Dean Norton

For Old Times’ Sake It sits on the table, wrapped in rizla, while I wait for you to flush and pull on your coat. You come in, dumbass grin already softening your face, nodding to a beat I cannot hear. I nod with you. You toss it carelessly into my lap and for old times’ sake I know I won’t resist. By the last flight of stairs I’m back to a skinny girl, in a hoodie, in a warehouse, in a field. The beat drops into my chest and the tightness dissolves. I am smoke filtering through the crowd. Siren-bright lights carry the sound to my eyes and now there is only love for these rag-tag strangers, only the rhythm of our consciousness rising. Until morning, there is only ecstasy.

@dragonslayerma.bsky.social

Squeezing one more #ecstasy one in.

#PromptCombo
#poetry

delight comes damaged— not broken, just escalating into pressure the light hits and memory skews you at the refrigerator, cold spilling out, your body leaning as if deciding whether to stay upright i watch the way hunger moves before language the door swings— wide, unguarded, a mouth forgetting how to close whatever happens next doesn’t bother with names everything suddenly fast, full of breath— too close the sound you make afterward— low and feral, uncontained the mess left behind is proof enough of something delighted

#delighted
#Emoetry
@fafo-poets-society.bsky.social
@mwplovesmusic.bsky.social‬

#delight
@fhpowellwriter.bsky.social
#vss365 @vss365hq.bsky.social

This is direct address that is DIRECT. It feels like its hitting even before you write the last two lines. Meta and potent and a great counter-interpretation to pretty rainbows. ✨💥

i am not decoration. i am consequence. i stand where the light comes in wrong through the thick edge of the frame. one thing meets resistance and becomes many. what you see was already there waiting to be hit hard enough.

#PRISMATIC
@daveashleypoet.bsky.social
7th #FreeVerseFebruary #prompt

One in the same.

I've only been to the Grotto of Our Lady Lourdes in South Bend. A pale reflection I am sure, and less gothic sounds like.😉

Ju you have us listening closely for the whisper of the universe here. Wonderful!👏

Rob this is lusty and baroque before the pivot and has strong sense of time in multple layers. Love it.🙏

Ecstasy No tastemakers prepare as I have prepared. You, who were threaded into bed, prepared. And glowing: cheeks and nose all glowing. I was all for tearing off the perforations of the day. The day, in fact, a slab of grey, but so what with the bath so hot and the cheeks all glowing so. No courtiers. No attendants. The wallpaper here was ridged and cream but oh how I stripped that, ripped that. Such ancient paste. Such elbow grease. Beneath the yellow middling rose the pink slit of sunset closed, and this view now is its reverse; the season set to shit. No politics as yet – we have all been having so much trouble. The sun! I do remember! Purples, pinks and oranges but it has been a canny while. Let me instead drag across this television set. Dusty. Doillied. Moveable on casters. A great surprise to both of us as the second final episode begins.

One for #PromptCombo #Ecstasy, and I hope it's suitably ecstatic

Hardly rough to me, David. It reads as deftly wrought and I think its grand. Lifted my day to encounter it.✨

Good morning @dragonslayerma.bsky.social, many thanks for your great #PromptCombo prompt #ecstasy. I had nothing at first but sat down and came up with this: a bit rough and ready but that's the beauty of prompts, I guess!

@dragonslayerma.bsky.social
@archiemom.bsky.social @lindanoel8.bsky.social
@poetriesbound.bsky.social al @davidbirch.bsky.social
@debsnamood.bsky.social y.social @brightwings.com

Thank you so much for the repost!

@savedemocracy123.bsky.social @lwilde11.bsky.social
@alysseaallyn.bsky.social @a-gryphon.bsky.social
@johnfinagin.bsky.social @nonlinearbotanist.bsky.social
@my-diarys.bsky.social @fhpowellwriter.bsky.social
@nobodyiseveryone.bsky.social

Thank you so much for the repost!

@dragonslayerma.bsky.social Thank you for the repost!🙏

Love the breathless acendance of this, Jen ✨

Thank you so much!🙏

Too kind, Fidel. Thank you for reading and hosting!

Another for this great prompt from @dragonslayerma.bsky.social

#promptcombo #ecstasy
#poems #poetry #poetrycommunity #blueskypoets #blueskypoetry

Thank you, Fidel @dragonslayerma.bsky.social
#promptcombo #ecstasy
#poems #poetry #poetrycommunity #blueskypoets #blueskypoetry

The Black Veil He did not hide. That was the mistake. He wore what the rest of us learned to keep indoors, the long black weather of doubt, the private mildew of fear, the unswept corners of the soul. We have rules for sorrow. Dress codes for grief. Approved angles for remorse. A sin must either be confessed or monetised. Never simply worn. His veil broke the contract. No apology. No arc of redemption. Just a dark square where a face should reassure us. They called him strange, then dangerous, then cast out, the old three-step for those who won't pretend. But he was only saying what every screen works so hard to erase: that virtue is a costume, and honesty is not photogenic. So he kept the veil. A small, stubborn refusal to be marketable. And the town, bright with moral slogans, smiling with perfect teeth, crossed the street to avoid the one man who wouldn't sell them their own reflection.

This #PoemsAbout #BlackVeils is inspired by a modern take on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil. Many thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

The Last Serenade We became sisters in the madhouse. Two scrawny goth girls in the corner sharing a ratty tartan armchair. We laughed and cried, hurt and healed, side by side. Your crazy wasn’t the same as mine, but we both knew pain, and that was enough. You waited for me after your escape. We followed each other everywhere. Two wicked crows, cawing at the absurdity of it all. When one was caged, the other brought grain. Then came the last visit, when the struggle took its toll. You took my hand, fingers barely there, and said: My life was dark. My funeral will be bright. Wear colour. For my parents. So despite myself, I did as you asked. The next day the floor of my room caught a rainbow glint. When the day came, I wore the plumage of a parrot and walked to the crematorium, exposed. I felt every pair of eyes burn away my armour as I entered the chapel. Everyone wore black. A sea of crouched shadows honouring your life. And as Black Veil Brides screamed In the End, I stood there in my rainbow dress and laughed, and loved you more than life.

I'm sorry this one is so long, but once it started coming out it wouldn't stop.

Thank you @thebrokenspine.co.uk for yet another traumatic/cathartic #PoemsAbout prompt.

#BlackVeils

#narrativepoetry

This is a long as it should be, measured by outstretched wings. This soars, Jen. You show us her taking flight and then you. ❤️‍🔥

Impact Statement #BlackVeils Was I tainted by this mantle, or was it you. Did I cover myself for your pleasure, or your obedience. Know that what lies hidden is mine to keep my shroud revealing nothing, all light absorbed. I don’t reflect your gaze or your appeals. This is not for you but me, unless you will it otherwise while you hold me in shadow, a vassal of your own fear too impotent to press your own light through. I stand empty, nameless and opaque while you look. I am alive within, my flame small but constant held over until you and your kind are gone you always dimmer than I will ever appear. In dying this way I have gained new life. This black is my freedom, my purity. © Glenn Barker January 2026

Here's a voice that wants to make a statement. Don't think I've written anything like this before for #PoemsAbout #BlackVeils
@thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoetsOnBluesky

*glad 🤣

Crushed, you begin to open right before us—but questioning and uncertain all the while. This is magical and so wrenching too. I am so gload you shared it.❤️‍🔥

Voice and strucure both—you build this fulcrum, then tip us over, and tip us again. Which is how every day feels. "resisting a rest" is razor-sharp promise of where we are going when we start reading. Just great.👏

Sometimes you wonder whether Alt text is really necessary - but here it is anyway.. Peace Swathed in black, she came to him and sat astride his broken form Though numbed and weary, still he felt a wonder and a joy at this. She bent and shrouded him in shade The fearful noises faded fast as his heart stilled within his chest She took the veil down from her face and covered up his eyes with it Cold as he was, he felt her warmth and when he left, he left with her She took him off. No-one knows where.

I've just read through all the #PoemsAbout #BlackVeils that have gone up so far. I have to say that the quality is stratospheric this week. My breath is taken away.
I'd better throw my veil into the ring...

Love the balance of tragic and magic, Mike. 👏

For this week's #PoemsAbout #BlackVeils, I'm thinking about systems protecting themselves. Error logs, forthcoming.

Thank you to the host @alanparrywriter.co.uk
and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
and to all of the other writers.

#poetry #poem #writing #PoetryCommunity #BlueSkyPoets