 30~ STEPHEN DRUCE

1/30/2026

 
As we head into the weekend, I hope you'll enjoy these poems by UK-based poet, Stephen Druce. I appreciate the playful style with which he conveys serious messages. Thank you, Stephen, for sharing your words with SHINE international poetry series!

The Rarest Gift

 Few can ambidextrous switch -
so few can sing in perfect pitch,
the few are gifted intuition -
few with surgeon hand precision,
few can dance with perfect timing -
few can conquer Everest climbing,
few become good tightrope walkers -
public speakers - dinner talkers,
few can do the telepathic -
few can tumble acrobatic,
few become Olympic skaters -
few become impersonators,
few can solve the Rubik's cube -
so few can thrive in solitude,
so few become good belly dancers -
scientists with all the answers,
few are skilled to fly formation -
few can master levitation,
few can fashion clothes design -
or portrait paint or juggle blind,
but the rarest gift despite the rumour -
blessed the few - a good sense of humour.

Be Good to Me on Sunday

 I don't need your devotion -
your attention - or to listen,
connect with my emotions -
or to tell me I'm forgiven,

I don't need your affection
or to feel your tender touch,
I don't need your protection -
your support - to be my crutch,

I don't need adoration -
all your compliments and thanking,
your true appreciation -
all your patience - understanding,


I don't need all the accolades -
your gratitude - respect,
your sympathy - your serenades -
your charming intellect,

I don't need all your lavish gifts
and all your good advice,
don't save me in a snowdrift -
I don't need your sacrifice,

I don't need your agreement
or to see my point of view,
just be good to me on Sunday -
and be good to me on Monday too.
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Stephen Philip Druce is a poet and surrealist from Shrewsbury in the UK. He is published in the USA, Hungary, India, Canada, Ireland, the UK, and South Africa. Stephen has also written for London theatre plays and BBC Radio 4 extra.


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    SHINE - International Poetry Series

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    From the international poetry community, we have a "luxury of stars," as Sylvia Plath might say, and it is SHINE's honor to provide a home for their words with the online Spotlight series as well as SHINE Quarterly. Click on the logo above to learn more. And...keep writing, keep shining!
    In poetry,
    Samantha Terrell, EIC
    SYLVIA PLATH
    Stars Over the Dordogne

    Stars are dropping thick as stones into the twiggy
    Picket of trees whose silhouette is darker
    Than the dark of the sky because it is quite starless.
    The woods are a well. The stars drop silently.
    They seem large, yet they drop, and no gap is visible.
    Nor do they send up fires where they fall
    Or any signal of distress or anxiousness.
    They are eaten immediately by the pines.

    Where I am at home, only the sparsest stars
    Arrive at twilight, and then after some effort.
    And they are wan, dulled by much travelling.
    The smaller and more timid never arrive at all
    But stay, sitting far out, in their own dust.
    They are orphans. I cannot see them. They are lost.
    But tonight they have discovered this river with no trouble,
    They are scrubbed and self-assured as the great planets.

    The Big Dipper is my only familiar.
    I miss Orion and Cassiopeia's Chair. Maybe they are
    Hanging shyly under the studded horizon
    Like a child's too-simple mathematical problem.
    Infinite number seems to be the issue up there.
    Or else they are present, and their disguise so bright
    I am overlooking them by looking too hard.
    Perhaps it is the season that is not right.

    And what if the sky here is no different,
    And it is my eyes that have been sharpening themselves?
    Such a luxury of stars would embarrass me.
    The few I am used to are plain and durable;
    I think they would not wish for this dressy backcloth
    Or much company, or the mildness of the south.
    They are too puritan and solitary for that--
    When one of them falls it leaves a space,

    A sense of absence in its old shining place.
    And where I lie now, back to my own dark star,
    I see those constellations in my head,
    Unwarmed by the sweet air of this peach orchard.
    There is too much ease here; these stars treat me too well.
    On this hill, with its view of lit castles, each swung bell
    Is accounting for its cow. I shut my eyes
    And drink the small night chill like news of home.

    ~~~

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