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John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

Check out this review and new book by @merrildsmith.bsky.social
#poetry #new

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 23h

This beautiful review of my new collection, Held Inside the Folds of Time. Thank you @luannecastle.bsky.social
#poetry #PoetryCommunity

merrildsmith.org/2025/11/10/n...

New Review for Held Inside the Folds of Time

Poet, writer, and artist Luanne Castle has written a beautiful review of my new poetry collection, Held Inside the Folds of Time. Thank you so much, Luanne!

merrildsmith.org

November 11, 2025 at 12:31 AM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#Poetry #Acceptance
OMG, I submitted some poetry at around three o’clock yesterday afternoon and got an acceptance email at around six this morning!!! I am so psyched!!! Walking on air today!

November 9, 2025 at 4:11 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#PoemsAbout #LockedDoors
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
Let’s get some comments going on this exceptional poem by @rock-rex.bsky.social

Peter J. King @rock-rex.bsky.social · 4d

"Incarceration".

#poem #poetry #skypoets #blueskypoets #poetsofbluesky #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #PoemsAbout #LockedDoors
@alanparrywriter.co.uk o.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

i. Inside

The echo turns each shout
into an utterance in some
impenetrable tongue —
not just unknown,
but of an unknown family.
He cannot even make out questions, protests, or commands —
and are those conversations,
or just unconnected comments
on the weather,
prayers,
news headlines,
imprecations?

ii. Outside

The wing wall’s stuccoed with the words
of prisoners;
from windows opened to their narrow full extent
the shouts spill out: the banter, insults,
sometimes sympathy,
in layers of linguistic guano
built up on the concrete blocks.
Locked doors
make other contact hard;
raised voices in the open air
are suited best
to boisterousness,
not to intimacy.

iii. Within

The copper beeches are in leaf,
great mounds of dark pink
set against the late-Spring sky.
Across the valley, past the dead white remnant
of a lightning strike,
out where the woods begin,
a raven’s cronk wings echoless
across the sheep-flecked fields.
Two hares
lurk nervously
beside the hedgerow
at the edge of open ground;
the clatter of a vintage tractor
fails to shatter the essential calm.

And yet he feels unease unfurling,
fronds of fear that fernlike spread within him,
spores provoking panic —
but he tries to run
too late.
One step, maybe two,
and everything dissolves,
dispersed by sudden gusts
of waking wind.
And he is back here
in this narrow bunk,
the window barred
and steel door locked,
the stale air mocking his curtailed escape.

November 8, 2025 at 5:17 AM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#PormsAbout #LockedDoors
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

I’m six or more hours backlogged in the posts, yet must say…I graduated from a major university forty plus years ago, but I find myself studying more poetry and writing a semester’s worth of analysis each Friday with this lovely group of poets.

November 7, 2025 at 7:20 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#PoemsAbout #LockedDoors
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
I will put a reel in the comments, or I won’t.

LOCKED DOORS

I’ve learned or been reluctantly convinced
to trust the math
so if Monty Hall
may he rest in peace
resurrected his game show host self
and showed me Schrödinger’s pussy
or a goat
behind door number two
I would switch my choice
but I wouldn’t
like it.

I want bigger balls
to fall faster,
I want Columbus to land in India,
I want eels
born from mud,
I want my wife to have less
teeth than me,
I want ice smaller than water, and
I want 77 million Americans
to be and to vote smarter,
but they ain’t and they’re maybe never gonna.

November 7, 2025 at 7:00 AM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#haiku #meteor #ufo
meteor flash
little deer startles
mama chews tasty grass

The meteor or ufo is in the upper right corner just before the little one jumps.

November 6, 2025 at 4:47 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

This is an awesome interview. It’s a rare talent to be able to write well for both younger and older audiences. I get the idea that a big part of it is treating children with respect.

Rachel Burrows @rburrows.bsky.social · 10d

Dear #PoemsAbout #PromptCombo and poetry friends - you normally see my adult poetry on Bluesky. If you would like to find out more about my children’s stuff, please check this out! 😊 #kidlituk #kidlit #writingforchildren Thanks @littlethoughtspress.com #interview

Rachel Burrows @rburrows.bsky.social · 11d

Thank you so much @littlethoughtspress.com for my interview! I have loved being part of the LTP experience! #poetry #poetryforkids #poetryforchildren www.littlethoughtspress.com/post/intervi...

November 1, 2025 at 5:36 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

This is what they mean by performing poetry!!! Look, even if you don’t have the whole nine minutes, at least take a dip into this tour de force.

Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 11d

#PoemsAbout #Blood @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk Few click links, & in this case that may be for the best—this remains the most disturbing musical piece in the 10 years of my Parlando Project & the 9 minutes of music that Walt Whitman & a modern account are set to is unpleasant.

The Blood of Strangers

As we go forward, following Leonard Cohen’s suggestion “Let Us Compare Mythologies,” I’m going to take you to another very dark place. If Siegfried Sassoon was hesitant to publish the last piece Ch…

frankhudson.org

October 31, 2025 at 7:31 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#PoemsAbout #Blood
Laura is not cheating!!!

Laura Cooney *Motherbunnet* on sale @lozzawriting.bsky.social · 11d

Slightly cheating today as this has been published before but there's a poem for #blood and @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

I'll pop back in later for sharing and reading.

October 31, 2025 at 7:04 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#PoemsAbout #Blood
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
I will put a reading in the comments.

BLOOD

Peel away the shirtless blazer.
Blood rings on the body
left like coffee table stains
hidden by wine glass stems
in chic hotel rooms
booked with stolen identities
on cloned cell phones.

Worthless spillage.
It could have saved the life
of a flatliner
dead on arrival
in the defunded ER’s frantic triage
where holely hearts beat faster
than hummingbird wings.

I don’t care.
No excuses
no rhymes no muses.
The painless pleasure
beyond sense and serenity.
I am the Everest
the green koflach.

October 31, 2025 at 5:58 AM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

Did you see the Trump FAA’s new anti-woke air safety instructions and the guidelines to disable masks for anyone who won’t sign a loyalty pledge?

October 28, 2025 at 6:04 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

October 28, 2025 at 5:57 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

My guess is they misread Wole as Woke.

www.reuters.com/world/us/nig...

www.reuters.com

October 28, 2025 at 5:20 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

Children’s masks then and now…

October 28, 2025 at 5:04 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

www.npr.org/2025/10/27/n...

Jack DeJohnette, dynamic and instantly recognizable jazz drummer, dies at 83

Jack DeJohnette, of the most daring and singular jazz drummers of the last 60 years, died on Sunday.

www.npr.org

October 27, 2025 at 4:26 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

no antitrust
litigation
just deer running

#haiku #haikusaturday

October 25, 2025 at 7:09 AM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#PoemsAbout #BurnForTheCamera
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
Due to the numbet of quotes, I might consider this a found poem. I will put a link to the video/commentary in the comments.

DOUBLE EXPOSURE

PURE LAND BURNING MAN
Saigon, June 11, 1963

I just kept shooting and shooting
and shooting. And that protected me
from the horror of the thing.

The only reporter
with a camera.
Is lucky the best word for that?

You don’t have to die in order to go
into the Kingdom of God.
In fact, you have to be alive to do so.

Not by far the only death by fire
in that land, but one of few
to light their own match.

The smell of the burning flesh,
the expression of anguish.
He never cried out.

How many who on orders or impulse
incinerated farms and families
burned from within and still do?

Eventually, of course, he just,
he flopped over and twitched a few times
and that was it.

Fun fact, I was only one. Years later
I found the dying monk
in an old Life magazine.

THIS SORT OF THING HAS GOT TO STOP
Dallas, November 22, 1963

The first Catholic President, on seeing
the burning Buddhist in the daily paper,
blurted, “Jesus Christ!” to the AG, his brother.

Hopped up on shots from Dr. Feelgood,
most days. The wounds of another war.
Would mindful meditation have helped him?

You certainly can’t say that
the people of Dallas
haven’t given you a nice welcome.

No, you certainly can’t.
Whoa, Nellie, if it weren’t so tragic
you could read it in Stan and Ollie’s voices.

Pubescent boys are doubly aroused
by a woman sprawled on a Lincoln
gathering fragments of skull.

Her pink suit has never been washed.
The blood and brains. Regrets wiping her face.
I want them to see what they have done.

October 24, 2025 at 6:13 AM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#PoemsAbout #BreakTheMould
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
After reading Frank’s transcription of his late wife’s poem, you MUST follow the link to the audio. Frank’s music and reading are 💯

Frank Hudson @frankhudson.bsky.social · 25d

#PoemsAbout #BreakTheMould I know most folks post new work of their own, but here's a 50-year-old poem written by my late wife Renée Robbins in her youth that I just rediscovered this Fall. Link to my fresh performance of it here: frankhudson.org/2025/10/14/i...

In Another Language
By Renée Robbins, circa 1975-77

Crab in snowbank –
plastic waves
tattered claws –
residue of an earlier life
I call my own
now left
by the road.

Where could I free
you in this land
of demarcated
fluid and ice?

A bathtub lacks salt,
but I drift there
as if a wind blew
another flood
to wipe out contracts
and families
nations and genders

a Finno-Ugaric world
with one word
for both sexes
one mind
for the self
and those I love
and ten claws
to speed
into buoyant lift.

October 17, 2025 at 3:19 PM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#PoemsAbout #BreakTheMould
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
Depending on what the app allows, I will either put a reel or a link in the comments for the 🎤…

MASTER CLASS

Not just the sinister misopedist
who said a fib would turn my tongue black
but every teacher I ever had lied
as if their pull string plastic voice boxes
were preloaded with platitudes
like no one is above the law
and what can you do for your country
when they were pried from their molds
at the same industrial complex
as red lights and stop signs
melting pots and voting booth curtains
Chatty Cathy’s who whined “I hurt myself”
instead of shouting “stop hurting me”
and G.I. Joes who yelled “throw the grenade”
but left unspoken “at the children.”

All, except the sadistic Sister Misery
who preferred to have a second grader
pee the carpet rather than use the rest room
before the end of the pledge of allegiance
and then sent her to the office
to call home for fresh undies and socks
and detained me for crossing
an imaginary border on the playground
no one ever before judged illegal
because she could, and Mr. Myopia
the jaded eighth grade geography teacher
to use the title lightly
who never taught a single fact or feature
while clock-watching on his lazy ass
as we read the text book on our own
and Sharpied a blood red X over
three problems I got right on a test
but wouldn’t change my grade
because he didn’t make mistakes.

Knowing what I know now
I should have been studying them
more than the snowflakes and fakers
who softly peddled esoteric aspirations
like science and art and fairness
and made us cower in the basement
lined up on our knees
chins tucked to our chests
heads against lead painted walls
waiting for imaginary incineration
from the other side of the earth unaware
only forty miles north a slumlord’s son
with bone spurs and shoe lifts
was being groomed for this moment
to liberate the freedoms we freely relinquish.

October 17, 2025 at 6:18 AM

John Chmura

@johnchmura.bsky.social

#PoemsAbout #ImperfectMe
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
Having just encouraged another poet to double dip and being triggered in a good way by a line in another poem, I’d like to double dip with this short piece I wrote in 2021 after seeing a man with a cane walking a dog with three legs.