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Reposted

Jan Peters - Solivagant Wisdom @janpsolivagant.bsky.social · 9h

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

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paulrapley.bsky.social @paulrapley.bsky.social · 6m

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 · 9m

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 · 7h

⚡️ 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 · 11h

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

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Reposted

John Chmura @johnchmura.bsky.social · 11h

#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 · 12h

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 · 11h

#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 · 5d

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.

Reposted

Bernard Pearson @bernp.bsky.social · 6d

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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Mike O’Brien @zoomburst.substack.com · 7d

There is some fine poetry in this week's #PoemsAbout challenge #Mannequin.I have loved the creepy horror tinged ones, and the conformist figures ones, and the cheap life ones - and the rest. I can't write anything to compare. So I have just torn a page out of an old Radio Times.

A page from an old Radio Times featuring synopses of six episodes of the detective series "Mannequin"

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

A provocative glimpse into the past from the hidden archives!
This is a great find!
You should be able to write a spoof on that!

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

Ah! Perhaps I should've known, but didn't.
Now I can read it as an extended metaphor (which I think you intended).
Still works without the knowledge, though.

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Reposted

Jan Peters - Solivagant Wisdom @janpsolivagant.bsky.social · 8d

#poemsabout @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
#UncannyValley #Mannequin #Ideologues

#poetry / #photography: ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025/2024

#Grotesque #Satire #ColdWar #Witches #Hexen #Harz #Brocken #Mountains #Communism

Brocken Spirits I – The Others

Queen of the Harz,
Mitteleuropa Dreamtime
Lodestone:
But for a forty-year
Hiatus,
Our age-old abode.

Ousted mid-century by a
Legion of Others,

We watch,
Wait,
Deliberate.

The Others:

State Broadcaster -
Pursed-lipped, brow-knit
Propagandists.
Granite-faced, dogged chomping,
Even as their acid receptors
Bristle and seethe;
Even as lemons blanch,
Wince and squeal
At their biting.

State Security -
Sword and Shield of the Regime.
Hollow Men,
Clammy Men -
Glutinous glove-shake,
Glazed-doll wink-blink,
Puppet-headed rictus
Sizing up muscle twitch,
Eyebrow-raise, voice quaver,
Millisecond averted gaze;
Seeking out disruption points,

Pinhole perforations for their
Assaults on the soul.

Even while piercing the
Permafrost of
Uncanny Valley,
They are easy pickings for sex-farce
Dominatrices.

Their Masters from the East:
Dyspeptic toadstools -
Flaccid, sallow or ruddy -
Snot-green caps flattened into
Weathered sundials;
Gills, a gherkin-vodka-tobacco
Browning and blackening,
Relieved here and there by
Sharp glints of
Etherized dentistry.

They keep telephones
Locked away in drawers,
Safe from the ministrations of their
Satellite counterparts.

Walpurgis Night:
Enemy exercise deemed first strike by HQ, but here
They lie charmed with sleep -
Magic-potion samogonka
Drunk under the table in their boredom.

Armageddon deflected.
Without our stir,
They hex
Themselves.

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2024

Effigy of green-faced witch in Sankt Andreasberg, Upper Harz, Germany

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2024

The Brocken, to the left of the image, the highest peak in the Harz Mountains, at dawn in October. Image taken from the Torhausmoor raised bog.

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

Plenty of food for thought here.
The conflict between worldly & supernatural powers - ever ongoing (though I couldn't get the ref to the 40-year hiatus).
I felt I wanted more.

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

very powerful & disturbing recordings
the pain comes through

they go drip drip drip drip in school bathroom stalls

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Reposted

Debra Nordyke @dnwritespoetry.bsky.social · 7d

What's up my lovely fellow poets for this week's #PoemsAbout #Mannequin! When I saw the theme for this week, I gleefully knew my selection! I got this title in my head and wrote a poem! A little longer poem!
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

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