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paulrapley.bsky.social
@paulrapley.bsky.social
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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
paulrapley.bsky.social
UK version
UK crossing warden holding Stop "lollipop". Schoolchildren crossing.
October 31, 2025 at 9:25 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
thepoetryhour.com/poems/broadc...
Thankyou, all...
#poemsabout #blood #KeepWriting
@alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
Maeve’s glove avoids the blood Assigned a coarse, chaotic, struggling school, both he and I, like to a desert beach, within the desiccated Larkin’s rule that he should never strive to overreach his pent-up realm, sought fruitful pertinence in Maeve’s unnoticed glove. Afghanistan, her lives and deaths, the bloody warzone whence he’d fled, left little space for Philip’s yarn in verse of how he’d tried to hear Maeve clapping on his radio. What was Phil’s point? Intelligent, polite, forthright, and strapping, his closest London friend in some dull joint had been stabbed dead, his blood soaked through the concrete floor. With all he’d known, how little I, how might I help him soar? Paul Rapley 2025 #blood
October 31, 2025 at 7:45 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Thanks, John.
I've tweaked some of it: link to Read's poem (my model) attached.
parsing the heart Today we have parsing the heart. Last week we had long-buried grief and next month we’ll have how to revive, but today we have parsing the heart. Hatred burns like acid across the public landscape so today we have parsing the heart. These are the lower heart ventricles and these are the upper heart auricles whose use you will feel when fleeing authority. And this is the lifeblood which in your case you have not got. Our biosphere was born of the beauty of stardust which in our case we have not got. This is the conscience which is always inspired by a careful understanding of the other. And please do not let me see anyone using their ignorance. You can find it quite easily if you have any depth in your soul. The rulers are selfish and hopeless, unashamedly letting everyone see all of them using their ignorance. And that which we feel is the fear. The purpose of this is to close down our impulses, as you can well sense. They can pump it rapidly upwards and downwards: we call this pumping the fear. And rapidly upwards and downwards trite mock-elected lords are ignoring and trashing your laws. They call this pumping the fear. All call it pumping the fear. It is not easy to counter, but doable if one has enough depth in one’s soul with the hope and the aim and the will and the way and the means which in our case we must ask if we’ve got while the old leaders sit silent in all of the lands and the fear’s driven upwards and upwards. Thus today we have probing of hearts. Paul Rapley 2025 (revised 19/10/25) with grateful acknowledgement to Henry Read, Naming of Parts 1942 https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/naming-of-parts #BreakingTheMould
October 19, 2025 at 3:20 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
followed a mind-trail & came to this
#poemsabout #BreakingTheMould #KeepWriting
thanks for stepping in @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social
best wishes to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
parsing the heart Today we have parsing the heart. Last week we had long-buried grief and next month we’ll have how to revive, but today we have parsing the heart. Hatred burns like acid across the public landscape so today we have parsing the heart. These are the lower heart ventricles and these are the upper heart auricles whose use you will feel when fleeing authority. And this is the lifeblood which in your case you have not got. Our biota was born of the beauty of stardust which in our case we have not got. This is the conscience which is always inspired by a careful understanding of the other. And please do not let me see anyone using their ignorance. You can find it quite easily if you have any depth in your soul. The rulers are selfish and hopeless, unashamedly letting everyone see all of them using their ignorance. And that which we feel is the fear. The purpose of this is to close down our impulses, as you can sense. They can pump it rapidly upwards and downwards: we call this pumping the fear. And rapidly upwards and downwards mock-elected lords are assaulting and trashing your laws. They call this pumping the fear. All call it pumping the fear. It is not easy to counter, but doable if one has enough depth in one’s soul with the hope and the aim and the will and the way and the means which in our case we must ask if we’ve got while the old leaders sit silent in all of the lands and the fear’s driven upwards and upwards. Thus today we have probing of hearts. Paul Rapley 2025, with grateful acknowledgement to Henry Read 1942 #BreakingTheMould
October 17, 2025 at 2:52 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
#poemsabout #ImperfectMe #KeepWriting
@alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
matters of the clock Flower power liberated me. Smart suit and tie, straight job: the movies preached those made a man. Impossibility. My trade-off: sanity for duties breached. Our first-born, anxious she’d be late for school aged only six, delayed by me—dumb rules go hang, they know you’ll miss no class—blind fool I was, now watching as her play unspools and mark my irresponsibility. Base theme: her stumbling over keeping time since angst subverted punctuality. Though I’ve rebuilt my views, that early crime— plus many others flickering her screen— she’s worked to straighten, made her clock run clean. Paul Rapley 2025 #ImperfectMe
October 10, 2025 at 5:52 AM
paulrapley.bsky.social
#poemsabout #Mannequin #KeepWriting
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Apolloshopped milling headphoned joggers scud hardpacing trilling foodsearch bluetits quickflit tracing shillingsized fleet spiders scatter fleeing billing birdborne beaks sharp eyes unseeing chilling gapyear lads laughlocked amusing thrilling younggirl watchers snappers cruising willing clotheshorse models deftly choosing asking youthrich lad would you like posing basking handsome visage snaplights rosing grasping youngblood pixchance buffskin glowing tasking lad seductive profile showing casting adolescent bloom brief staying masking blemishes best side displaying drafting image likely prospect paying glowing skin judoka bold announcing flowing strength exotic tincture bouncing growing knowledge brighteyed aura moulding knowing buyers seek unflawed beholding throwing defects out skinfaults withholding going softlensed filtered fogs spots scolding slowing flagrant sparks soft clothes enfolding signing greenhorn heartthrobs free performing priming figures faces nonconforming twining face to rubric figure stifling mining real imagined wardrobes rifling pining mannequins more oft endearing whining tough reality sour sneering dining out on fashion’s interfering Paul Rapley 2025 #Mannequin
October 3, 2025 at 8:08 AM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Pythagoras
Chartres
Pythagoras Chartres
September 27, 2025 at 6:33 AM
paulrapley.bsky.social
#poemsabout #NeverAgain #KeepWriting
Thanks, as always, to @alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
Practical Ethics (lines 41-109) Once, when the plasterer was young, he said, before he’d even gained a skillset, led by war’s great claim to power, he’d joined the fight and disembarked in France to strive for right. His regiment, bombarded each long day while battling field by field on foot: soft prey for enfilading small arms fire, for tanks and raining mortar shells, their bloodied ranks cut down by injuries, mortalities and fractured will, all old normalities far blown to bits, inert upon the cordite air; the very soil their enemy, sown with guileful mines... In one small group, alone, he’d charged a hedge to claim a hard-won field. His NCO roared loud that all must yield. Our plasterer-to-be surveyed the corn that waved chest-high, gold filigree soft worn by dread Persephone, held close by trees on each sequestered side: a square to seize for the advance. Commands roared forth again. A pause… They watched, alert… until the grain but lightly stirred, vague movements in mirage— while, out of sight, two armies’ fell barrage informed the sky that mortals claimed the earth, and to the earth each shortly would return— …a trembling of the filigree… a hand… then two, soft rising… Across the field he scanned… the goddess, stricken, rippling her fine dresses to hide each humbled foe, soft acquiesces with slow grief to thunderous human strife, and, in shy deshabille, reveals the life that she has held in trust, as men’s hands rise in trembling pairs, war-grimed, with wearied eyes, their weapons tossed from sight, an endless prize, till, wordlessly, all plead beneath the skies.   He tries to estimate the number caught, but can’t, for they spread wide, outnumber thought: so many men stand poached in one chance swoop, too much to swallow for their tiny group. What shall we do? he asks the NCO, remembering that by Convention no dire harm may come to captured serving men. How can we round them up? The goddess then keeps watch while (continues) He tries to estimate the number caught, but can’t, for they spread wide, outnumber thought: so many men stand poached in one chance swoop, too much to swallow for their tiny group. What shall we do? he asks the NCO, remembering that by Convention no dire harm may come to captured serving men. How can we round them up? The goddess then keeps watch while his incumbent boss, perhaps but few years older than himself, and taught by war to make decisions, paused in thought, considers what their options are. Her field soft shimmers as she awaits to count the yield of finest crop she will receive this day. The corn floats wide, yet, like an alleyway enclosed and dark and short, his choice lies stark: round up their catch with his scant troops, embark on thinning out his men and risk that hands now raised will drop and seize the trampled land’s discarded, fratricidal tools of steel and turn hard victory to fatal loss; or tear the moral codebook up and live that life called free in others’ deaths, and give another certain day to those he leads. The goddess languidly with patience reads his calculating mind while our man sweats and each man stranded in her corn regrets forever that this bloody world’s events have swept him to his present broken tense. We round them up? No, lift your guns and shoot and leave no man alive. Thus falls the fruit of many mothers’ loves strewn in her stores, her golden skin soaked red. Paul Rapley 2025 (continues)
September 26, 2025 at 6:28 AM
paulrapley.bsky.social
#poemsabout #SilentPlanets
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
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Flags Put Out We must put out the flag, my father said, rejoice in our new queen and that we’re free— or so I think he meant. Dad went ahead, and hung one from upstairs for all to see. On our estate, few others did the same. Why not? he wondered: they were Labour, too. The Queen enraptured me—but, to my shame, perplexed, I could not see how Royal poo could even be a thing just like mine own. The Wondrous Coronation Coach So Golden, Her Majesty, Divine: might She, alone, do that thing too? With time, I’m less beholden to pomp: in jest, I’d wave their jolly banners had not thieves soiled them with bleak and boorish manners. Paul Rapley 2025
September 19, 2025 at 7:34 AM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Fox is the Associate Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate and is therefore NASA's head of science.
September 18, 2025 at 6:01 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Bell was a Scottish-born scientist, inventor, and engineer, best known for inventing the eponymously-named whisky & for breeding shaggy dogs.
September 18, 2025 at 5:53 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Whose (sic) parents had this?
Not mine: they had the type below (UK version of).
I had a type like that illustrated in your post.
Ageist, or what?
September 14, 2025 at 10:46 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Hi, all.
#poemsabout #Candlelight
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
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#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
Lennie Your lad Lennie’s lit a candle, and it’s got too hot to handle, such a fiery candle handled in a manic-panic heat: like, it’s scared the pants off Lennie cos it’s leapt his sister Jennie then absconded through the window and gone blazing down the street! — That squirt Lennie’s such a vandal, I’ll right thrash him with my sandal if he’s singed my hits on vinyl while I’m working down the pub; but if he’s scorched his ma’s best curtain, then of one thing I am certain: that I’ll bring him here to whoop it up and treat him to their grub— Mate, that text was from Bob Randall and there ain’t no time to dandle with them is it-ain’t it riddles when your place is getting smoked; why don’t you pause your drinking, loan a moment to some thinking: run along with me to check that Robert Randall ain’t just joked— If he’s pissing me I’ll lamp him and then kick his arse and stamp him in his jewels in a bundle—Hang on, mate! What’s out that door? Who’s them voices out there screaming? Wow! Your Len! I ain’t, like, dreaming— Let me get at that daft toerag and I’ll teach him quick what’s for! — Hello Dad, I’m in a muddle—If you’ve come here for a cuddle you can think again, you spindle. Spit it: what’s with this fake news? — Well, this candle jumped right out—Then shut it there! I’ve got no doubt about your lies and—Dad! Stop doubting and lay down that stinking booze! — Clamp your gob, you—Mate, get humble. Tell us, Len. Speak up, don’t mumble, what has happened to your candle? —Well, we followed it to Dave’s, where the shouts were loud and hearty (Dad had banned me from Dave’s party), yet the candle sailed right in and then the cheers rang out in waves— So, then what? —I heard the jangle of Dave’s mother’s silver bangle as she skipped out at an angle, blithely burbling, dazed in shock: “You won’t believe what has transpired: a kindly angel has inspired a wax” —You stupid boy! Your fibs make me the town’s new laughing stock— On you, mate. Did you wangle your way in? —No…
September 12, 2025 at 6:21 AM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Blimey! That takes me back!
Public Image Ltd. [Intro: John Lydon] Hello, hello Hello, hello Hello, hello Ha-ha-ha-ha [Verse 1: John Lydon] You never listened to a word that I said You only seen me from the clothes that I wear Or did the interest go so much deeper? It must have been to the color of my hair [Refrain: John Lydon] The public image [Verse 2: John Lydon] Oh, what you wanted was never made clear Behind the image was ignorance and fear You hide behind this public machine You still follow same old scheme [Refrain: John Lydon] Public image [Verse 3: John Lydon] Two sides to every story Somebody had to stop me I'm not the same as when I began I will not be treated as property [Verse 4: John Lydon] Two sides to every story Somebody had to stop me I'm not the same as when I began It's not a game of monopoly [Refrain: John Lydon] Public image [Verse 5: John Lydon] Public image, you got what you wanted The public image belongs to me It's my entrance, my own creation My grand finale, my goodbye [Outro: John Lydon] Public image Public image Goodbye
September 5, 2025 at 8:53 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Now I've finally got into this (nice idea, Alan), I think I'll rework it and make it twice the length.
But here's a rough sketch.
#poemsabout #Facades
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
Heaven-bound So sleek of body, her curves will carry us unto the heavens, entrapped in perfect form, thrust ever forward by deeper-welling powers torn from earth to feed her ever-thirsty locomotion. Held in her embrace, secure and smooth, constrained by nymphs and satyrs high above, the wealth of the world, upon sheer molecules of air, transported blissfully to richer, far-off dreams. Her panoply proclaims her constancy: our safety in her arms is their concern— their legend blazons reassuringly, declaring that there’s nothing here for you to worry about. But those who tend her majesty, do they both understand her foibles and take heed to keep her complex systems in good health and fix all threats to her deep need for equilibrium? While she conveys the hopes and fears and fluids that flow from all the folk that she uplifts, her membranes, stretched ten hundred thousand times, with silent ache may chafe, then fray, then rupture, sight unseen. Beneath the flawless skin, decay assays her flexing struts and stays, subverts her strength, accosts her labyrinthine nerves, and questions if her skilled creators’ claimed omniscience will hold. So, should our mortal liquids—blithely spilled and lurking through her spaces that are closed from our own eyes by corporate facades blanked off—find ingress to reactive salts: who’d know in time? Or if a humble sensor, rudely wiped by chance with oily rags, sends out three blips of data to her flight control which tips her whole anatomy to stall—how can we help her fly? She seems a single whole, although we know a million parts and more take her aloft; and thus we greet each other, faces bold, you good? I’m good: as rats inside consume our tangled souls. Paul Rapley 2025 #Facades
September 5, 2025 at 12:05 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Thanks for the challenge, Alan.
#poemsabout #Riots
@alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
Venting The populus must have a way to vent the pressure of its anger vs the state, says Niccolò—for lacking their consent in weighty things, their patience will not wait. When Gnaeus Marcius forced a punishment upon the people, starving them of corn, the tumult would have slaughtered him, absent the tribunes—commoners—who braved his scorn and set a trial from which he fled to foes— the city saved from civil discontent, resolved to face a war—but juxtapose that with how Caesar aimed to circumvent the obsequious tribunes’ now corrupted powers: and how their time so resonates with ours. Paul Rapley 2025 #Riots
August 29, 2025 at 1:51 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Hi Gary, you're too kind - but glad you enjoyed it.
I did something similar a few weeks ago for Spectacle, except in hard trochees rather than iambs - perhaps you saw it, but I'll attach an updated version here.
Also in my entry for the Full Collection - if it gets accepted!
well i ain’t tentacle manacle equivocal reciprocal— why’m i trapped here like a fool? friable pliable convertible retractable— think you’ll bend me to your rule? spiracle lyrical— them dork words the cream for you? risible visible— having a laugh? see this be true: miscible permissible— i hate mixing with them dorks biddable formidable— listening to your boring talks look at them they’re o so teachable don’t touch me cos i ain’t reachable why’re they staring? what’s she want? what you looking at? huh? well don’t god these boring losers bore what you looking at me for? so why you staring at me now? o god i hate that pretty cow you look away or get a slap— stay out this miss—you want gift-wrap? see all them get right cowed and hunching under my dread gaze, fists bunching— why’m i up? i’m that susceptible to my red rage? so dead intractable— rage to legs to fist—directable by my ire? so who’s a spectacle? i make a spectacle right here? i’ll give you one—just lend your ear for I can scream this whole dump down you bores and swots and preaching clown now watch me stride upon your desks and throw your books with their school crests in scattered glory through the air and kick the bins and toss this chair at your glazed miss and thrust the door and twerk right through and slam its poor mute trembling frame and bang each class along the hall and smash the glass of that big lamp which hangs respectable scare the head with my great spectacle your christmas tree—you’d love a miracle? something’s grabbed me most satirical so let’s grab it and see me climb high up the wall for my first time onto that beam—o you’re assembling to watch my show? huh! they’re all trembling way down there while peering up for miracles to fill their cup behold! a shower of sparkling balls and tinsel stars and angels falls upon your dorkish faces chums and hallowed needles painted plums and now the tree herself descends upon your horrid cliquish friends so all of you can badmouth me i’m out of here and running free
August 22, 2025 at 8:52 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Thanks for the new prompt, Alan
Something serious...
#poemsabout #Chandeliers
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#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
Falling in According to the gazetteer of some part of our hemisphere [not known for being insincere nor knowingly to interfere with facts—nor be a profiteer from fables she might overhear from any passing balladeer]: one night a lonely grenadier [born long years past in Leicestershire— his mother, a famed scrutineer of cheeses; father, profiteer from porky pies, the domineer of heists throughout the biosphere— who’d made the choice to disappear, escape their dump and volunteer for service—be it fusilier or musketeer or bombardier or pontonier or pistoleer or even sun-soaked cameleer— and, trained to use the troposphere to launch grenades in Aboukir, in Naples, Spain and Agadir (wherever the high puppeteer would deign to send each pioneer beneath the burning lithosphere)] while passing through the aerosphere in thick clouds with his brigadier, three swordsmen and a muleteer (no mules), clothed in thin cassimere, steered by a nervous gondolier more used to the earth’s hydrosphere than boating through the atmosphere (could hot air—like a bandoleer— keep them above the rhizosphere?) en route to eye Diyarbakir, was caught out by an oversteer and, tipped towards to the centrosphere, fast tumbling like a charioteer struck from his cart, ear-over-ear, and screeching out like Chanticleer, fell doom-wards (writes our pamphleteer) till stopped mid-air: a bayadere, who’d dodged her king, like Guinevere, and chanced just then to reappear as if she were a rocketeer in beauteous form; a privateer upon the air; a mutineer who’d rise beyond the stratosphere— thus saving our shocked grenadier whom she, with spirit cavalier, (a woman born to persevere) flew to her favoured belvedere where (lauded by a sonneteer who penned fine verse as souvenir so great, their fame reached Windermere, plus many a loving banqueteer) they wed beneath the chandelier. Paul Rapley 2025
August 22, 2025 at 12:01 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Something for the pot.
Thanks for the prompt, Alan.
#poemsabout #Ceasefire
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#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
Responses All signs are pointing to a yes— they’ll sign next week, is our best guess: agreed on land and checks and arms and stepped responses to alarms, absorbing scares and threats and warnings, planning ways to cool hot mornings— protocols to shape reactions, reining in their wilder factions: it looks certain, all plants say, a cease-fire’s marching on its way. Time to pull out those old files and wipe out their pacific smiles. We won’t allow the sides to sign when we’ve such intel—dead malign— gross photos, audio, and logs, and evidence of when, like dogs, they sweated at it in our places: compromised their public faces. Make it clear what we’ll enable: smash their treaty off the table. Paul Rapley 2025
August 15, 2025 at 7:37 AM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Sorry this is late - done in a rush
Thanks, Alan, for setting the challenge.
#poemsabout #BlackSky
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#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #PoetsOfBlueSky
Bortle One to Four I think I’ve never seen the Milky Way, I said—at least, not registered it as such— for many years had churned since I’d not known that earthly lights would cancel out the stars and blanch stark blackness into tinted greys that mock the glistening fractured tears which mighty giants weep and beam to us in mourning for their snuffed-out spectral kin. Acknowledging their house amid the hills, set far from towns and screened from neighbours’ homesteads, crouching mute beneath the moonless sky, was blighting night’s eternal darkest blackness, blazing out its own illumination which, with a finger’s flick he might extinguish; and, learning of my longing to gaze further, he quenched the lights to outside space for me. The porch and drive and field and further workshop, the bend, the private road, and flanking trees sunk down to formless shadows while the vault of heaven permeated my tired eyes… Yet, where’s the Milky Way? I had to ask. Look up, above your head. Yes, she was there but faint, like long-lost memories of love or soaked-in, blotted, spilled ambrosia. My sister and his wife were still inside not drawn to stepping into chill and dark— perhaps not knowing quite why we were out, or even that we’d left. Their lights were on so, even near the bend, they teased our sky and sapped the Bortle scale. I’d not the cheek to ask, invite them to join in. That other star, he said, I think’s a satellite. Paul Rapley, 2025
August 8, 2025 at 9:02 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Sorry this is late - done in a rush
Thanks, Alan, for setting the challenge.
#poemsabout #DarkSky @alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
#poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #KeepCreative #PoetsOfBlueSky
The Bortle Scale, from One to Four I think I’ve never seen the Milky Way, I said—at least, not registered it as such— for many years had churned since I’d not known that earthly lights would cancel out the stars and blanch stark blackness into tinted greys that mock the glistening fractured tears which mighty giants weep and beam to us in mourning for their snuffed-out spectral kin. Acknowledging their house amid the hills, set far from towns and screened from neighbours’ homesteads, crouching mute beneath the moonless sky, was blighting night’s eternal darkest blackness, blazing out its own illumination which, with a finger’s flick he might extinguish; and, learning of my longing to gaze further, he quenched the lights to outside space for me. The porch and drive and field and further workshop, the bend, the private road, and flanking trees sunk down to formless shadows while the vault of heaven permeated my tired eyes… Yet, where’s the Milky Way? I had to ask. Look up, above your head. Yes, she was there but faint, like long-lost memories of love or soaked-in, blotted, spilled ambrosia. My sister and his wife were still inside not drawn to stepping into chill and dark— perhaps not knowing quite why we were out, or even that we’d left. Their lights were on so, even near the bend, they teased our sky and sapped the Bortle scale. I’d not the cheek to ask, invite them to join in. That other star, he said, I think’s a satellite. Paul Rapley, 2025
August 8, 2025 at 4:46 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
My stitch for the thread
#poemsabout #Glamour @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
#Authentic #TakeRisks #poetrycommunity #poetry #PoetsWhoSupportPoets #KeepCreative #PoetsOfBlueSky
[BTW my #waxtears effort was a rip-off of that wonderful novel, Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.]
Look at Me I’d set my heart on all you loving me so learned the ways to catch your needy eye I’ve sussed the greedy blatancy of fame and how to blag a freebie with cool cheek I shine and strut with sleek insouciance while flashing charming smiles to devotees I’m setting shame apart for it is just that my smart clique should pleasure out its days since I was yearning for this as a child and mildness never stopped a bee’s despatch I shall be earning squillions at this mine as others bend the knee and trudge for miles I shall have been… What? Your bad. I was misled. I swear you’d said I had to stitch an epic thread on grammar. Paul Rapley 2025
July 25, 2025 at 6:21 AM
paulrapley.bsky.social
darkness light passion Pt 2
large fire burning silently on the marble hearth table adorned with exquisite flowers lit lustre pouring down light on silver and glass in bright solitude, wax candles shining [vaporizing the efforts of ten thousand bees—who knew?] radiating for her i stumbled over a marble hearth, a fallen fragment bending forward to take a last look at you the wall crumbled the child rolled from my knee the woman rent my veil in two her lurid visage flaming over mine [the creature of an over-stimulated brain, that is certain] my heart beat fast and thick the flesh quivered on my bones the room was full of moonlight [where passion rules, what space for humdrum photons?] Jane! Jane! Jane! While you weep within your room suffused with candles’ scent [as melting paraffin releases phthalates, toluene, synthetics, benzene-based dyes, in part] turning the pages of my triumphant story you, too, have marked just how the groping at my door, the low demoniac laugh, the strange gurgling, the footsteps on the stair and—once i’ve quenched the blaze with my own water-jug plus the aid of God—our conversation, his and mine: all is placed in total darkness and then, amid the stink and the drip of his burned and sodden chamber, i am left to turn slow cold alone awaiting the light Paul Rapley 2025
July 23, 2025 at 1:08 PM
paulrapley.bsky.social
Re-reposting cos heavily indebted to writer far greater than me [As Harold Bloom said 'No, Thomas Stearns, not Dante] Anyone?
(2 pts)
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darkness, light, passion For shame! For shame! Lock up the mad cat! Red. Pink. Crimson. Mahogany. No jail was ever more secure. Rain beating, wind howling, fireplace blank violent tyrannies, proud indifference, plain aversion darkening deposits in my mind’s turbid well courage sinking cold into the coming night… Outside, a swift-darting beam, unrecognised [from the burning oil of a whale, perhaps] the herald of some coming vision from another world head hot, heart thick, the rushing of wings in my ears in terror i hear my cry… there was a stranger in the room soothing conviction of protection and security more tenderly than ever before, i felt raised, upheld before the warm fire and a friendly flame [from the combusting fat of sheep, no doubt] before he went out, and then the fire and the flame A loud bell ringing in bitter cold the girls up and dressing evincing fortitude under wintry privation night irked out by feeble glimmers [from the ignited pith of grease-dipped rushes, for sure] water frozen in the pitchers i let down the window and look out behind us, the town to judge by the number of its lights [from volatile components of coal, distributed, in main] a place of considerable magnitude
July 23, 2025 at 1:08 PM