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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 2h

Sorry not to have responded sooner.
This is very rich.
I'll come back & read it slowly.

paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 14h

Yes, I once was quite complacent about my good-enough...
Ha!

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 14h

Ahah.
I was very deep into Charlotte Brontë at one time: moon v significant, but as a steadying & supportive (female) force.
And, despite his superficial persuasiveness, I do disagree with Riffaterre: the connotations of literary symbols are neither universally accepted nor set in stone.

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 14h

Thanks, Alan.
Guilt, yes. And regret.

paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 14h

Ah, upon re-reading, maybe Cain has a species-wide reference?
Now I'm picking up on the Moon: could help... doesn't?
Thanks for offering this...

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John Chmura @johnchmura.bsky.social · 1d

I have no idea why something in that fourth line made me think of Wish You Were Here. Maybe making tradeoffs. Those rhymes must have taken a bit of elbow grease!

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 15h

Funny thing: it was an indistinct sense of quite a long & fuzzy part of my life - but Occam sliced it down to five feet in a trice.
As for rhymes, school, fool, and time were pre-pasted in, so sin merely had to become crime.
I checked out Wish You Were Here: SB far deeper than me, poor sod.

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Jan Peters - Solivagant Wisdom @janpsolivagant.bsky.social · 1d

Love the granular quality of the psychological insight on display here. Great work! 🏆🌠

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 15h

Thank you, Jan Peters.
But I'd prefer not to have made this kind of a past and, so, not been able to put it into verse.

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 15h

What a tragic life!
Da bin mit meinem Mörder ich allein.
Are we to take his murderer literally as cocaine - or are there deeper and wider allusions?
Trakl seems to have been too acutely empathetic to have survived such trauma; he's served us by chronicling it.
Powerful English rendition.

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The Kyiv Independent @kyivindependent.com · 22h

⚡️ Venezuelan opposition leader awarded Nobel Peace Prize, Trump loses out.

The committee described Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado as "a brave and committed champion of peace."

Venezuelan opposition leader awarded Nobel Peace Prize, Trump loses out

The committee described Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado as "a brave and committed champion of peace."

kyivindependent.com

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 1d

Yep. Indeed.
Plus another of your apt similes to round it off.

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John Chmura @johnchmura.bsky.social · 1d

#PoemsAbout #ImperfectMe
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
I will put a reel in the comments.

IMPERFECT ME

On days my son was measured
in length rather than height
I held him shirtless in one arm
while I lathered my face to shave.
Leaned on my chest, warm,
he plunged an explorer’s hands, decisive,
into my foamy cheeks, gaining agency,
the intimation of form, and play
affirmed in his corporeal birthright.

And me, significant, generative,
like the god of the psalmist,
I could do no wrong.

Whiskey it wasn’t that imperfected me
in his eyes. I may never know
which particular betrayal
inspired that loss of grace.
But it did boost his swagger to say
for the first time fuck you, Dad,
and I absorbed the preordained assertion,
concussive, cracked like a plastic bucket
abandoned on the back porch
when water expands into ice.

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Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

Here’s to the imperfect, the mislabeled, the beautifully unfitting. This piece is for all of us who will not be named by other people’s judgment. #PoemsAbout #ImperfectMe Thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and this wonderful community @thebrokenspine.co.uk

The Name You Gave Me
You gave me a name I never asked for,
a word carved from your slant of sight,
what you call incomplete. But 1 know no lack, my world hums with fullness, my life lived in a key
you refuse to hear. You measure in steps, in movements that conform, while I am content in the spaces
where stillness grows its own rhythm. I carry no burden, but your gaze is heavy,
my being
a question left unanswered. Yet I move through my days
whole, free of the silence
you called a name.

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 1d

#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

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Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 2d

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 2d

www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/...

Charles Tyson Yerkes: the unscrupulous American businessman who transformed the Tube | London Transport Museum

A flamboyant financier, Charles Tyson Yerkes played a major role in the electrification and expansion of London’s Underground network, forming the Bakerloo, Piccadilly, and Northern Tubes, nicknamed t...

www.ltmuseum.co.uk

paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 3d

Don't you just hate it when would-be leaders laugh at their own incompetence in performing a straightforward, hands-on task.
(Yes, I have worked behind a bar.)

paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 4d

For welding intellect, scholarship & the lived-in life through ingenious, blunt and witty scansion to the authentically demotic, my #LiftToTheSky goes to that great, now late, poet Tony Harrison RIP...

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 4d

For welding intellect, scholarship & the lived-in life through ingenious, blunt and witty scansion to the authentically demotic, my #lifttothesky goes to that great, now late, poet Tony Harrison RIP...

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Paintings of London @paintingsoflondon.bsky.social · 6d

This week's theme was Food & Drink 🫒🍷

Hope you enjoyed it!

Take a look at the timeline over the last week for full details of these and the rest of the featured pieces.

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 6d

Ban these in UK, too.

David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 6d

A bit of good news #devilshairdryer

Bans on this landscaping tool continue to spread across the US. See where. — USA TODAY

Many cities and a few states are banning gas-powered leaf blowers due to pollution, noise and health risk concerns. They've gotten some unlikely help.

apple.news

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 6d

Hm. My life saved by Chain, Florey, Fleming. (No doubt also by Jenner, Semmelweis, Lister...)
Whether it's benefited the world is, of course, a separate question.

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Bernard Pearson @bernp.bsky.social · 7d

Huzzar and thank you to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk for hosting #PoemsAbout #Mannequin here's my belated offering already enjoying the great work of others

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 6d

Actually, it's kinda liberating in some ways.
Trying to avoid prepositions (a "to" & an "on" forced their way in: I'm counting two others as parts of phrasal verbs) very useful in making me invent alternatives.
Keeping to a strict metre also drew me into the compound words.
"-ing"s avoid tenses...

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