Explore

@jamellen.bsky.social Sep 27, 2026, 10:21 PM

Where do all the dead letters go ?

#poemsabout #deadletters
#PoetryCommunity

@patriciajvs.bsky.social Sep 27, 2026, 9:24 AM

Late to this week's party but here is a short offering.
One of us is eagerly awaiting the clock back after 6 months with the clock maker!
Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk for another great prompt. #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters

Dead Letters
A postcard in a box
With the browned broken cuckoo clock,
Forty two dead letters
Written in a hand stamped by age
Broad black marker scribed
A promise made, unfulfilled By a grandmother now gone,
To pay for the repair of an ancient clock That belonged five generations ago
In an old man's house
On a wall.
And now she's gone, And I am left To fulfil the promise For my Sunshine, A grand love to give
A small boy who loves the clock, Much as his Dad did before,
Making the dead letters live again,
A legacy of sorts For another wall.

A small white postcard with a promise to pay for a repair of a cuckoo clock

@thebrokenspine.co.uk Sep 27, 2026, 6:00 AM

Next up: #Rot. Flowers rot. Houses rot. Governments rot. Love can rot beautifully if you leave it somewhere warm enough. New theme begins Friday. Don’t post early. Use Alt Text. Tag #PoemsAbout. Read. Repost. Reply.

@blackbijewess.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 3:56 PM

No Stamp

Please Mr. Postman!
Bounced undeliverable
Blocked you everywhere

#haiku
#PoemsAbout #DeadLetters

@zentinl.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 3:16 PM

Hi #PoemsAbout community. With apologies, I've been away for about a month, but missing you all. Trying to shake the rust off for #DeadLetters. 🙏 @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk.

#poetrycommunity #poetry #blueskypoets #blueskypoetry #poetsofbluesky #skypoet #writingcommunity

@thebisylarke.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 2:00 PM

been feeling uncertain about most of what i write and thus hesitant to share. but here is this week’s very rough attempt for #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

alternate title idea: the muse is dead, long live the muse

we’re history (once more with feeling!)

what would you do if you could go back?
i would take your hand and make you
my tango partner on that swampy
ballroom floor, and we would dance
til the very end. what you might do,

now, i cannot say. you only seem
capable of perennially surprising me.

back when we were green
with adolescence no grown person
would envy, you were a mystery to me.
my fairy heart fluttered in all the wrong
directions. if fortune favors us meeting
again, this time, who would be the deer,
and who would be the headlights?

my inner teenager doesn’t want a
substance to abuse, she just wants to
know how it feels to be good and kissed—
nothing less, nothing more. she wants
to be asked to prom, actually this time,
not just an afterthought, last minute plans
for front porch photos. she wants to
collage her own dress out of forgotten
pieces of pasts that precede her.

but i was really more duckie than andie—
the hopeless, hapless romantic,
the faithful friend, the onlooker who
watches you carry on with someone
so utterly wrong for you and, sighing,
still opens his palms anyway, with
a smile and a nod. but really,
what does it mean to be free,
if you aren’t fulfilled?

present me doesn’t want to be pink
anymore—a soul that’s darkened
with each season, each self-inflicted
heartbreak, crimson and crumbling.
i only long to be drenched in hot
red wax, seething skin eager for
marking and claiming.

my body cannot help but be seized
by the wonder of you, the thought
of you, cherishing, holding me—
how you’d feel in the car with
my hands on the wheel,
how you’d keen into touch if my hand
was the conduit for a caress—tender
as fallen leaves—slow, slower, slowest…

but that was just a dream
misplaced by time’s lost ghost, left
on the shelf between books of erotic
poetry and complex trauma therapy,
like the letter i wrote you last summer.

too impatient to let time tell, i tend to
grab hold of the mic myself, cursed
with a mouth so desperate to open,
brimming and bleeding with language.

i fear my grandiose fae trap plans have
carried on with the autumn breeze,
but at least they won’t lay to waste,
their spirits dancing in these words,
an untouched love
distilled into pure poetry.

@stacebot.bsky.social Sep 26, 2026, 12:02 PM

For this week's #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters I'm thinking about what has to die for a letter to be dead.

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

#prompt #poetry #blueskypoetry #writesky #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity #poets #creativewriting

dead letter

i wash the dishes
in the dark

because i know
where everything is.

the tap.
the soap.
the chipped glass
you always said
to throw away.

remember when
you said
nothing mattered
and i said nothing.

it does.

the glass slips.
i hear it break
somewhere in the sink.

for a while
i leave my hands
where they are.

the tap keeps running.

i am quiet.

you are far away.

or whatever
you are.

eventually
i put my hand
back in the water.

@johnchmura.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 11:22 PM

There are tons of prompts on Bluesky. This is my favorite. Every Sunday (except on a rare fallow week), @alanparrywriter.co.uk of @thebrokenspine.co.uk issues a prompt under #PoemsAbout. On Friday, we all begin submitting and commenting on the prompt poems.

@philippabowe.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 9:07 PM

Managed a quick #PoemsAbout #deadletters piece on the way to Madrid for the @saloneurope.bsky.social. Thanks
@thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk 🙏💜

Black box with white letters of a poem:

dead letters

some of the letters survived
but not all -
the k of kindness
lopped down
mercilessly trampled
underfoot -
the c of compassion p of patience
thrown into blazing fires
citizens of Hades rubbed their hands
prepared new dictionaries -
and on and on
until the only ones left
spelled nothing we wanted
to say

@teaintheweeds.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 8:58 PM

For anyone who learned that love can be used to justify almost anything.
#DeadLetters #7SyllableSquad #PoemsAbout #Poetry #PoetryCommunity #WritingCommunity #Writers

@kakapowhakatoi.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 7:25 PM

This one was a written a long time ago but fits the theme @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

#poemsabout #deadletters

Yours Always

I fold the smooth 68gsm sheets in half.

Ellen yells from the lounge Mum, the internet isn't working' then without hesitation 'Never mind.'

The heavy stock envelope matches the cream paper.

I slip my inkings into their snug enclosure.

Tim emerges from the depths of his bedroom to tell me,
"The last male white rhino has died, fucking humans.'

I write your address with the flourish of cherished strokes, stick down the flap, place the stamp in its rightful place.

My phone lights up with notifications; a Facebook memory of our Anniversary pics, the fridge suggesting a recipe using the broccoli that is tiring, seven new emails.

I place the envelope in my bag.
The car radio talks of how robotic telesurgery via high-speed internet is changing healthcare,
followed by the importance of drones in modern warfare.

I sit in my usual place, next to your gilded name.

I take the envelope from my bag, and release my thoughts from their ink;
so they can stretch for that place we will never reach.

@clareobrien.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 7:11 PM

I think this might be my favourite from today's crop of #poemsabout #deadletters! Witty, funny and sad all at once.

@suzydobie.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 6:17 PM

#PoemsAbout #DeadLetter

#DeliveredinError
#PleaseForward
#poetry #poetrycommunity
#writing #writingcommunity
#poetryprompt

Thank you to
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

@drvmiranda.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 3:20 PM

Hi Alan. I can not help noticing that the cover of the book was produced using generative AI. I am wondering if – as a creative – this is something you now regret or something you are totally comfortable with? @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoetryCommunity #PoemsAbout

@davidbirch.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 3:08 PM

Thank you John. "Double duty" is a great concept and I'll exploit it more often!. It was a #PoemsAbout prompt about a year ago - #LockedRooms.

@merrildsmith.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 3:00 PM

Good morning and happy Friday! Here's an old poem I revised for #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters. Thank you as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Poem:

Erasure

Here is where time unfolded wings
and flew from

the straight path I had imagined

the stars have shifted, I cannot
navigate this whirligig expanse,

the parallel universe
where you wrote her letters
and she slept in my place.

Now I burn every word,
all the traces, hints, glimpses–

love and us,
erased.

@listlessennui.bsky.social Sep 25, 2026, 2:59 PM

Is the shape perfect? No.
Do I care? Hmmmm not enough 😁

#poemsabout #deadletters
#poetry

Once
I had a drawer
Full of carefully kept
And cherished words -
Of doodles and notes
And all your secrets.
I burned them all,
Just to forget.
I didn't.
I'm sorry.
I have
A letter for you
Still, collecting dust
Tucked securely within
This pocket on my shirt
Surely, a coincidence -
This pocket rests
Above my
Heart.
I'm sorry.