@paulrapley.bsky.social
details are yet to come out [it's not about politics]. So: neither written as yet. I like to be serious & also like to be funny, but hate to be trite.
Please don't think of me as a fount of wisdom: just another guy.
But thank you for your kind words.
Take care of yourself!
Please don't think of me as a fount of wisdom: just another guy.
But thank you for your kind words.
Take care of yourself!
November 14, 2025 at 10:11 AM
details are yet to come out [it's not about politics]. So: neither written as yet. I like to be serious & also like to be funny, but hate to be trite.
Please don't think of me as a fount of wisdom: just another guy.
But thank you for your kind words.
Take care of yourself!
Please don't think of me as a fount of wisdom: just another guy.
But thank you for your kind words.
Take care of yourself!
...I might be able to knock it out fairly quickly. The "Locked Doors" prompt led me to a circumstance that's too delicate for me to rush when trying to put the right words together & to an incident in the news which I've researched (I prefer to be accurate about facts) but where some important...
November 14, 2025 at 10:06 AM
...I might be able to knock it out fairly quickly. The "Locked Doors" prompt led me to a circumstance that's too delicate for me to rush when trying to put the right words together & to an incident in the news which I've researched (I prefer to be accurate about facts) but where some important...
We both have lives beyond the internet - & also need thinking time - so no apology needed.
I've tried to keep up one poem a week, but it's proving too much. If the prompt stimulates an idea that's either about some personal experience or in an area where I have some knowledge (or if it's satirical),
I've tried to keep up one poem a week, but it's proving too much. If the prompt stimulates an idea that's either about some personal experience or in an area where I have some knowledge (or if it's satirical),
November 14, 2025 at 10:00 AM
We both have lives beyond the internet - & also need thinking time - so no apology needed.
I've tried to keep up one poem a week, but it's proving too much. If the prompt stimulates an idea that's either about some personal experience or in an area where I have some knowledge (or if it's satirical),
I've tried to keep up one poem a week, but it's proving too much. If the prompt stimulates an idea that's either about some personal experience or in an area where I have some knowledge (or if it's satirical),
Why does Mark Stone, your Washington reporter, have a Sky-logoed Trump 100 sound muffler on his microphone?
November 10, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Why does Mark Stone, your Washington reporter, have a Sky-logoed Trump 100 sound muffler on his microphone?
Unlike the White Ship, which was setting off after a refitting, this ship really did go down, tragically, upon its initial (and final) launching.
www.vasamuseet.se/en/explore/v...
www.vasamuseet.se/en/explore/v...
The Disaster
What started with church services and a festive atmosphere ended in a watery grave. It was the 10th of August 1628, when Vasa, the most powerful warship in the Baltic, foundered in Stockholm harbour b...
www.vasamuseet.se
November 9, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Unlike the White Ship, which was setting off after a refitting, this ship really did go down, tragically, upon its initial (and final) launching.
www.vasamuseet.se/en/explore/v...
www.vasamuseet.se/en/explore/v...
I suspect, since individual ships tend not to figure prominently in standard histories, many people will be recollecting vague memories of this once more-well-known event:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_S...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_S...
White Ship disaster - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 9, 2025 at 11:48 AM
I suspect, since individual ships tend not to figure prominently in standard histories, many people will be recollecting vague memories of this once more-well-known event:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_S...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_S...
But that's almost everybody, Susie.
November 7, 2025 at 10:17 AM
But that's almost everybody, Susie.
Were they trying to tell us something?
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...
tablet | British Museum
Clay tablet; record of beer; impressed with five different types of numerical symbol.
www.britishmuseum.org
November 6, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Were they trying to tell us something?
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...
www.britishmuseum.org/collection/o...
Explain how I've slandered someone.
November 5, 2025 at 1:05 PM
Explain how I've slandered someone.
Hi Luke
Did you know you come across as a bit weird?
Trying to help.
Did you know you come across as a bit weird?
Trying to help.
November 5, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Hi Luke
Did you know you come across as a bit weird?
Trying to help.
Did you know you come across as a bit weird?
Trying to help.
Probably to somebody's taste, but opening those drawers (if they are indeed, functional) is going to be a real challenge, I suspect.
November 4, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Probably to somebody's taste, but opening those drawers (if they are indeed, functional) is going to be a real challenge, I suspect.
Perhaps Mr Thorpe, being conscious of Forest fan & Londoner Mr Crean's connections with Dublin & Roscommon, wanted at this point to avoid being accused of bias?
Better do your homework, mate.
Better do your homework, mate.
November 4, 2025 at 9:04 PM
Perhaps Mr Thorpe, being conscious of Forest fan & Londoner Mr Crean's connections with Dublin & Roscommon, wanted at this point to avoid being accused of bias?
Better do your homework, mate.
Better do your homework, mate.
Granted, but we writers do like validation for our skills while we are, in reality, merely the transmitters of perceptions.
I'm not a moral arbiter.
If one person reads a poem and makes some small adjustment to the way they respond to another, that's something gained.
But it won't fix the world.
I'm not a moral arbiter.
If one person reads a poem and makes some small adjustment to the way they respond to another, that's something gained.
But it won't fix the world.
November 2, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Granted, but we writers do like validation for our skills while we are, in reality, merely the transmitters of perceptions.
I'm not a moral arbiter.
If one person reads a poem and makes some small adjustment to the way they respond to another, that's something gained.
But it won't fix the world.
I'm not a moral arbiter.
If one person reads a poem and makes some small adjustment to the way they respond to another, that's something gained.
But it won't fix the world.
Thank you, Debra.
But the one poem so inadequately expresses the young man's dilemma - and that of countless others.
Our world is so fragmented, muddled... and inadequate.
But the one poem so inadequately expresses the young man's dilemma - and that of countless others.
Our world is so fragmented, muddled... and inadequate.
November 2, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Thank you, Debra.
But the one poem so inadequately expresses the young man's dilemma - and that of countless others.
Our world is so fragmented, muddled... and inadequate.
But the one poem so inadequately expresses the young man's dilemma - and that of countless others.
Our world is so fragmented, muddled... and inadequate.
...and then give form to that expression.
I'll leave that there.
I'm not very good at superficial sympathy, but I would encourage you to believe that your writing has real meaning & not to regard yourself as an amateur.
The crowd is not the best judge. I'll be cruel: most merely follow.
Viel Glück!
I'll leave that there.
I'm not very good at superficial sympathy, but I would encourage you to believe that your writing has real meaning & not to regard yourself as an amateur.
The crowd is not the best judge. I'll be cruel: most merely follow.
Viel Glück!
November 2, 2025 at 9:50 AM
...and then give form to that expression.
I'll leave that there.
I'm not very good at superficial sympathy, but I would encourage you to believe that your writing has real meaning & not to regard yourself as an amateur.
The crowd is not the best judge. I'll be cruel: most merely follow.
Viel Glück!
I'll leave that there.
I'm not very good at superficial sympathy, but I would encourage you to believe that your writing has real meaning & not to regard yourself as an amateur.
The crowd is not the best judge. I'll be cruel: most merely follow.
Viel Glück!
I take your points re Snowsuit. The brain-fog thing: I symp/empathise. I won't advise you: I'm not a quack.
However, the mind does need to roam, to acknowledge uncomfortable truths, to work to dispel lies that masquerade as truths (often hard-baked-in), and to give expression to the actual creation
However, the mind does need to roam, to acknowledge uncomfortable truths, to work to dispel lies that masquerade as truths (often hard-baked-in), and to give expression to the actual creation
November 2, 2025 at 9:41 AM
I take your points re Snowsuit. The brain-fog thing: I symp/empathise. I won't advise you: I'm not a quack.
However, the mind does need to roam, to acknowledge uncomfortable truths, to work to dispel lies that masquerade as truths (often hard-baked-in), and to give expression to the actual creation
However, the mind does need to roam, to acknowledge uncomfortable truths, to work to dispel lies that masquerade as truths (often hard-baked-in), and to give expression to the actual creation
...Also from Chinese: trying to avoid the tyranny of tenses. Using present participle without auxiliary verbs/gerunds ["puttering pottering dayspreading bittern booming"- from my stanza 6]: Walt Whitman, "Patrol(l)ing Barnegat". Eschewing punctuation: T.S. Eliot & the moderns, etc. etc. I admit it.
November 2, 2025 at 9:35 AM
...Also from Chinese: trying to avoid the tyranny of tenses. Using present participle without auxiliary verbs/gerunds ["puttering pottering dayspreading bittern booming"- from my stanza 6]: Walt Whitman, "Patrol(l)ing Barnegat". Eschewing punctuation: T.S. Eliot & the moderns, etc. etc. I admit it.
...poets & poems, not necessarily those top of my faves or those whom I've read extensively. They've metaphorically given their nod of approval: Invented compound words: Beowulf, G.M. Hopkins, Shakespeare. Elimination of articles (a & the): Chinese verse, generally...
November 2, 2025 at 9:28 AM
...poets & poems, not necessarily those top of my faves or those whom I've read extensively. They've metaphorically given their nod of approval: Invented compound words: Beowulf, G.M. Hopkins, Shakespeare. Elimination of articles (a & the): Chinese verse, generally...
...that we all have this, so best stop worrying & take heart that we can all push boundaries in our own way, using our own unique experiences and perspectives.
e.g. I've just completed a longer poem in a (faintly) experimental style. Thinking about my debts, I realise I owe plenty to a variety of...
e.g. I've just completed a longer poem in a (faintly) experimental style. Thinking about my debts, I realise I owe plenty to a variety of...
November 2, 2025 at 9:21 AM
...that we all have this, so best stop worrying & take heart that we can all push boundaries in our own way, using our own unique experiences and perspectives.
e.g. I've just completed a longer poem in a (faintly) experimental style. Thinking about my debts, I realise I owe plenty to a variety of...
e.g. I've just completed a longer poem in a (faintly) experimental style. Thinking about my debts, I realise I owe plenty to a variety of...
On the reading & reading thing: I never understood this back in the day. Harold Bloom published a book called "The Anxiety of Influence" in 1973. I wish I'd read it then because although he does articulate the worry we all (should) have that we're aping earlier famous writers, it made me realise...
November 2, 2025 at 9:17 AM
On the reading & reading thing: I never understood this back in the day. Harold Bloom published a book called "The Anxiety of Influence" in 1973. I wish I'd read it then because although he does articulate the worry we all (should) have that we're aping earlier famous writers, it made me realise...