Peter J. King

People familiar with skylarks will hear it clearly; people who have only heard Vaughan Williams will struggle...

first line from Kenneth Patchen’s “Pastoral” in Poems of Humor and Protest (1956) The Dove walks with sticky feet upon a twig inadequately limed; adjusts its collar, smooths its pale-grey surplice, and puffs out its chest (a row of medals jingles; one is twisted, and the sharp point of a star jabs through its plumage — see a single scarlet bubble well, and catch the light of signal flares). On outspread wings it glides from olive tree to bronze peaked cap, where it anoints the craggy face that sent – heroically – a thousand thousand children to their deaths and to the deaths of millions more. Then turning, it bestows another pure white blessing on the holstered gun. The mess is over, go in peace.

"The Dove walks with sticky feet"

From a sequence, "Pocket Lights", each starting with the first line of a poem from a City Lights "Pocket Poets" volume

#poem #poetry #skypoets #blueskypoets #poetsofbluesky #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #kennethpatchen
@citylightsbooks.bsky.social

A bit past juvenilia (I was twenty-one). Ink and acrylics on paper.

#painting #art #ink #acrylics #visualpoem

"Eel" (acrylics on paper).

#painting #art #acrylics

Near Churchill, Oxfordshire.

#photo #photography #trees #churchill #oxfordshire

A gothic castle in the transylvanian mountains. A great bear of a man, waring a stovepipe hat and carrying a cane: "Now that you are my bride, you will never leave this castle!" His new bride replies "Wow! Your library is amazing!" He continues "Beyond the castle is a high wall with no gate, and beyond that is a deep. Dark forest with no path." She pulls a volume from a great bookcase, "I suppose it's my library too, now we're married." He goes on "The forest is crawling with ravenous wolves, malignant birds and the spirits of long-dead travellers." Ignoring him, carrying a pile of hardbacks "So many books! I can't believe My luck!" He has sprouted wings, claws and cloven hoofs. "When the sun sets, I transform into a wild beast and soar into the night, seized by a terrible bloodlust!" She sits, examining her books as he flies out the window "Ok. I'll stay here and read. See you in the morning"

'Castle'
One of the limited-edition prints in my shop
www.tomgauld.com/shop

Anne F. Walker : Five poems the trailer and bringing it home   stark is the bare grass the white from yellow grass above lake baryessa     and the son’s friend ...

newly posted: Anne F. Walker : Five poems
periodicityjournal.blogspot.com/2026/03/anne...

This is what I do when I post poetry ; it often means jiggling the formatting to make it fit into the ALT-text character limit, but occasionally nothing I do will make it fit.

Note that the ALT text simply breaks off when it reaches the character limit, in all three texts. I'd not come across Google Lens; how reliable is it?

I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed.
Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing ‘reviewed’ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.

I don't know what you mean by ALT text "compacting". When I've hit the character limit, Bluesky does exactly what it does in normal posts, and refuses to allow me to post until I've cut it down.

As for the totally blind -- my typing outrun my thinking; you're quite right, of course.

YouTube video by Dan McClellan No, Trump & Hegseth aren’t gonna start the Second Coming #maklelan3167

No, Trump & Hegseth aren’t gonna start the Second Coming
#maklelan3167
youtube.com/shorts/AqBMV...

How about the totally blind? Must Private Eye also hire someone to read the articles, and post the audio file? At what point do you accept that "too much effort" *is* grounds for not doing something?
[2/2]

How could they have copied and pasted the three articles, given the character limits here? I repeat what I said about writing a summary. And "equality" is a vague notion, especially here: is being given an incomplete summary really equal to having the whole thing?
[1/2]

Try doing that yourself; I couldn't. Also, they'd have to pay someone to do it. I suspect that, if it were made mandatory, they (and other posters) would simply stop posting. Something of a Pyrrhic victory...

You do know that it would be impossible to supply the text in that graphic as ALT text?

Ten Longbarrow hardbacks, arranged diagonally, spines facing outwards.

Special offer from Longbarrow Press: any 3 hardbacks for £32. Includes collections by Steve Ely, Angelina D'Roza, Rob Hindle, Peter Riley, Nancy Gaffield, Mark Goodwin, Matthew Clegg, Chris Jones, Fay Musselwhite, 'The Footing' anthology, and more

longbarrowpress.com/current-publ...

Thank you!

YouTube video by divinoconcepto Crazy - Andrea Motis & Joan Chamorro quartet

Andrea Motis & Joan Chamorro Quartet - "Crazy"

#song #jazz #jazztrumpet

From a short sequence of "Lion Cities" (written before Russia's invasion, incidentally): Lviv and Venice.

#poem #poetry #skypoets #blueskypoets #poetsofbluesky #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #lioncities #lviv #venice

Nicosia, Cyprus: i. Bedesten (indoor market); ii.-iv. Selimiye Mosque (formerly 13th-century St Sophia Cathedral).

#photo #photography #architecture #mediaevalarchitecture #nicosia #cyprus

"Spring" (acrylics on paper).

#painting #art #acrylics

Another Labour Leader who turned a blind eye to genocide dragged the UK into another war. This is Trump's war; he doesn't even have the backing of his own citizens. Perhaps the UK will show the Labour Party exactly what they think in May at local elections.

#removestarmer #stopthewar #diplomacy

don't think that anyone's asking that, to be honest; the answer's too obvious.

A nice day out! 😺

But that's the wrong Ayatollah -- it's Khomeini.

The Conjecture of Wolves in the snow the wolves are not wolves at first but a conjecture of moving shadows an argument the night makes i remember or invent a book in which every footprint is a letter and the whole meadow a page that refuses to keep its text the pack crosses the white like a single thought divided into bodies as if multiplicity were only a trick the mind employs to avoid its own solitude each breath is a brief fog erased as it appears memory too a tracker in the dark following a scent without a name if i were another man or this man in another winter i might say the wolves are hunger or fate or the old logic of blood but tonight they are something quieter a moving form of time a sentence without punctuation that will not stop for my meaning the moon cold and exact as a coin offered to charon pretends to be a witness the trees hold their black signatures over the page when the wolves vanish into the pines the field remains immaculate and yet altered as if the world had been read aloud and the reader closing the book left no mark except the faint knowledge that it would be read again -Gerhard Oevermann 2026

The Conjecture of Wolves

#poetry #writing #prose #fiction

I hope that it works.

Ah, "Lavalier"... phew! (Thank you.)

I hardly dare ask what a lav mic is.