Fidel Walsh
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dragonslayerma.bsky.social
Fidel Walsh
@dragonslayerma.bsky.social
2K followers 1K following 1.2K posts
Writing poetry. 3 poetry collections, Living with Love, Time & Out There. Short stories, Thrice Remembered an Anthology.

To buy my new book Out There
https://lettertecbookstore.com/product/out-there/

I'm 1 of the #PromptCombo hosts
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dragonslayerma.bsky.social
Fidel Walsh @dragonslayerma.bsky.social · Jul 25
Excited to announce the upcoming release of my latest poetry collection 'Out There'

#Irishpoetry
#PromptCombo
@victoriaspires.bsky.social @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social @hool415.bsky.social @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social @janedougherty47.bsky.social @sueimnw.bsky.social @rfsmith.bsky.social
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
fhpowellwriter.bsky.social
#promptcombo #workinglove
November 10, 2025 at 7:27 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
‘We have eyed the mystery of one another'

'Wren' by Rachel Deering from 'In the Shadow of Gods', available with Black Bough, a bumper collection. @racheldeering.bsky.social

www.blackboughpoetry.com/rachel-deering
November 8, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
bookwormsat.bsky.social
‘No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.’~ Wilfred Owen
This #BookWormSat, join us to mark Remembrance Day with war and peace in literature.
A painting of a desolate, war-torn landscape; muddy fields with what appear to be trenches or craters, a river. There is a yellow-orange explosion and dark, billowing clouds of smoke. 🖼️ Verdun, Félix Vallotton, 1917.
November 7, 2025 at 6:15 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
janpsolivagant.bsky.social
🙏 to @hool415.bsky.social #PromptCombo
#DeepTime take on #workinglove

#newpoem / #photography:
©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025/2022-24

#poetry #JohnCage #MechtildOfMagdeburg #AsSlowAsPossible #orgelprojekt #MysticMonday #thework
Fatal Day in Halberstadt 1361 Decameron‘s Twelfth Night. Lollards hitch their prayers, their Plight to the Morning Star. Pestis Secunda scourges Plantagenet England. Giotto’s Last Judgement Slumbers in umbrage on the Cusp of the Quattrocento. Halberstadt, Flush, bustling prince-bishopric - its Cathedral-treasure stash of Relics looted at the Sack of Constantinople – hosts the First of its Kind: Chromatic keyboard, Twelve half-tones arranged in Octaves. Halberstadt - where, at St. Burchardi’s Monastery, Cistercian Sisters Scale the canonical hours: Minor - Terce, Sext, None and Compline; Major - Matins, Lauds and Vespers, in Perpetual rounds of Work, prayer and Lectio Divina. A century before, They nestle in a fecund vessel of Mystical vision, where Mechthild of Magdeburg - Fluid, erotic, vernacular - Lights the way for Meister Eckhart; where Mechtilde, Helfta’s Nightingale, Dispenses Special Grace to Dante as Matelda. Six-hundred-and-thirty-nine years Slip by. Millennium tenor Deeds St. Burchardi’s to Zen musical maverick already Eight years passed: Bird now uncaged - Purposeless, intentionless - Pecking away at membranes - Temporal, musical – from the Beyond. The Six-hundred-and-thirty-nine-year Lease unfolds As Slow as Possible on an Organ fashioned for this purpose. Hiss of compressors, taut notes Coasting over billowing groans until 2640. Pauses a week before 9/11: seventeen months of silence, then Nine movements, each lasting Seventy-one years. Chord kept up over seven years, between Benedict’s flight to Castel Gandolfo and Second Lockdown. Austere piety, Avant-garde whimsy - ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 Spurning utility, instrumentality - Partaking in visions that far Outstrip lifetimes, Current-day zeitgeist confines. Contemplative prayer, Playful contingency - Tentative forays into Deep Time, Possible only when one Listens closely with Open heart, Open mind. Eternity disclosed in Nugacity, ephemera: Birds, lilies, Mustard seeds. Cloistered life, Choral work Whetting one’s Keenness for the Core - Still and small. ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2024 Highly contrasted monochrome image of a statue by Susan Turcot (2007/8) of mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg (1207-1282) ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2022 Poster-sized mural of US avant-garde composer, John Cale (1912-1992)
November 10, 2025 at 7:37 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social
Hi @hool415.bsky.social Ju, here's my first response to your excellent #promptcombo #workinglove. It describes the effect of temporarily having 99% hearing loss due to a middle ear blockage:
The Lost Buzz Helping folk gave me such satisfaction. Teenage Saturday worker stacking shelves finding books, answering peoples questions. Now I restock these supermarket shelves, apologising to customers that I can't hear them, but know somebody who can. My smile no longer a welcome mat, More: Private. Do Not Disturb. Can't hear you. I'm changed into what I don't want to be. Unhelpful. Anxious. Angry at myself because I can't listen. This is not me. Stranger shuts a heavy door on myself. I will find that buzz, again. I must learn new skills. Listen differently. Unlearn.
November 10, 2025 at 7:52 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
sueimnw.bsky.social
For this week's #promptcombo #workinglove with very understanding host @hool415.bsky.social , an old one which I think fits. Look forward to reading others later.
November 10, 2025 at 7:53 AM
dragonslayerma.bsky.social
#PromptCombo host is our very charming Ju for this week & his theme is #Workinglove

Tag @hool415.bsky.social & use the hastags to get involved.

Have a fabulous week hosting my dear friend ❤️
hool415.bsky.social Julian (Hool) @hool415.bsky.social · 20h
@rfsmith.bsky.social @dragonslayerma.bsky.social @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social
@victoriaspires.bsky.social I’m hosting #promptcombo this week.Use the #promptcombo and post me @hool415.bsky.social for the theme of #workinglove Anything on love, work or a mix of both! All welcome till 5pm Friday!!
Working Love I fell for you in work amid the photocopier’s paparazzi-flashing, had no control over seating so, between floors giddy elevator conversations snatched. Once, outside, during a fire evacuation test I stood by you, aware my ruddy-face was so obviously smouldering. Hold the note you gave me for supposed help on an urgently demanded spinning-hamster-wheel type task, just a rather economical: ‘Thank you v v much’ but I imagined that first word unexpectedly promoted and H.R. formally introducing its shyest new replacement: Love. Since that day to my certain knowledge you’ve never used ‘v v’ again… though I make sure those twanging Cupid arrowheads are near daily kept still in play.
November 10, 2025 at 8:45 AM
dragonslayerma.bsky.social
💫A Beautiful Review💫

Gosh Paddy. You have left me speechless. I'm hugely honoured at your beautiful review of my words in Out There. This means the absolute world to me! And it's me (using your words) breath drawn moment. Big ♥️ Love. Thank you from this wildly crazy heart of mine.
November 7, 2025 at 9:53 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
zentinl.bsky.social
That first line creates so much pent up apprehension. Love it, Fidel.👏
November 4, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
sueimnw.bsky.social
Eerie, with so much unspoken, and great photo too.🎃
November 4, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
davidbirch.bsky.social
Loved this, Fidel. Steeped with tension and unease
November 4, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
daveashleypoet.bsky.social
an absolute fun and spooky poem. I really love it Fidel
November 4, 2025 at 7:54 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
And what a suitably spooky background you’ve given this Fidel!

💀🌨️💨
November 3, 2025 at 1:09 PM
dragonslayerma.bsky.social
#PromptCombo Ronnie @rfsmith.bsky.social , here's one from me for #Storm . Have a fabulous week hosting my friend♥️
📸Colette Gemmell
November 3, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
sueimnw.bsky.social
For this week's #PromptCombo #Storm with @rfsmith.bsky.social - will catch up with others later.
November 3, 2025 at 8:50 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
thepaulconnolly.bsky.social
My recording of my poem Storms, first published in Guttural Magazine, posted here for @rfsmith.bsky.social's #promptcombo theme #storm #poetrycommunity #poetsonbluesky #booksky
November 3, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
fhpowellwriter.bsky.social
#promptcombo #Storm
@rfsmith.bsky.social
November 2, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social
Hi @rfsmith.bsky.social Ronnie. Thankyou for the timely #promptcombo #Storm. Here's my first response. It's from my collection "Wolf Eye Territory:"
Wolf Eye Territory – Paul Brookes 34 Our Storm Eye also call us Hunger or Ice Eye. Stillness, whilst all around rages. Hushed centre inside when you gape at our barrenness. Deadness, perhaps, but clarity ventured. Your raging eye looks at our calm and style. Breathes easier. Gusted leaf shadow prone black dog lope. Lightning your deadly smile, what the thunder said your voice. Your hailstone land is popping popcorn. Skin a short, sharp shower. Left you to dry out in sole heat of no goodbyes or see you laters. Part whist at our unruffled wax, wane. Storms beat your rocky slopes, snowfall binds you to earth with noise of winter, our eye lights your worth
November 2, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
saintghost.bsky.social
For #PromptCombo #DreamLogic ✨

for @victoriaspires.bsky.social

A poem about a recurring nightmare and how dreams bleed into reality and vice versa.
Nursery The cow jumps over the moon and the little dog laughs. Everything is as blue as crushed delphiniums, harvestbells, the finespun veins of God’s translucent wrist, sylph and spider’s silk, atropine. The languid drip of ketamine, like drops of dew wisp-watering the surface of the naiad’s brook. The slow crawl of propofol that makes me laugh; I count down from infinity and disappear. In the dream I forget everything and time becomes a swimming pool, turquoise molasses and gossamer tulle, meaning nothing, shiny as quartz. In the dream I forget that you must die. There is a road that I must cross, long and twisted like licorice. There is a veil through which I must reach like a birch bough for your outstretched hand. And when our fingertips touch, I remember and the remembering is as quick and absolute as a headshot or a deer crashing into the glittering windshield of your car. Something like icicles shattering, or teeth, or the thin viscera between you and reality. And this is what I do in the dream: I scream because that is all I can translate this terror into: the pure white flash shock of grief, the utterly wordless rupture of every seam I have ever stitched in the dark. The cow jumps over the moon right into the mouth of the meat grinder. The cow’s calf is taken away from her and she howls and bellows until her vocal chords rip and spew blood. The calf has two heads so it is sainted right between its long-lashed eyes with the hard red rapture of a cattle gun. The little dog does not laugh anymore. The little dog has been abandoned, kicked, left to starve to a gaunt ghost in the streets. The little dog is a puppy in a plastic bag suffocating on the bottom of the trash container. You die a thousand times and I must watch. Around every corner that I stumble, I find your body slumped over like a praying child with your head resting on the cold stone floor where your brain has trickled a halo. And sometimes I continue screaming even after I have woken up.
November 2, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
janpsolivagant.bsky.social
🙏 @rfsmith.bsky.social as #PromptCombo #Storm host

#newpoem / #photography:
©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025/2021

#Expressionism #Trakl #feverdream #delirium #darkpoetry #deathpoetry #monochrome #scape
Dies Irae Childhood hidey-holes, Dens, boltholes - Rot-hollowed hamlets. Weeded, dark-plumaged Hundreds at prayer: Sisters, mothers chanting Compline mysteries Abroad, ashore. Windows folded with Hands poised, paused. Stillbirth. Blue-veined Riddle hushed amid the Rank-trimmed pageantry. Purple-tongued jester Gibbers in still delirium at an Untenanted catacomb. Lush-lapped thorns finger Fever: Blood-spat cackle raised from Famished dreams. Panic rocks the death-rattled Coracle. Blanched shadows - Strangers - Crowd the Addled steps of a Landing stage. Vile body Breeds rats and lilies. Supplicant-sinner Thirsts for Cerulean. ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 After Gericht (“Tribunal”, “Judgement”, 1912-14), by Austrian Expressionist poet, Georg Trakl (1887-1914) ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2021 Black-and-white image of the rotting hull of a small boat on a salt marsh adjoining an estuary in North Norfolk. Darkened skies.
November 3, 2025 at 6:56 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo @rfsmith.bsky.social
Thanks for an early classic poem for the very seasonal #storm theme for #promptcombo
All welcome, just post to the above address with both hashtags.
(The rfs one above, not mine!)
@thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social @victoriaspires.bsky.social @dragonslayerma.bsky.social ⛈️
Squall, Bedruthan Cove, Cornwall The sky is suddenly shuttered, a god-fearing, if futile attempt at boarding-up, then raw incomprehensible torrents. Not mere weather, but mile-wide, a bay’s exhaustive bereavement begun. Below a perilous cliff path, the self-flagellating bash of sea: dented and scored enough to will its own collapse, while hovering over the gap, (a chomp of fallen and gushing rocks), blackened birds must cope with the stifled chokes of wholly inconsolable winds.
November 2, 2025 at 5:38 PM
dragonslayerma.bsky.social
Our fabulous host this week for #PromptCombo is Ronnie. With a very apt theme of #Storm.

Tag @rfsmith.bsky.social & use the hastags to get involved.

Happy hosting & happy writing everyone ♥️✍️
rfsmith.bsky.social Ronnie Smith @rfsmith.bsky.social · 7d
A rushed #PromptCombo this week as I will be busy. My task is #Storm , my starter for 10 below. Thank you for last week Vic ❤️.

Sigh of the spirits
through pine branches.
A strew of the year’s
dulled palm parchment
on dry grass. Prayer flags
cigar-wrapped on the thigh
of a spent morning breeze.
November 3, 2025 at 8:54 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
thebrokenspine.co.uk
Reminder: #PoemsAbout #Blood drops Friday. Write into inheritance, rituals, betrayal, transfusion, kinship. Don't post early. Use Alt Text. Tag us or miss out. For deep-dive prompts in your inbox every Saturday: shorturl.at/0Xm7A
red-to-black distressed background. The image has a gritty, visceral feel. The Broken Spine’s fountain pen logo sits top left; "@thebrokenspine.co.uk" is top right. Lower right text: "Read Repost Reply #POEMSABOUT #BLOOD".
October 28, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
fiftywords.bsky.social
The rhythm is fluid and incantatory, each image tumbling lightly into the next, like film frames in motion.
October 28, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Reposted by Fidel Walsh
rfsmith.bsky.social
Thank you again @victoriaspires.bsky.social for this weeks #PromptCombo . Here’s mine, from the balcony, #DreamLogic . Love to all.
Poem - Phantom gulls
October 28, 2025 at 7:39 AM