Jen Thorne

The where:

www.priorygroup.com/locations/nh...

🫂

More memory than story, and the whys... well, they are locked safely away!

They called it the Priory, though I could never find any evidence that nuns had lived there. It was the nicest place I had stayed. Inside, I had my own room, with a bookshelf and a bathroom. Outside, swathes of green velvet sloped down to a small lake. Sometimes they set up the meeting chairs in the shade, close enough that we could admire the baize lawns. Not on them, though, and I never reached the water. Mondays and Thursdays were mowing days. On Mondays, the groundsman trimmed the neat, bowling-green grass. But Thursdays were the best. Thursday mornings were for the perimeter. I would listen intently for the sound of the motor starting. His route brought him past my window. I would open it a crack so I could hear his singing over the hum of the mower. He always looked up and waved as he passed close by, so close I could see the lines edging his sunbleached denim eyes, the callouses on his fingertips, the dirt under his nails, fixed there as if it belonged. I daydreamed about his hands. How they might one day open my door and close around my wrist, firm and certain. How he would pull me free from this place where time passed only by the growing of the grass.

@ignorantfairy.bsky.social

This wouldn't be a poem, so I let it be. Hope that's okay.

#FaeSense
#theSoundOfGrassGrowing

Nightmare taught me a lesson made of gnashing teeth beneath prehistoric stone. Eyeless monsters lying in wait for humanity’s collapse and I turned from meal into one of them, into meal again. Teeth ripping pink limbs grasping all one body, one mind yet stretched into multiples too. It was then I realized the lesson the message in the metaphor as my body dissolved and dripped from the mouths of this creature that was both many, and me. We will consume, and consume and consume ourselves, each other, and the world, until there’s nothing left but our teeth.

Belated submission for #poemsabout #mouths. Only just found time to type everything I've been writing lately. I might've done 2-3 for this #prompt... Anyway, spooky spicy fun. Enjoy. 🤗

@thebrokenspine.co.uk
@alanparrywriter.co.uk

#poem #poetry #skypoem #skypoetry #poemaday #nightmare

Fire first
silence never shows
Ash drifts, memory clings,
smoke curls toward sound
Bass rolls low, walls loosen,
time steps outside.
Eyes soften,
laughter leaks out
with the smoke.
The room feels a wave,
stadium rising...

final salutation!

#MPPrompt #prompt #eulogy #poetry #writing

No one who writes like you do is harmless!

Oh lord if @madp03t.bsky.social has joined the convo you'd better run Suzy

Yep. Totally.

😂 well I can't speak for the boys, but you're safe with me!

😊

An ADHD introvert! You'll get on with both of us then!

Thank you for joining in with our prompt 😊

Oh this is great. Well done Suzy.

#BastardPoetsOfDoom
#grumpy
#Valentine
#tigsik
@daveashleypoet.bsky.social
#poetry #poetrycommunity

This one was quite fast, only about 2 hours!

😍😍😍

I think the gloom seems to be lasting longer these days, physically and metaphorically.

Thank you, and thank you for being one of the voices 💚

What a wonderful poem ❤️👏❤️

They drew the line once with ink and fear, a pale, a dark pool, a crossing of voices and feet, a thin bruise around the city: mud, timber, watchtowers, permission disguised as protection. Inside: bread counted, names recorded, bells that knew who they were ringing for. Outside: everything else, bog, language, weather, refusal. But Dublin never kept still. It leaned. It listened at its own edge. The river kept undoing the map, pulling salt and stories inland Markets ignored the border. Songs crossed at night. So did hunger. So did love, badly behaved. The city learned early that lines are temporary things, chalk on stone, rules waiting to be bent by feet, by mouths, by time. Every generation redraws it: tenements and tech, prayers and punchlines, keys handed over, keys withheld, rent climbing like a bad idea. Still, the streets remember what it is to be watched, to be measured, to be told where you belong by someone who arrived yesterday. And yet, Dublin keeps stepping past itself, half-apology, half-laugh, offering a stool, a story, room for one more if you squeeze. Because this city was never safest inside the line. It learned itself by reaching beyond it, by choosing, again and again, to live where things meet.

This #vss365 is a reflection on the city of the pale (Dublin) #SpéirGhorm #SpeirGorm

Challenge accepted, but today's a busy day, so it might take a while.

I should be able to channel my inner grumpy though 😆

Pale The sun’s radiance bathes the morning in a pale, wan light, offering no respite from the sharp caress of frost. Beneath my insulated layers I too feel pale, washed out by the relentlessness of life. The pink of my cheeks, a false hope whipped up by the ice-shard breeze. On I trudge toward spring, to when monotony will be painted with fresh colour.

@nathanbrazil.bsky.social congratulations on making it to halfway!

You've been a great host so far and I've really appreciated your kind feedback ❤️

#vss365 #Pale
#Poetry

Thank you ☺️

Old I know a few perfectly well elderly who can only look back, you know, the ones that forcefully reminisce at every point, as if they have a tilting mechanism which suddenly acts to cease their engagement with the current. These days I just think there’s something eminently sensible, even rather lovely in that. Enlightenment Stopped driving at a crossing, facing the other way: a packed city bus, the young crew-cut driver looked so serene, reminded me of a long-ago college visitor: a meditation demonstration from a Buddhist monk; both calmly following the prescribed path, each suitably unattached to their distracting internal chat.

Hullo @tomsnarsky.bsky.social #smallpoemsunday #poetry Thanks as always for your curating!

Pale Once, an elderly neighbour, (who would die the next day), was placed by his upstairs window. He looked so pale: waxy as an unlit candle, his cream curtains quivering like premature, part-formed wings. It was summer, I was in my garden and we all knew he was dying. I sometimes climb back into that stare, to take his point of view: not seeing the trees, plants, or grass or me, only a bespoke armageddon.

Hullo #vss365 and to #pale

Ascend I look toward the climb and feel the urge to turn away, to loosen my grip, to yield. Slopes wield loose stone, holding doubt. But I am not alone. Behind me, voices rise, those who loved me once, those who love me still. They press their faith between my shoulders, hands warm, insistent, saying stand. So I take the first small steps. The path begins to lift, narrow underfoot. When my breath thins, their hands steady me. When the height unsettles bone and balance, their voices quiet the shaking air. They do not promise ease. Only this: ascent is made one step, then one more, and I am not alone.

@sonnetsmith.bsky.social
#WildWalkPrompt #Ascend
#Poetry #Friendship

Her alabaster skin is #pale blue in the moonlight, her blood red nails sharpened into thorns. I should be afraid. I know what she is. I know about her craven desires. Hell, I should be running, but she has her dark hooks in me, and I cannot move. She descends for a kiss.

#vss365

I'm not a good at commenting as you, but - nice!

is it real?

that thing that used be your head
turned half-pipe
now home to guilt and shame

doing anchor grinds
and carving grooves
in your skull

while their #pale sister
runs her hands
along your thighs

how will you know
until you crack open the heart
whether it is alive
or dead

#vss365