Dean Norton
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zentinl.bsky.social
Dean Norton
@zentinl.bsky.social
59 followers 49 following 370 posts
somewhere between cold coffee
and used twist ties
is a paper life
in an automatic heart
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zentinl.bsky.social
First post in #BlueSkyRelay for #ascendant. Thank you for the prompt @telaranrhiod.bsky.social
#emoetry #rapture #writingprompts #writing #poetry #BlueSkyWriters #SkyPoets #WritingCommunity #PoetryCommunity @fafo-poets-society.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 4:26 AM
zentinl.bsky.social
#Emoetry #Rapture #WritingCommunity #poetry @fafo-poets-society.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 4:11 AM
Reposted by Dean Norton
janpsolivagant.bsky.social
🙏 to @hool415.bsky.social #PromptCombo
#DeepTime take on #workinglove

#newpoem / #photography:
©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025/2022-24

#poetry #JohnCage #MechtildOfMagdeburg #AsSlowAsPossible #orgelprojekt #MysticMonday #thework
Fatal Day in Halberstadt 1361 Decameron‘s Twelfth Night. Lollards hitch their prayers, their Plight to the Morning Star. Pestis Secunda scourges Plantagenet England. Giotto’s Last Judgement Slumbers in umbrage on the Cusp of the Quattrocento. Halberstadt, Flush, bustling prince-bishopric - its Cathedral-treasure stash of Relics looted at the Sack of Constantinople – hosts the First of its Kind: Chromatic keyboard, Twelve half-tones arranged in Octaves. Halberstadt - where, at St. Burchardi’s Monastery, Cistercian Sisters Scale the canonical hours: Minor - Terce, Sext, None and Compline; Major - Matins, Lauds and Vespers, in Perpetual rounds of Work, prayer and Lectio Divina. A century before, They nestle in a fecund vessel of Mystical vision, where Mechthild of Magdeburg - Fluid, erotic, vernacular - Lights the way for Meister Eckhart; where Mechtilde, Helfta’s Nightingale, Dispenses Special Grace to Dante as Matelda. Six-hundred-and-thirty-nine years Slip by. Millennium tenor Deeds St. Burchardi’s to Zen musical maverick already Eight years passed: Bird now uncaged - Purposeless, intentionless - Pecking away at membranes - Temporal, musical – from the Beyond. The Six-hundred-and-thirty-nine-year Lease unfolds As Slow as Possible on an Organ fashioned for this purpose. Hiss of compressors, taut notes Coasting over billowing groans until 2640. Pauses a week before 9/11: seventeen months of silence, then Nine movements, each lasting Seventy-one years. Chord kept up over seven years, between Benedict’s flight to Castel Gandolfo and Second Lockdown. Austere piety, Avant-garde whimsy - ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 Spurning utility, instrumentality - Partaking in visions that far Outstrip lifetimes, Current-day zeitgeist confines. Contemplative prayer, Playful contingency - Tentative forays into Deep Time, Possible only when one Listens closely with Open heart, Open mind. Eternity disclosed in Nugacity, ephemera: Birds, lilies, Mustard seeds. Cloistered life, Choral work Whetting one’s Keenness for the Core - Still and small. ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2024 Highly contrasted monochrome image of a statue by Susan Turcot (2007/8) of mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207-1282) ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2022 Poster-sized mural of US avant-garde composer, John Cale (1912-1992)
November 10, 2025 at 7:37 AM
zentinl.bsky.social
Thank you Julian @hool415.bsky.social for this week's #promptcombo prompt #Workinglove. Sharing one from 2014.
November 10, 2025 at 7:27 PM
Reposted by Dean Norton
stacebot.bsky.social
Locked Thing is inspired by #poem + #prompt 044 hosted by @neonpajamas.bsky.social @bartonsmock.bsky.social and also this week's #PoemsAbout #LockedDoors.

#writingcommunity #poetry #poetrycommunity
#writing #writercommunity #blueskypoet #poetsofbluesky #writingprompts
Locked Thing The door forgets it’s theoretical. The cat, a lonely hourglass. I’m always going to be a disappointment.
November 8, 2025 at 8:48 PM
zentinl.bsky.social
Finally a breather to be here with #PoemsAbout #lockeddoors. can't wait to read everyone's work. @thebrokenspine.co.uk. @brokenspinearts.bsky.social @alanparry83.bsky.social @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social cial #poetrycommunity #poetry #poems #blueskypoets #blueskypoetry
November 9, 2025 at 3:54 PM
Reposted by Dean Norton
robgalpin.bsky.social
Hi @rfsmith.bsky.social and #PromptCombo - here's my offering for #Storm, based on notes made after our summer wind storm
#poem #poetry
The Wind-lover I’m balanced on a bicycle, motionless, halfway up the hill in the mountain wind, face full of oxygen I can’t breathe in— the slap, slump, and wallop increasing with every upward inch. Below, the storm is rolling its palms across the scrubland. Sycamores are stripped, and willows cracked open. Huge, astonished lime trees lean east. The lake shivers, lifts, resettles, edges for the exit. A greenhouse catapults a fence. Even the daws are not so cocksure now. The gulls have gone to ground, or decamped to the river and its ghosted granary towers. The storm has blown us back in time. It’s autumn, and the ships will not be sailing. They roll, maddened, in the docks, pouring their North Sea spill over the white-washing-line terraces, sending the black and white kids in wellies running for safety up the valley… Night. The wind begins to walk away. There’s the sound of someone opening and closing a door, softly, repeatedly, dementedly, again and again— My son, the wind-lover, windows open— and unbelievably asleep.
November 3, 2025 at 3:38 PM
zentinl.bsky.social
#promptcombo. Thank you @rfsmith.bsky.social for a great #storm prompt. #poetrycommunity #poetry #poems #blueskypoets #blueskypoetry #poetry. This one has no title. It was written after a real event.
November 4, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Reposted by Dean Norton
janpsolivagant.bsky.social
🙏 @rfsmith.bsky.social as #PromptCombo #Storm host

#newpoem / #photography:
©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025/2021

#Expressionism #Trakl #feverdream #delirium #darkpoetry #deathpoetry #monochrome #scape
Dies Irae Childhood hidey-holes, Dens, boltholes - Rot-hollowed hamlets. Weeded, dark-plumaged Hundreds at prayer: Sisters, mothers chanting Compline mysteries Abroad, ashore. Windows folded with Hands poised, paused. Stillbirth. Blue-veined Riddle hushed amid the Rank-trimmed pageantry. Purple-tongued jester Gibbers in still delirium at an Untenanted catacomb. Lush-lapped thorns finger Fever: Blood-spat cackle raised from Famished dreams. Panic rocks the death-rattled Coracle. Blanched shadows - Strangers - Crowd the Addled steps of a Landing stage. Vile body Breeds rats and lilies. Supplicant-sinner Thirsts for Cerulean. ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 After Gericht (“Tribunal”, “Judgement”, 1912-14), by Austrian Expressionist poet, Georg Trakl (1887-1914) ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2021 Black-and-white image of the rotting hull of a small boat on a salt marsh adjoining an estuary in North Norfolk. Darkened skies.
November 3, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Reposted by Dean Norton
stacebot.bsky.social
For this week's #PoemsAbout #Blood, I'm thinking about the blood list.

Thank you to the host @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk and to all of the other writers.

#poetry #poem #writing #PoetryCommunity #BlueSkyPoets
blood list i keep a list of every time love drew-- paper cuts and split lips, small evidences of wanting. each entry inked neat as inventory. what was given, what was taken back. the margins fill-- notes for pleasure some for regret. a map of each wound, even ones that never stopped bleeding.
November 1, 2025 at 3:41 AM
Reposted by Dean Norton
lozzawriting.bsky.social
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 11:07 AM
Reposted by Dean Norton
fiftywords.bsky.social
Do we know the true cost of our phones #PoemsAbout #Blood @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Bloody Phone This Bloody phone. Won't charge again. Keeps freezing too, and the screen's a bit cracked. Typical. Ah well, I'll get another. My contract's up, there's a newer version, better camera, faster load, things I'll never need. Kanku, can you try again today? Your small fingers, so good for sifting slurry. I need a phone, to keep in touch with people I don't know, for watching things I'll soon forget. The water's black, I know. The air burns your lungs. But still, it won't take long, and I'll pay, $1 a day (or whatever it is), it's better than nothing. There's no other work, and it helps your family too. Just a handful of cobalt, that shimmer in the mud. Enough to keep me charged, connected. Kanku, please, one more time. A child's life This Bloody phone.
October 31, 2025 at 5:57 AM
Reposted by Dean Norton
8rid6et.bsky.social
🩸Blood🩸

Originally published by @anodynemag.bsky.social in vol. 6 along with other #flinta authors with #body related work, available at anodynemag.com

#PoemsAbout #Blood
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
Bleed out into a pad of finely woven sheep’s wool for the 3rd time in 45 days, after 60 days of not bleeding never knowing I will feel more animalistic each time Like the lamb, I have no say in this sacrifice soaking into the sheep’s wool, I relax my less human body exchanging my life blood is a comfort and a sorrow energy flows both ways: in and out, then all out I rinse my blood away in earth cold water like every woman who ever stood in a rainstorm fed stream in a bubbling brook, washing anything For all of eternity, washing away my youth the stain of womanhood. I am an imperfect circle just like everything else that is wild
October 31, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Reposted by Dean Norton
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! Happy Halloween! For #PoemsAbout #Blood
This is also for a prompt where the first line comes from a horror movie--this one "The Sixth Sense." We're seeing Macbeth this weekend, so there may be more blood poems! Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Poem: Blood and Fiddles I see dead people, rooftop fiddlers and Chagall souls floating like speech balloons waiting for their frame-- artists, musicians, lovers, and practical idealists, they enter my dreams, my mother, my father, a caretaker who talks of her dissertation on Einstein and divorce, it’s relativity, I say— he also being Jewish and dead— like my parents and their parents, my ancestors, their DNA carried with traces of stardust in my cells, giving me curly hair and nearsighted light eyes, a recessive negative blood RH to balance my normal positivity, and through all the blood lost and recreated, blood spilled and regenerated, the bow glides across strings of generations my great greats who traveled continents and oceans so I could live where I do, be who I am, (I hope that’s still true.) I see you hovering. Rest. It’s OK. I’ll be all right. Blood and Fiddles I see dead people, rooftop fiddlers and Chagall souls floating like speech balloons waiting for their frame-- artists, musicians, lovers, and practical idealists, they enter my dreams, my mother, my father, a caretaker who talks of her dissertation on Einstein and divorce, it’s relativity, I say— he also being Jewish and dead— like my parents and their parents, my ancestors, their DNA carried with traces of stardust in my cells, giving me curly hair and nearsighted light eyes, a recessive negative blood RH to balance my normal positivity, and through all the blood lost and recreated, blood spilled and regenerated, the bow glides across strings of generations my great greats who traveled continents and oceans so I could live where I do, be who I am, (I hope that’s still true.) I see you hovering. Rest. It’s OK. I’ll be all right.
October 31, 2025 at 10:31 AM
zentinl.bsky.social
A second late offering for #PoemsAbout #blood. @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #poetrycommunity #poetry #poems #blueskypoets #blueskypoetry
October 31, 2025 at 8:27 PM
zentinl.bsky.social
A late post for #PoemsAbout #blood today. Today's prompt very appropriate for the day. Thank you to our host @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk for this virtual Samhain gathering!😉 @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social #poetrycommunity #poetry #poems #blueskypoets #blueskypoetry
October 31, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Dean Norton
stacebot.bsky.social
For this week's #PoemsAbout #BurnForTheCamera, I'm thinking about proof of visibility.

Thank you to the host @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk and to all of the other writers.

#poetry #poem #writing #PoetryCommunity #BlueSkyPoets
proof #143 i snap a photo of the curves of my calves reflected in the metal sides of the elevator, on the way to work. a man asks if i’m new, and i stay quiet, smile. later, i scroll the reel, send the legs through the lines to a friend, tagged: me with a co-worker of eight years. he responds with a question mark. i don’t know what that means. you can see me, right? i type into the phone face. yeah, he says. but i don’t call him to be sure.
October 24, 2025 at 12:49 PM
Reposted by Dean Norton
rotherwrites.bsky.social
Hello @thebrokenspine.co.uk and another Friday of #PoemsAbout. And hello @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social.
This week I #BurnForTheCamera with a slightly different format; the emdash found me.
Shutter Stock What you are, but an image - that image, on repeat dress hair makeup pose – a doll, couturier création taken to the ball, red-lined – into the room, slippered an organza sparkling trinket – tight body sex outline decolletage, pussy cat – siren tamed arm candy a magnet, a bauble – frozen skinned perfection fame to more fame – icon to mere game, the chase media bloodsport pursuit – news to features to lies cutout for public dissection – curated distortion stories invented, extended – a label, shutter stoc a brand, commodity for sale – myth maker spoil your image no longer yours – dirty handed possession a fox, hunted to ground – destroyed, legitimate game. © Glenn Barker October 2025
October 24, 2025 at 7:01 AM
Reposted by Dean Norton
janedougherty47.bsky.social
A poem for the @thebrokenspine.co.uk #BurnForTheCamera prompt. Camera as metaphor for both the voyeur and the 'performer'.
#PoemsAbout
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
October 24, 2025 at 8:25 AM
Reposted by Dean Norton
pvcannon.bsky.social
A Choka for #PoemsAbout #BurnForTheCamera with much thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
October 24, 2025 at 1:57 PM
zentinl.bsky.social
On #PoemsAbout Friday we #burnforthecamera together. Thank you to our host @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk for another great one. @brokenspinearts.bsky.socia @alanparry83.bsky.social @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social #poetrycommunity #poetry #poems #blueskypoets #blueskypoetry
October 24, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by Dean Norton
alanparrywriter.co.uk
‘a finely-wrought creature / from the flaming heart of god’ — that’s astonishing. This is something utterly primal. It feels both fallen & forged anew.
#KeepWriting #PoemsAbout #BreakTheMould
October 18, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Dean Norton
fiftywords.bsky.social
We smash the old gods. Then carve new ones from the rubble. Inspired by the Byzantine iconoclasts, this poem is about what comes after we break the mould, when belief reforms itself in the dust, and beauty refuses to stay buried. #PoemsAbout #BreaktheMould @alanparrywriter.co.uk@thebrokenspine.co.uk
October 17, 2025 at 5:02 AM
Reposted by Dean Norton
davidbirch.bsky.social
Many thanks to @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social for hosting #PoemsAbout #BreaktheMould for @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk. Here's my offering: an attempt at a mini dramatic monologue. I'll try and catch up with others in due course but I'm travelling this week
October 17, 2025 at 5:52 AM
Reposted by Dean Norton
rburrows.bsky.social
Morning @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
In 2016, Scientists at Liverpool Uni worked out that the genetic mutation that led to the peppered moth having black wings, took place in a 10yr window around 1819. Darwin was born in 1809. #PoemsAbout #breakthemould #naturalselection #poetry
October 17, 2025 at 6:02 AM