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paulrapley.bsky.social
@paulrapley.bsky.social
110 followers 170 following 710 posts
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zentinl.bsky.social
For #PoemsAbout #DogTags I did not feel I had the right to write. Finally, a meager offering emerged. Thank you to all those who serve and have served.

Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk.

#poetrycommunity #poetry #poems #blueskypoets #blueskypoetry
November 22, 2025 at 2:35 AM
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jenthorne.bsky.social
Such a good prompt this week with remembrance still weighing on my mind.

#Dogtags
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
#PoemsAbout
#poetry #poetrycommunity #blueskypoets
Marked   Stamped, we begin.   Fed through waiting links.   We warm ourselves against his skin, and mark the beat beneath.   Mud claims strength. He crouches, chanting our rosary.   Staccato guns punctuate rhythms of march and halt.     The trench is deep,  his breathing shallow. We press against the rifle’s stock, imprinted on his heart.   Night.   White flares rupture the empty sky.   He runs.   We whip against his sweated breast.   Then stillness.   The weight shifts. Breath silenced.   Hands divide us.     One remains,  kept to the chest that lies still.   One torn away, carrying his name out from the smoke.     Soil closes in.   I rest against the ribs,   metal to bone,   unmoving in the dark.     No stone above.  No carved word to honour him.   Only the chain’s last echo,   a name unspoken,   held in the earth.
November 21, 2025 at 6:43 AM
Reposted
janpsolivagant.bsky.social
🙏 @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAbout #DogTags

#newpoem: ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

#WarTrauma #FamilyTrauma #ancestry #WBYeats #20Century #snafu #fubar #aviation #prosepoem #vegemite #RoaldDahl
Collateral Relative ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 “No Parachutes!”, Decree the Brass Hats, mindful that pilots all too readily bail out of those Newfangled pyre-caskets, ash-framed and taut with doped linen fabric. In frostbite, sun-scorched high heavens, he sits astride a Dolphin - Mired and bloodied from dogfights with pods of Fokkers above Flanders. Lateral ancestor, collateral relative – Great War Flying Ace with DFC before twenty – his hometown rag credits him with eight kills. Life prospects capped at days, weeks, minutes - He swoons at settling down with Gladys in a cottage near the Solent. Son – Second War Flying Ace with DFC before twenty - Like Robert Gregory, meeting his fate aged thirty-seven, Somewhere among the clouds above Lincolnshire, forty years hence. Navigator on Canberra jet bomber bound for Malta, his Arm broken on exit fails to pull the ripcord. Back in 1919, with Croix de Guerre pinned to his chest by King Albert, Lateral ancestor maladapts to the loss of friends and comrades who Fireball out of the sky before they can even enter combat. Mystery of skull fractured at 1923 mess party. Drunken brawl? Chair, bottle, paperweight smashed over his head? Monumental concussion, contusion tipping him, not into creativity like Roald Dahl, but into Intelligence; into unmapped deserts west of Basra; into three years with the Bedouin; into Searing heat and sandstorms; into flies, revolting food and foul water; Into OBE, Wing Commander and Air Commodore; into Chief Intelligence Officer; into Monumental fuckup in Far East Command. Now Brass Hat, he Transfers his nephew, my grandfather, from Eastcote to the Dutch East Indies. Freshly-minted mathematician, aviation nut, clever young chap, my Grandfather becomes NCO tasked with constructing radar stations on Java. Vital equipment gets relocated to the Middle East. They improvise with aircraft crates and tapped Civilian telephone networks - … They warn the Brass Hats, who wave all this “newfangled nonsense” aside. As the island is overrun, they give an hour’s notice of the enemy’s approach – all To no avail. Uncle Brass Hat Delivers his nephew - collateral relative - into Japanese captivity: Mosquitos, meagre food, foul water, monsoon rains; Beriberi, cots on beaches or in runway ditches awash with dysentery shit; Forced labour, beatings, killings. Seven months of fortnightly malaria bouts Mark him out as a “goner”, but my grandfather pulls through. Crammed onto two wooden diesel coasters, they are strafed, pounded by Wham! Bam! Thank you, Ma’am! Liberator bombers in the Macassar Strait. Terrified captors give them leave to scrawl POW across bridge and hatches in Paint composed of tapioca flour and water. Liberation. Original cohort whittled away, cut down to a mere fraction. Vegemite habits acquired while Recuperating in Perth Fail to stay the Brimming tides - Fury, Resentment, Mistrust, Optical neuropathy, Arterial stenosis - that Claim him before he turns eighty. I catch him at it once or twice: Curses muttered to himself in Japanese while he Deadheads the roses. ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 *DFC, Distinguished Flying Cross
November 21, 2025 at 8:49 AM
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johnchmura.bsky.social
I don’t usually post #PoemsAbout @thebrokenspine.co.uk this early, but I’m taking some antihistamines and may sleep through a good portion of the night, or not. Will post a reel for #DogTags in the comments.
DOG TAGS Send them into space, all of the dog tags and toe tags, Trumps’ three Purple Hearts, and the mindset of men who pay dear and trade cheap that the God who abandoned this sorry blue world might see the joylessness of man’s desiring and act as a “signpost up ahead” so benevolent passengers may be forewarned drifting near our debris field on their judicious excursions coming from and returning to, hopefully, better planets smelling of ginger melon balls and mint, where space travel was a glorious culmination, not an escape or an escapade, where they needn’t keep people like me as pets or souvenirs anymore.
November 21, 2025 at 5:45 AM
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drnaturegirl.debbiemross.co.uk
Good morning #BlueskyPoetry pals @thebrokenspine.co.uk & @alanparrywriter.co.uk facilitating today’s #PoemsAbout #DogTags this fag packet offering is for a friend’s husband, Dave who was killed in Afghanistan in 2012. He was military police not army but she wears his ID.Dogtag jewellery is a thing.
A short poem by Debbie Ross for hashtag poems about hashtag Dog Tags hosted by Broken Spine Arts and entitled Signaculum A signaculum was worn by Roman soldiers in a leather pouch suspended around the neck on their enrolment. This disc, made of lead, bore the name of the recruit and their assigned legion. The text of the 2 stanza poem follows: There was no mouth left to place your tag, the bits of you scattered across a foreign field. Barely any need for a 'body' bag. Your service and your sacrifice I wear around my neck - symbol, memorial, commitment to fight back.
November 21, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Reposted
anntigone.bsky.social
We four, trauma-bonded
children of war,
trapped between
two superpowers—
Him and Her...

#DogTags #PoemsAbout
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
November 21, 2025 at 7:25 AM
Reposted
bundtkake.bsky.social
#poemsabout #dogtags #poetry

@alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

F LAT tin Talisman
Flat tin An inch and a half of slightly Off center Stampedletters HILTXXXXXD N. H. A POS & Numbers X4X -XX-XXXX Identity on a bubblegum machine chain USMC M ROMAN CATHOLIC The smallest Cheapest Record Of Is Or Was Priceless Trauma Stored on flat tin Off center stampedletters and numbers Edges encased in black rubber To silence the noise Loss. Honor. Pride Yellowed tape on a St Christopher medal On the s ame 25 cent chai n As quiet as they can possibly be For how much they say
November 21, 2025 at 11:35 AM
paulrapley.bsky.social
a little sketch...
#poemsabout #DogTags #KeepWriting
thanks again to
@alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
Attributes Landscape of dust and bitter wastefulness! Flogged catamite of the pubescent bros, Submitting to them as they soil and mess With gangue the grace that through our Eden grows; They choke with tailings ancient hills and trees, And excavate with coldness hallowed rock To plunder ground and seize the rarest earths To ship back homewards; thereby adding stock Upon stock of so-called servers for our data, Trapped in fortress clouds to play us later, Whose keystrokes, screenshots, will yield grim afterbirths. Paul Rapley 2025 (with acknowledgement, 1820) #DogTags
November 21, 2025 at 1:48 PM
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bethosmond.bsky.social
Good morning #poemsabout crew, here’s a poem about someone wanting something for the #desire prompt @alanparrywriter.co.uk
A poem for the today programme
November 14, 2025 at 7:59 AM
Reposted
pvcannon.bsky.social
For #PoemsAbout #Desire
with thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk

This Moment
A poem about desire
November 14, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted
melissampoulton.bsky.social
This is my #PoemsAbout poem about #Desire. I had a really bad day on Tuesday. I desired alcohol to get me through the hurt. I know it works. If we met, then I wouldn't be 18 weeks alcohol free today.

@alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

#poetry #poetrycommunity #hardweek #nottoday
November 14, 2025 at 9:54 AM
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johnchmura.bsky.social
#PoemsAbout #Desire
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
I will post a reading in the comments.
DESIRE, OF A MID-MORNING DRIVE Stormy the morning after a fretful evening, in the front yard warming up the Avalanche, got to pay a bill overdue in town. Several miles down the county road needled branches litter and deer on the shoulder dead, tolling the vulture’s dinner bell. Caffeine or the sugar kick in like a post-mortem spasm. I feel the face of desire wizen, a snarl I savor, broth of bone on canines and missing molars. Crossing the double line eyes closed pegging the needle. The engine pings. Idiot sensors scream.
November 14, 2025 at 6:16 AM
Reposted
stacebot.bsky.social
For this week's #PoemsAbout #Desire, I'm thinking about things that are easy to break.

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

#poetry #poem #writing #PoetryCommunity #BlueSkyPoets
what i want is so easy to break caught between the moment i fold and call you and the moment i decide i won’t, we send small messages. i set a timer so i don’t answer too soon. then my mind interrupts— a line i once read: some powerful man calling a woman a bomb. my desire, as my distress, spreads slowly outward. i think about saying your name in that scared little-girl voice i hate in myself. i stay quiet as a fault line. the timer goes. my hand moves. i’m holding my breath. you’re not coming. so i sit with what shakes me— the want i won’t name without fear of what it opens.
November 15, 2025 at 1:12 AM
Reposted
saintghost.bsky.social
For #PoemsAbout #Desire ✨

for @thebrokenspine.co.uk
& @alanparrywriter.co.uk

I know I need to learn how to edit but this is another one of those that just burst out of me in a fountain of blood and snot. It kind of had to get out, I guess.
Desire She asks me, what do you want, and I say I need a raging cattle gun between my eyes. I say, I want to go crazy, like real crazy, not this choked silent suffering but a scream that will burst every seam-crazy, neon-crazy, heroin-crazy, woman with her head in the oven-crazy. The kind with confetti and ambulances. Chalk outlines. Hot as brimstone, emergency room-bright. Look here, I want to open this here window and jump the fuck right out of it. I want to cut deeper. Darker, more demented, more desperate. I want to hemorrhage. I want you to have to sew me back together from scratch, without all of the mistakes, the failure, the fear. Twenty-one stitches is not nearly enough. You ask me, why, and I say, desire desire desire. I am going mad with desire. for him for love for belonging for applause for a hand around my neck for fame for attention for death for cheating death for outliving for the blood of christ For the rush of losing your mind. The desire to cross that line. I want to be the lady in the park that coos at the doves and flaps her arms like wings. I want to dangle from the precipice like a leaf in October, I want to be a tightrope dancer across all of your edges. I want to be that patient on the ward who barks the whole day long like a frenzied dog. I want to stick needles into my arm until I squeal like a porcupine. I want my veins fat with methamphetamine. I want a harder door, a bluer bruise, a more brutal concussion. I want to bash my head against this wall until I laugh again. I want to tear this room down this skin this padded cell a world a girl a wound that hurts like fire that is too sharp to touch to kill to feel to fuck. I want to leave myself behind to become everybody else. I want to be a poet I want to be a lover rockstar priest saint cult leader a goddamn work of art I am possessed by desire and empty as all hell.
November 14, 2025 at 2:00 PM
Reposted
paulwritespoems.bsky.social
It’s after midnight so here’s my piece for #PoemsAbout #LockedDoors

‘Saturday Exile c.2002’

Another excellent prompt.

@thebrokenspine.co.uk

Looking forward to reading and replying on Friday and over the weekend
Saturday Exile c.2002 I am a phantasm. Haunting the doorstep, binliner of my life cushioning head. Ben Sherman shirts aren’t made for alfresco sleeping— cotton is cold at 2am. At least the linger of whisky keeps me warm. A drunken day turned into drunker night. When the golden hour strikes I’ll fade into my walls haven / sanctuary / prison hell / heaven ©️ Paul Short, 2025
November 7, 2025 at 12:28 AM
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europeanpowell.bsky.social
Beyond concerning,
The European Commission is reportedly considering delaying parts of its landmark AI Act following heavy lobbying from U.S. tech giants and pressure from Washington.
Thread
Please read!
substack.com/@europeanpow...
Labour’s AI Growth Zones: The Corporate Land Grab Disguised as Innovation
How Starmer’s government is carving up Britain into deregulated fiefdoms for Big Tech, without asking a single community
substack.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Reposted
hackneycyclist.bsky.social
Greenery alongside cycle tracks cuts the risk of flooding by managing stormwater locally, the hedge also makes a nice barrier between bikes and motor vehicles, reducing spray from motor vehicles during rain, as well as improving the look of the street.
November 9, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted
europeanpowell.bsky.social
Nearly there!
We need around 50 signatures to push my petition calling for transparency and a review of deregulated free zones to 10,000.
Please sign and share across your social media platforms.
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/72...
November 7, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Reposted
europeanpowell.bsky.social
URGENT: 6 WEEKS LEFT - We're 743 signatures away from forcing a Government response
The UK Government is rolling out freeports and free zones nationwide with billions in taxpayer money, yet operates with an alarming lack of transparency. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/72...
Petition: Transparency and Review of the free zones and ports impacts
To ensure full transparency by releasing data on governance, funding, and operations of free zones. Plus a public review to assess impacts, such as job displacement and value for taxpayers money
petition.parliament.uk
November 4, 2025 at 10:14 AM
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johnchmura.bsky.social
Paul, I admire a true sonneteer who, like you is not a slave to the line, but is able to rhyme mid-sentence and carry the argument/narrative across. It’s really something how you have woven the characters into this piece.
October 31, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Reposted
europeanpowell.bsky.social
A new asset class is being identified as ‘Nature’s Economy’, where a country’s green spaces are targeted by a sovereign wealth fund controlled by a Saudi Prince, or Blackrock for example. This is global, but it is already happening in the UK and part of Zone Fever
www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9xn...
"This Is The Only Way To Prepare For What's Coming” | Whitney Webb FINAL WARNING
YouTube video by Whitney's Fan Club
www.youtube.com
October 30, 2025 at 9:43 PM
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europeanpowell.bsky.social
“Most people have no idea what’s about to happen”
Palantir’s move into the ‘terrorism futures market’
Palantir secures health data as a major asset in its portfolio, including the NHS in the UK.
Palantir’s dragnet involves pre-crime tech or predictive policing.
Thread
www.youtube.com/watch?app=de...
October 31, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Reposted
metaphorqu.bsky.social
Thanks for this!

@thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAbout

#Blood

She misses it, her
bloodletting;
knowing where she is
within herself, lost in the

deep and unholy lacunae of
change.

These days, all she can use as measure is

the waning moon,

the soft white
emptiness of winters' tales.
davidbirch.bsky.social David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 22d
Many thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk for today's #PoemsAbout prompt #Blood. I look forward to reading everyone's submissions later #BlueSkyPoets #PoetryCommunity
October 31, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted
rock-rex.bsky.social
"There Will Be Blood".

#poem #poetry #skypoets #blueskypoets #poetsofbluesky #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #PoemsAbout #Blood
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
October 31, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Reposted
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