A staircase #replaced, after countless steps misplaced; as per the footnotes. #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

The #gift of haikus; wee stories you can draft on crumpled pub napkins. #vss365 #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

I met a man who said he was a #distant relative of Peter Cook's neighbour. I presume he meant the neighbour at Perrin's Walk, Hampstead, where Peter Cook lived, and not the neighbour at St John-at-Hampstead, where Peter Cook does not live. #vss365 #british #comedy #fringe #humour #prose

I had thought to discourse upon #distant memories. But, for all I can ascertain, my memories sit equidistant from one another, give or take a few memory microns. If we mean distant merely in the sense of not recent, the act of recalling the memory may take longer than the memory is worth. #vss365

#Distant memories— as far as can be recalled. Too far, some might say. #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

Lunch was in poor taste— #flavourless, unseasoned fare; bawdy, tawdry slop. #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

We tried to find seats— but ev'ry perch was taken. There were no #sparrows. #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

She stood for office. Her political rival ran off unopposed. #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

We were out in the street being festivous, Till a constable came round to #quietus. "It's really rather late," Said the cop to my mates, Draining off his drink before arresting us. #vss365 #verse #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #limerickish

I was enjoying a quiet evening viewing Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. That is, until the scene where... well. I unbuckled my battery belt, tore off my haptic long-johns, and tossed my personal panorama helmet in the bin. I've not yet recovered from this immersive personal experience. #scifi

Ogden Nash was a puzzling one. He would #rhyme himself into a corner, then chew on the final #word until it became a glooby, fockin' mess, then jam the gloppy bit into the puzzle-hole and hammer the shit out of it until it fit proper. Me? I look at a final puzzle piece and build a puzzle about it.

Young Wells was fond of swapping— the self, not the spouse. Though what he and his wives espoused was none of my affair. In The Stolen Body... no. That body was not wrong. It was stolen. But in The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham, therein lurks a true #WrongBody tale. #PoemsAbout #scifi #scififri

Time's recurrency, regressing to an old age when we knew not much. #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

I once dined at a buffet restaurant called The Royal Fork, where #consuming was the only menu item. I was reminded, unhelpfully, of Thomas Hood's "The Bridge of Sighs." A fork which attacks royalty is plainly a royal fork; but a royal fork, being royal, cannot be used by common pieces. #vss365

Tuberculosis. Not humour’s usual province; yet one occupies the room one is coughed into. We know the #consuming tableau: a bloody silk handkerchief, then "a little country air." Sensible, even without haemoptysis. La traviata, La bohème, Les Mis, Tombstone: all stained by Keatsian linen. #vss365

Aubrey Beardsley—a gentle, chisel-faced artist who brought spirit, line, and a dangerous elegance to The Yellow Book, The Savoy, and Salomé, and a greater notoriety to Bond Street, where "smut was cheap." Mabel, his sibling, was a woman of higher character than any rumour cast upon her. #vss365

Thank you for the kindness. I'm reluctant to accept any Longfellow comparisons, unless it's confined to the number of women sharing our graves—a figure I hope to keep lower, and unaudited for many more years. The quotation is John Bunyan's: Sunday-school residue from a less elective curriculum.

The Misses Brontë were #consumed, directly or indirectly—long before my own introduction into impolite society. And young Aubrey, too. Such a decorative aesthete. A bloody shame, that. Poor, dearest Mabel. The grasses of the Cimetière du Trabuquet have grown the thicker ever since. #vss365

Consumption: a #consuming disease in which the consumer became the consumed. Nasty business, that graveyard cough. The robber of youth. There was little hope for consumptive patients. "The Captain of all these men of Death." Even writing of it further pales my pallor. A dreadful waste. #vss365

I'll share these words freely for a tuppence—they're mine to give away, willingly, gratis, and for a price. It is dreadful to be #forbidden; worse, perhaps, to acquiesce. Acquiescence encourages one to write with a foul pen—the eureka moment comes when one can read the wretched reek of it. #vss365

"You are #forbidden to leave the grounds, Sir!" asserted the new Pro-Proctor. "On what grounds?" I questioned. “The college grounds, Sir." "Those are premises, not grounds." "College and rooms, Sir." I handed him my Principal’s pass. He read it. "Permission granted. Pedantry noted." #vss365

We cut to the #chase! But lo, it started to bleed. The hunt continued. #vss365 #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

The privy stood locked; a midden most #forbidden, latch, unforgiving. #vss365 #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

Temptation is not conquered by resistance—according to Lord Henry. Resistance teaches the soul to long for what it has #forbidden to itself—according to Oscar Wilde. What was forbidden was still printable—according to Lippincott's. What was printed was outrageous—according to the public. #vss365

The taper loses its light, and its length, long before the #dawn. #vss365 #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

From the Juliet balcony, cried not nightingale but lark; what I knew of aubades heralded time to depart. My lover was blind to #dawn, deaf to morn blinds being drawn; for a parting kiss she pouted, but I was already gone. #vss365 #prose #poetry #poem #writing #poetrycommunity

Rose greets the young day, welcoming the rosy #dawn. Less so, the cock-crows. #vss365 #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

The old Laureate was fond of the word #dawn. Tennyson, I mean—or, more ceremoniously, the Queen’s poet. Morn after morn, one heard someone prattling on about Tithonus and Eos, goddess of dawn—or Aurora, if one insisted upon Latinising the matter. It grew rather tiring, whatever the hour. #vss365

When I was young, I'd stay up all night to watch the sunrise at #dawn. When I was older, I rose at dawn to watch the sun rise. Now that I'm at the age I am, the morning sun can sod off entirely. I'll get up when I bloody well please. #vss365

And when those dead did fall upon the undead below— oh! what a bloody mess. But from the bloody #deadfall, these undead did re-rise again, adorned in entrails and other saucy bits. The undead, bloodless buggers, looked really rather fine, given their particular eternal circumstances. #vss365

The dead fell from the sky! The undead watched them fall (from above the #deadfall), for, as it had been foretold, the undead could fly. Two of the undead chose to watch the dead above them fall. These were not the smartest of the undead, but they would soon be the undeadliest undead. #vss365

A memory of a mother’s mother’s mother: of a mother’s mother mourning her mother; of a mother attending hers, and of a mother departing all too soon. To live to be the mother of a #mother who has mothered mothers, to witness, expectantly, the coming of another generation of mothers. #vss365

Greetings, my brother, ye of another #mother— bloodless kith and kin. #vss365 #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky

Yes, #falling. Though, we're not falling in quite the vulgar sense, are we? We're caught in these #gravity wells, and while that's all well and grand, we could be soaring, infinitely—were it not for Earth. That's your fall, right there, mate: letting the bloody planet get in your face. #vss365

I quite understand the collective unease. I had been #gambling with my good health for years, keeping those treasured lead board-game avatars beneath my feather pillows. What was I thinking? I am quite certain I was uncertain — owing, it seems, to certain lead-leaching complications. 1/2 #vss365

I found a copy of Risk at an estate sale, still in its original cellophane—a condition suggesting either providence or fraud. Fifty American dollars. A #gamble, certainly. When shaken, the game rattled with the muted confidence of several small wooden armies. I should unwrap it one day. #vss365

I was once a word #loss sufferer. I suffered needlessly, endlessly—nay, ceaselessly. I’d be up beyond #midnight, swearing at the moon: "Damn you for being so bright!" That is, until a friend introduced me to George Crabb’s English Synonymes Explained. I never stated he was a good friend. #vss365

Wilde’s #midnight portrait— his corrupted private self paints the grey away. #vss365 #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #booksky www.dreadfullypoorpublishing.co.uk/wild-and-cra...

I nicked this #midnight #prompt unprompted. As good a word as any, but far too late to #write. Artists need their beauty rest, not to stay up late at night. #vss365 #midnight #writing #prose #poetry #poem #MicroPoetry #poets #poetrycommunity #horror #gothic

When first I heard nature's call, I performed a little dance; when presently it called again, I nearly shat my pants. Towards the public convenience I made with urgent stride; relieved to reach relief in time, I found myself locked outside. #poetry #writing #poem #prose #poetrycommunity #nature

My #primitive thoughts: "Me think funny words. Make laughs." (They're still evolving.) #vss365 #poem #micropoem #poetry #poetrycommunity #writing #haiku #senryu #prose #DailyHaikuPrompt #haikucommunity #haikufeels www.dreadfullypoorpublishing.co.uk/a-primal-hai...

Hello #vss365 writers and readers. I’m honored to be your host from June 1st to June 15th. Prompts will drop 1 PM GMT /9AM EDT. Many thanks to Jeff Shaw @blackwings182.bsky.social for his intriguing and stimulating prompts. I’m eager to read your work over the next two weeks.

Greensleeves, oh green sleeves, elbows awash in green tea. Tis a beastly pot. #vss365 #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity #greentea www.dreadfullypoorpublishing.co.uk/green-sleeves/

“If it breathes of gin, keep it in; if it reeks of turd, chuck it to the kerb.” These #marvelous words, freely given by me, orally, in front of adoring listeners, including a drunk as Punch pub scavenger from Wortley, Leeds. #vss365 www.dreadfullypoorpublishing.co.uk/pick-my-word...

Penny Dreadfuls were but a penny, until they were not, at which time they became dreadfuller, costing but a halfpenny: dreadful for the Dreadfuls, dreadful for the #writers, but less dreadful for the readers—a development I considered #wondrous — until fresh bloods began costing tuppence. #vss365

#Share and Cher alike— I have never beaten swords or ever ploughed Cher. #vss365 #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity www.dreadfullypoorpublishing.co.uk/swords-into-...

#Chichester, you say? #Remnants of short parts of a lengthy life lived long ago. I haven't returned to Noviomagus since those poor girls disappeared from Graylingwell. It is said you can still hear their gargled voices across the dark reach of Fishbourne. #sussex #england #horror #vss365

The #remnants of All That Remains: relics left over from a surfeit of excess by the Residuum, an ancient order fragmented by its own abundance. The Residuals, keepers of Everything Left Behind, were few in number now: an echo of their former abundance... abundance... abundance. #vss365 #scifi

An important date! Show up early, stay too late. Hurry up and #wait. #vss365 #HaikuFeels #verse #DailyHaikuPrompt #Senryu #Haiku #HaikuSky #Poetry #MicroPoetry #writing #poem #prose #emoetry #writing #poets #poetrycommunity www.dreadfullypoorpublishing.co.uk/no-time-to-w...

I drank from the moon's #gravity well; my insertion burn started, my gut began to swell. My accretion disk expanded, my tummy rebelled. An event was on the horizon, that much I could tell— escape velocity was reached. Sorry for the mess; please forgive the smell. #vss365 #writing #poetry #prose