Julian (Hool)
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hool415.bsky.social
Julian (Hool)
@hool415.bsky.social
890 followers 720 following 3.9K posts
Nominated for a Forward Prize, Best Of The Net (Twice) and Two Pushcart Awards.
Black Bough (Silver Branch Poet), East Ridge Review (Featured Poet), Frogmore Papers, Full House Literary, Dream Catcher, Starbeck Orion, Dreich, Broken Spine, Frazzled Lit.
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hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #slip
Never-Met Grandfather A child, I watch my grandma slash and hack the half-dead growth, her rusty blades slipping on the squeaking stubborn grass. I believe the tidied tump is the body sleeping awkwardly, but being tickled by the tugs on blanketing greasy stems. Grandma’s not speaking, her shears aren’t stopping, she draws no-one real from the earth. I think: Death seems easy, (just more gardening), whilst warming under a buttery sun.
January 24, 2026 at 6:04 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #drizzle
Dry Pipeline Met an American friend on-line. A poet, 5 miles or so from the nearest desert. Tells me he dreams of rain: from the most heavily pregnant drops to the shyest fringe of spray. Laps up my tales of the drizzly stuff we get here everyday. I get by return: coughed-up sand, a brutal, hazeless sun, that unfocusable call of vast uninhabited lands. There’s a phone booth there as well, he says, edge of a former Reservation. Swears in the hammering heat, and though patently defunct, he once heard it ring for him.
January 23, 2026 at 5:30 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #unmoored
Unmoored Open seas, beyond a smudge of shore, is our found plotted-position but we must always sail further and trade for more. The world does not owe us easy berth: we bob and ride the daily swells ever unmoored, weathered alone, till a grasped rope of low half-seen stars guides us magically into our suddenly recognised awaited port.
January 22, 2026 at 8:10 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo @victoriaspires.bsky.social and to #promptcombo #subtext
Am lobbing in a very old one if that ok.
Thanks for hosting and ** Congrats again for the Forward Nomination**
Ruddy marvellous news!!!
The Gauge Of Love Sat in the middle of love: bowl of cereal in the kitchen, under vapour trails from your bouts of circling busyness with a son on my left, his homework battling the internet; you telling me spilt coffee-drops are a scar, and suddenly, all the other things you have held in or found. This is mid-love, I guess; not by the seating in an ever tightening room, but a needle recording (just for tonight), its half-drained level.
January 21, 2026 at 8:45 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #bend #poetry
An old one today.
Taking The Other Side An old man, eighty, pounds the neighbourhood, precisely dressed all buttoned-up, tortoise face with a clipped broomhead moustache, his polished brogues rushing my corners as leather freight. Weeks of sightings reveal he tacks drawn-out roads with skill as if bending wind, criss-crossing rocky promontories of other people, his course always set safely far from them in waters much deeper than shy. Keeping ahead the sadness that nips at his heels, I think (he cannot be caught to ask), a widower wrought by promises cast to leave the house daily, the letter still honoured, if the spirit twisted beyond recognised shape: a rheumy-eyed hare flushed, racing to and fro nowhere.
January 21, 2026 at 6:39 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo. Just put this up on the other side for a challenge. #nighttime #poetry
Shedding Truths Knew a nurse of the terminal, had a standard answer for that only question: months to many months but not many years a gentle, baggy phrase, the polar opposite of a tightening cancer, a soft mantra to be shared in a hard chair or by a hard bed maybe better understood as a proficient yet kindly fortune-teller wanting to shelter the other a little longer from that seen date and the extinguishment of hope.
January 21, 2026 at 3:28 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo. Just put this up on the other side for Top Tweet Tuesday. #poetry
The Merging Some days I’m empty as the space between the stars, as if awaiting a nova of the one true idea: that fumble for a half-remembered hotel bedside light in other ways, almost godlike: a black hole, the central drainage point for an infinite gathered runnels of chaotic dying thoughts I remain undecided if the night sky liberates or entombs; clawing meteors remind of flashing nail scratches from inside an already sealed coffin, whilst I bleed and drool the Milky Way.
January 20, 2026 at 6:26 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #loom Another old one today.
A Half-Warming Stone A child’s death over a century ago, though without the eras knee-jerk florid penmanship of beloved, cherished or deeply missed, and absent any arthritic angels, stooped and bored looming as the inscription’s bower, without the usual Jesus’ knifing, citing imperial rights trumpeting his cruelly premature call. These parents stated loss so plainly, and who left a clue that their love was modern, softer than all the plumped-up, stony High Victoriana. The churchyard is scoured for any similar mark, yet only this tomb insists their child reached not six but that and a half. Love, unlike time is indivisible, but this fraction needed to record its absolute fullest measure.
January 20, 2026 at 5:41 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo. Just put this up on the other side for an #eternity theme. #poetry
Mostly, we forget in the gossip of daylight that a blue sky is salted with stars and that stars are the seasoning for a nothingness that is relentless but we rarely shoulder the weight of open skies or space, leaving infinity’s start ignored and unbraced, we should feel constantly this droop of universe upon our skin, this lowest lightest brushing bough of awe, remembering our dandelion-wishes of prayer and our singing probes, go hand in hand and dance together as they cross the beckoning void.
January 20, 2026 at 2:53 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo @fromoneline.bsky.social #fromoneline #twasaminutepastseven #poetry
Twas A Minute Past Seven Twas a minute past seven and you still slept while I watched you from the other side of your small double bed, wanting the fuse for the frenzy to be relit. Now I see unfamiliar ornaments placed on long shelves; rugs suddenly making a fuss of an elderly carpet; framed photos too: your bigger life as a mosaic piecemeal, across the far wall. All of these objects just arrived as I can only remember the room bare and uncluttered from that last and first night.
January 19, 2026 at 10:04 PM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #veer
Veer You’ll have noticed the contagiousness of most emotions: laughs, big or small will slip under and injure despite the wearing a sensible mask; one guffaw spreads quickly, altering it all. Sorrow is even stronger, the path of tears rarely veers, pouring down a face unhindered; few watching have a natural immunity to prevent a communal sadness catching.
January 19, 2026 at 8:03 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo. Just put this up on the other side for a prompt.
#poetry
You Changed Me You changed me with the force and power of a second childhood: the reach of your love so permeating, minute by minute, it is the relentless downpour of an unbreaking weather; pervasive as an inescapable understanding of mortality, under the shadow of a now much bigger death. This dependence is absolute but not parental, though I have re-attached myself joyously, using that pulsating life-cord kept long ago from within the womb.
January 19, 2026 at 2:44 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #murmur An old one today.
Llanwrthwl Common, Powys, Wales The half-hearted track has almost given up. I am above the empty valley, beyond the retired drystone wall now an unhurried deluge of moss and rock, beyond the bleached skeleton of a tree so weathered, it seems inverted: a jagged fan of root-bone. A sag of hillside draws me, this natural parabolic dish so softly contoured, the mountain could be deflating; a sheepless incline scabbed with blood-gorse, partly blotting its coarse blanket of ochre stems. All around, clouds trail their shadows like a child’s coat, but on this slope, up close, their touch is more certain, a rush of fingers across a familiar undulating Braille. Whatever is learnt is shared as hirsute murmurs across the rippling scrub. It’s late, but I wait for the scars of dusk to heal, when the clouds begin their burlesque with the brazen nearly naked constellations.
January 18, 2026 at 6:47 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo @tomsnarsky.bsky.social and to #smallpoemsunday #poetry
Cardiff Town Centre Queen Street on a Saturday, a mishmash of evangelicals, Hare Krishna’s, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Latter-day Saints, I visit them all: it’s like getting a second, third, then fourth opinion in an open-air hospital.
January 17, 2026 at 9:42 PM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #dapple
Dapple There is a road behind the lake, the lake we went to that night, the day when our friend had died. A bench, wood as cold as a coffin, while small-hour traffic carried on its business oblivious; their far headlights weaving through trees, dappling, like a desperate communication in unreadable morse.
January 17, 2026 at 6:00 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #sear
Sear On my second day of work, I left the train with you, this stopping became in fact the starting. I remember nothing of our conversation only a nascent elation, the sunrise ruffled clouds as the sheen for stoic buildings and a flock of commuting city-centre gulls, laughing: each one’s underside seared in a commemorative molten gold.
January 16, 2026 at 8:11 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo @alanparrywriter.co.uk #poemsabout #timeslips @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Enjoy the fest all!
After My Son’s Exams Against Rhosili skies the scarlet nick of a paraglider is a bloodied suspended seed. My son reaches the drop to the causeway first; tide times are scribbled with an untrustworthy staccato marker, so, we sit on the crew-cut scrub looking out, the scratch of a bleached plane gradually feathering. The sea is waveless, though veined and muscular: all potential pacing menace. He is keen to explore, to leave this penning jut of land and cross the pallet-knife of rock ashen below us. He chats of his exodus: bitter-sweet and too unripe for me, I choose to hear instead the incessant dialogue between wind and ocean. At these moments his words are a string of beads snapped and pouring we both are helpless to stop. And I realise, it is me who floats untethered, stranded as currents flex around my child, gathering to show their purpose. We could cross the causeway safely, but for a near last time, I will cloak him tight with a sapping heedless caution.
January 16, 2026 at 7:45 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #heartfelt
Heartfelt Knew a sunset once… more an unbroken bronchial cough, struggling wheezy to get past trees, its light all tired, sticky and discoloured: a despairing exhalation through tobacco-stained fingers. Some regretful handkerchief of clouds, over-blown, filled with spent yellowish browns; such an unlikelihood that sickened, seeping dome ever rose again next morning. Above and all around: a heartfelt practising of the many, varied, eulogies from the seated, weeping, birds.
January 15, 2026 at 7:29 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo. Three thoughts. #poetry
Alphard My favourite star is Alphard, very heart of the Hydra, (I think it means the lonely one) earth’s atmospheric scintillations making it haphazardly, and often rather eerily, beat. Glimpse There’s a paved walk in front the hospice I once took. Saw a lone face pressed against the highest window: an ashen wick burning grey and though unmoving, I had glimpsed the only passenger in a rushing passing train. Mellowness It’s a state of less, an absence of, something devoid of fight or rage. A day or season’s end: rusted-light through evening’s net of trees. The attitude, if luckily retained, within that piecemeal fading of great age: the inference of a scoff or shrug, at the final slowing of the tick, the tock.
January 15, 2026 at 3:13 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo Paul @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social and to #promptcombo
#takingitupstairs

Do you need trigger warnings for the mildly depressing, though I hope it’s still mainly just a little whimsical.
Upstairs I am approaching that tight corner of being old: no one sees early the exact bumpy nature of this land, I guess any breathless pulls of you up the stairs will end, instead be replaced with a more prosaic, stripped back plain out of breath… (unless a Stannah stair lift can power up and allow the energy it will save to still sometimes kiss?) That strange intermediate time coming before one us is perhaps confined to an over-heated room with a single downstairs bed.
January 14, 2026 at 3:19 PM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #stoop An old one today
The Western Cemetery, Cardiff A stiffened clock on the gate warns of an ending time but curiosity pushes past to find a path and stillness hits, sudden and engulfing as stepping out from a house into night. Tiny movements dot the municipal prairie: stooped figures, like flowers, wafting pollen of public loss. The toothy ridge: a rictus grin of headstones, and a bitten sky rearing up on its haunches, ominous and heavily bruised. Uninvited, even walking is a provocation: the gravel growing uneasy and louder, dissatisfaction is shifting underneath. Purpose, never strong, drains: you cannot simply wish away a coming rain.
January 13, 2026 at 7:39 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo @fromoneline.bsky.social and to #fromoneline #itwasamistake #poetry
It Was A Mistake It was a mistake. It always is. As soon as you speak, your words curl around each other like a dying spider’s legs. There’s no coherent web to be spun, just tired strands of half-hearted lies which barely hang on. It’s always the same: an unwilling victim of circumstance, but never a returning the flag-bearer for shame. It was a mistake. That’s all I ever need to say. I’m not bad person, merely crave the penny and the bun; acquiring that cake then an urge to eat it. I can’t exist simply on crumbs.
January 12, 2026 at 2:07 PM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo #vss365 and to #slapdash
Slapdash Not all slap-dashery need be seen so negatively… Some over-hurried action? Yes- but we have such precious little time. An unthinking carelessness displayed as well? Yet which one us would want for instance, careful logic or a honed rationality governing the messy business of becoming friends?
January 12, 2026 at 7:53 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo @tomsnarsky.bsky.social and to #smallpoemsunday. Apologies but a second one today.
Newton’s Third Yesterday, driving well beyond the neighbourhood, I came upon my doctor leaving his hitherto unknown house. The thought held, (for only seconds), that this discovery was mildly interesting. He half-waved, smiled grudgingly though was clearly just so slightly, irritated. We were Newton balanced-out perfectly, as for every action, an equal but wholly opposite reaction.
January 11, 2026 at 8:08 AM
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo @tomsnarsky.bsky.social and to #smallpoemsunday #poetry
January Junction Adjacent to the traffic lights, a tree in its frightened wintering: branches caught mid-gasp, scratching hard for the non-existent air of spring; almost touching, a wooden telephone pole: close brethren, though awful harbinger of what’s to come. I wonder while my tired engine idles: how the tree’s stalled and limited sentience copes with this truncated grave’s cruel positioning.
January 11, 2026 at 5:16 AM