Jack Groundhog 📸📝

iii.

For countless seasons circling sun
I paced the stones in shrinking rings,
the ring I wore then weighed a ton:
this bird forgot that it had wings.

At last I finally turned the key —
what’s left of me had set me free.

✋🏼🧵

ii.

Although I held a golden key
to turn the gate’s old rusty lock,
for years I knelt obediently
each time my jailer came and knocked.

Repeated pounds of flesh from me
she claimed until my soul would break —
this jail of codependency
my health and hollowed heart would take.

🧵👇🏼

👁️ An iron gate in an arch with a Jewish cemetery behind it 📍 Pinkas Synagogue/Old Jewish Cemetery, Prague 📅 10 Jun 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 1000, ƒ20, 1/60s

Turnkey
A #poetry thread

—

i.

I walked into a prison cell
and closed the wrought iron gate behind.
At first the place felt harmless — well,
my gentle jailer seemed so kind.

🧵👇🏼

#poem #poemaday #codependency #mentalhealth #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography

iv.

And in that fading dusky glow
the soldier’s form seems near to breathe —
a phantom caught in sculptor’s snow,
commanded never to take his leave.

✋🏼🧵

iii.

The arch beyond he guards, interred,
in stone gate draped by amber light,
where shifting air makes faintly heard
the rumors of an unfought fight.

🧵👇🏼

ii.

His lifted arm in sculpted poise
suggests a tale the stone can’t tell —
a silent gesture, void of noise,
still straining ’gainst its stony shell.

🧵👇🏼

👁️ A stone gate with a frieze of a Roman solider raising his arm 📍 Zwinger, Dresden 📅 12 Jun 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 8000, ƒ22, -0.3 ev, 1/250s

Centurion
A #poetry thread

—

i.

The carved-stone soldier on the wall
guards, stiff, awake in weathered rest.
His chiseled cloak, though cracked, a pall,
holds echoes time has left unblessed.

🧵👇🏼

#poem #poemaday #dresden #history #travelphotography #photography

iii.

I step beyond my mortal seams
past former forms in placid grace;
new world unfurls, loosed from my dreams —
and something new shall take my place.

✋🏼🧵

ii.

A far-off glow, half-caught in stone,
floats like a thought I thought I’d know:
it calls me from my marrow’s throne
to follow where the faint winds go.

🧵👇🏼

👁️ A series of neo-classical arches 📍 Schwerin Castle 📅 20 Aug 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 1000, ƒ7.1, -0.7 ev, 1/40s

Crossing
A #poetry thread

—

i.

Through agèd arches pale with dust,
I drift where echoes deign to breathe;
warm air is soft, dark velvet’s must —
my shade-self hums his psalms beneath.

🧵👇🏼

#poem #poemaday #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography #poetrysky #blueskypoets

👁️ A dark stone arch frames a scene of old city buildings and some sky beyond 📍 Zlatá ulička (Golden Lane), Prague Castle 📅 9 Jun 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ8, -1.0 ev, 1/640s

High way

Angles and colors
frame a thin cobblestone street —
traffic flows uphill

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #cityscape #urbanphotography #travelphotography #photography

viii.

and the puffs of white and orange in the pallid winter sky
say nothing to Berlin’s brittle bustle and tussle:
they drift and shift in their own restless glide,
silent sinews flexing the city’s muscle.

✋🏼🧵

vii.

Up high in the sky, behind mirrored glass
in a tower with the power to make airwaves,
I see with clarity the stark contrast
between curling clouds and a wasteland paved,

🧵👇🏼

vi.

Above it all, a cooing dove sets its gaze
on a man scattering crumbs to the tarmac below.
The city inhales, exhales its foggy malaise —
a restless grid with mounting undertow.

🧵👇🏼

v.

Punks passing drunks, gardens of junk,
graffiti scrawled on walls gritty with grime,
little to drag this writer’s soul out of its funk
or much to say that this place is truly mine.

🧵👇🏼

iv.

Great garden, green lung, by traffic hamstrung,
wraps around an angel perched, eyes that search
from atop its column, Iron Cross and laurel slung
in a gilded fist like Prussia fan merch.

🧵👇🏼

iii.

Haze, a maze, the occasional blaze
of blue flashing lights in a streaking blur.
Unfazed by faded greys of hurried pathways,
knotted gaggles of people in nightclubs interred.

🧵👇🏼

ii.

High-rise towers, anonymous blocks
with tiny little flats – an egg-carton life.
Brutalist cement made of crushed rocks
housing young singles or an old ex-wife.

🧵👇🏼

👁️ A view of Berlin-Mitte from above showing its urban sprawl and concrete blocks 📍 Fernsehturm, Berlin 📅 23 Oct 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 400, ƒ8, 1/250s

Berlin-Mitte
A #poetry thread

—

i.

Concrete, cars, cackles in bars,
islands of trees in rivers of steel.
Great thoroughfares: asphalt scars
across the city's heart that never heals.

🧵👇🏼

#poem #poemaday #berlin #cityscape #photography #urbanphotography

👁️ A Baroque wall tomb marker in a Gothic cathedral nave 📍 Cathedral of St. Paul, Münster 📅 17 May 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ22, -0.3 ev, 3s (long exposure)

Epitaph

White marble tomb carved
with church Latin inscription —
dead tongue for the dead

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #cathedral #monochrome #blackandwhite #catholic #longexposure #silentsunday #photography

👁️ A dark stone arch frames a scene of old city buildings and some sky beyond 📍 Lesser Tower, Charles Bridge, Prague 📅 9 Jun 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 400, ƒ11, -0.7 ev, 1/640s

Else

Stone arch dark with soot
frames a fragment of blue sky —
cloudbridge to elsewhere

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #cityscape #travelphotography #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography

No chickens were harmed in the making of this photo

👁️ A group of smiling people cross an urban street just after the rain has stopped. A lamppost has tourist signs 📍 Staromětská, Prague 📅 8 Jun 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ4.5, -0.3 ev, 1/250s

Clearing

Signpost drips with rain,
shining cobbled streets shifting —
feet splash in rhythm

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #cityscape #cityphotography #urbanphotography #streetphotography #photography

My pleasure! I post poems I wrote with photos I took daily 😄

👁️ A late medieval wooden statue of St. Anne (mother of Mary), Mary, and Jesus, with votive candles 📍 Cathedral of St. Paul, Münster 📅 17 May 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ22, -0.7 ev, 5s (long exposure)

Ave

Woman sits in dark,
silent in her wooden state —
white wicks ignited

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #cathedral #gothic #catholic #longexposure #monochrome #photography

iv.

I feel the steam rise in my marrow.
My inner clock is now unlocked —
the train departs the straight and narrow
for brighter track. November turns to naught.

✋🏼🧵

iii.

back to the station Summertime
where once I sat in sunblanket street,
sipping fruity wine ’til after nine
when my inner sun last felt complete.

🧵👇🏼

ii.

Locomotive goes into gear, fired by a tear.
Clouds won't disperse: The train feels like a hearse.
I, engineer, blow the whistle, shed the fear.
Heartverse shifts the engine full reverse

🧵👇🏼

👁️ A man sits and relaxes at a café table in the shade on a brightly sunlit cobblestone alley 📍 Dolní Malostranský Obvod, Prague 📅 9 Jun 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 400, ƒ11, -0.7 ev, 1/500s

Switch
A #poetry thread

—

i.

In cold November winds,
as curls of rain whip the panes
whose glass is feeling thin,
my thoughts’ dark train sets off again.

🧵👇🏼

#poem #poemaday #travelphotography #streetphotography #depression #mentalhealth #photography

👁️ Arches covered in intricate golden patterns in a 19th century synagogue 📍 Spanish Synagogue, Prague 📅 10 Jun 2025 📸 Nikon D5600 ⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G 🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ18, -0.3 ev, 6s (long exposure)

Trace

Fine golden patterns
gleam on old synagogue wall —
sunlit spiderweb

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #synagogue #photography