Rother Writes

@rotherwrites

[My words] "are shut up tight inside themselves like boxes, yet they would open up, unfolding quite wonderfully, if only" [I could interest them], Sylvia Plath

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Bluesky

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Rother Writes@rotherwrites· 9d

This week I'm reading...The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, published two months before her death. This version is from 1989, where it has waited patiently in our home library to be tackled.

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jul 15

And because the machine is listening to your every finger tap John, here's what came up very shortly after replying to you. The force is out there, and sometimes it wants to guide you.

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jun 30

...and here it is, here he is: memorial monolith monument

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jun 30

For this week's #PromptCombo on the theme of #monument, I have dug out an old one from last July. Welcome host @jenthorne.bsky.social 💚

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jun 26

A rare contribution from me for #PoemsAbout #TheLook. I'm still not feeling it.

Night-Scented Stock

But what are you saying
what are you trying to tell me
what do you want me to believe
what are you asking me to accept.

Is it really you the real you or
an impression from your paintbox
and dressing up trunk, a disguise
hiding your new-found edges.

Your blaze of midnight glamour
is only a brittle exoskeleton
hiding an impulse that bleeds
every time it reaches your tongue.

You want to tell me something
about passing through the sticky veil
of your tender moral maze
to emerge transformed and true.

Are you mining a deeper truth
from your night-scented stock
a heady perfume of persuasion
saying this is really who you are.

© Glenn Barker June 2026

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jun 17

Where have I gone indeed Jen. I've been ploughing a fallow field ofvwords, though still filling a page every day, even if it is drivel. I've also struggled with the prompts, and I have found it exhausting to contribute, read and comment. Something of a low social media presence for now. 💚

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· May 15

Mixing reportage, quotes and poetic rendering, an article from The Times by Marc Bennetts; a first-hand account from Druzhkivka, Ukraine for this week's #PoemsAbout. Sharing it here, with his permission, for both #NamesNotNumbers and #WhatRemains. @thebrokenspine.co.uk @poetsonbluesky.bsky.social

Will I Wake Up Tomorrow?
Druzhkivka, Ukraine

Marc Bennetts, The Times, 9th May 2026

“A man I knew went out yesterday to get cigarettes
and a drone tore off his leg at the knee”

A rain of blunt eyeless executioners,
drone and missile, punches the blood
and last air out of a town once 60,000
in a brutal amputation and evisceration,
its people a mortuary slab of shards,
Druzkivka’s pulse expendable,
left to rot road-kill, house-kill.

The registry office is a stark ruin,
the blessing of union pulverised, the ruin
of hope on a bloody and burning pyre.

The population, now 6,000 and mostly elderly
scrape an existence, too old to leave,
a numb and shattered remnant
of a community, where you can count
the children on one hand, if you have fingers.

© Glenn Barker May 2026

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Apr 24

After a month of more or less nothing poetic (the meme in the comments explains what happened), I have something for this week's #PoemsAbout #SignalLoss theme. Some signals are only meant to be heard by you, and they don't announce their arrival. @thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoetsOnBluesky

Tuning In

You turn a dial, real or imagined,
and she’s there; a clear outline
projected on your inner eye.

Coulour’s not an easy touch for you;
she remains more a detailed sketch
than a Kodachrome print,
more toned, less tonal.

Does it matter, if you can call her up,
make her move, animate her eyes,
give her a voice you remember,
real or not.

But its an image, a creation moulded
in your psyche, no more real
than any other thought, passing pain
or pleasure pixels.

Just that moving image, spotlit
for a moment, before something
seizes the dial from you, flicks it,
and she’s gone.

© Glenn Barker April 2026

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Mar 30

Hello Evie @coastalpoet.bsky.social. Here's one I recorded last summer. A sunny day reading for your new #poemsaloud initiative. Here is 'The Gift of Forgetfulness', which delves into the years that etch themselves into our palms, a record of who we have been and are today.

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Mar 25

Here's mine...

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Mar 14

Like this? My #LiftToTheSky tab failed to load. Swiped down and it all reappeared. 🙂

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Mar 14

Oh, that's weird Jane. Here is my view now...

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Mar 13

Recalling 'Duck and Cover (1951)' and MADness. Light up my nightmares only please. Welcome to #FragmentsFriday 🔥 @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social #PoetsOnBluesky

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Mar 6

Attempting to catch the pulse of this warring zeitgeist, an arabesque figure of eighteen words for this week's #FragmentsFriday. Startling? Probably not. @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Mar 4

Would you like to use mine Nina? 😊

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Feb 20

Hmm...#FragmentsFriday...18 words, sometimes as difficult to craft as those longer poems. Imagist too, that's the @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social USP. I have an earworm still echoing from last Sunday, a Latin anthem that hasn't quite faded, hence the title @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Feb 20

For this week's #PoemsAbout I attempted something more about the 'wanting that lingers' something softer, more vulnerable; but something else more urgent was #UnderTheSkin. My apologies in that it contains nothing uplifting. I've been snagged by a troubling zeitgeist.

Danger to Life

the heat generated
deep-laid internal friction
beneath that luminous skin
pressure points scraping
burning scarring
upwards and outwards

mania gears grinding
night-clenched teeth
white knuckle addiction
heat, ice, heat, speed
opium acceleration
dopamine panic speed

a soul peeling away
self-destruct initiated
burnt out, you too
falling, an ash cloud
faint trace of something
that was, now isn’t.

© Glenn Barker February 2026

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Feb 13

It's Friday, and #PoemsAbout. Welcome all who write, read, like, comment, share. I went down a dark path this week for #Undressed, the outcome of watching a documentary series about propaganda; vulnerability from the wrong angle. After a hasty Thursday rewrite something more mellow emerged.

$Kintsugi my thorns swallowed hard spur and wound coiled knotted dug over down plaited a crown sharpness melted scars healed tears forged wabi-sabi lustre fracture and flaw imperfect beauty my gift © Glenn Barker February 2026$

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Feb 6

...and I thought this prompt was beyond me. A late clarity of mind saved the morning for #PoemsAbout #Mouths. I'll get back to you later today... @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk #PoetsOnBluesky

Stream of Unconsciousness

After ‘Not I’, Samuel Beckett

constant flux ─ breathless febrile
jabbering ─ noise taste fear
spitting viper ─ hardly a breath

there’s confession but who’s talking

storytalking ─ dreamtalking
monochrome orphan of hunger
repulsion ─ breaking through
betrayal whispering ─ detached
bitter Id transgression

falling from a cliff edge
somewhere deep in the psyche

© Glenn Barker February 2026

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jan 31

You're welcome. I've just finished reading a short book of Jung's essays on archetypes; intriguing analysis on the psychology of rebirth and transformation.

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jan 30

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

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

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jan 25

😂 🍞 bread most definitely Marion. The odd Dundee cake or tray bake.

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jan 25

Today it is five years since I wrote my first poem. A Shakespearean sonnet (ten syllable, non-iambic). Around 50 sonnets later I found free verse, and never looked back to this most rigid of formats. #PoetsOnBluesky #Poetrycommunity

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jan 23

For #PoemsAbout we have been given an easy and prescient carrot to savour with #FalseCrowns. For this week my dramatic personae are: Jack, Lord of the Flies Biff, Back to the Future II You may guess where I'm going with this. @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

“Bollocks to the Rules”

That’s Jack talking.
Public school to feral animal
spear, loin cloth and war-paint.
This king’s new clothes.

Biff, dolt with a kingship kink.
He got lucky on a punt, made the deal
from a steal, built the tower
became enamoured of a demi-god.

Jack and Biff; no metal on their heads.
Dirty tricks promotion to king of the hill
bully-boy ball crunching skills perfected
at Tom Browne’s School of Management
and that West Point methodology.

Peace is a sharpened stick, ready
to skewer diplomacy in a strangle hold
a twist on “letting someone have it your way”.
The conch, all hot air, to me to you paralysis
rulebook burnt for a new way of iron
the old order a boiling pink froth
dumped into the sea.

Jack and Biff, deal-tree seismic shakers
fiction or allegory, adults still fresh
from nursery school, grabbing all they can
while everyone is watching.

© Glenn Barker January 2026

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jan 16

Another Friday, another #PoemsAbout. Welcome one and all. A difficult theme, #TimeSlips, for me anyway. At the point of giving up something appeared. It's about the feeling; nothing specific. A first draft. Too vague perhaps. @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk #PoetsOnBluesky

The Deep

How we are hooked, always unaware
touched, taken and swallowed
by a word, scent or sound.

This one’s a cold capture, kicking me
into a pit-groove, frozen-limbed
monochrome, my own sunken trail
of withered jetsam thrown clear
submerged in the deep, lifeless, left
for good, long ago.

Switch-click it out, it’s deadweight
dead flesh beyond kicking about;
feel instead the edges of warm capture
you younger, fitter, laughing
images vivid, chromatic, emotion
rising, love or loss, a keener thought.

© Glenn Barker January 2026

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jan 9

Hello @thebrokenspine.co.uk for this first New Year #PoemsAbout #Static and welcome @alanparrywriter.co.uk. This week I'm trying out 'functional white space'. Not my favourite but for this it felt better than a rash of commas. 😬

Electric Storm

Cloud-swollen inner heat intention
flicker to spark hesitant spasm
rash of tics storm in your sky
electric friction charge to force
energy inundation craving direction
lightning rod opaque potential
impulse discharge bone-crack power
demon spirit spike-drive to earth
dissipation fluidity restored
ten million volt survivor upright again.

© Glenn Barker January 2026

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Jan 7

Hello #PromptCombo 2026 and our New Year host Fidel @dragonslayerma.bsky.social for #Nightfall. I've gone down a rabbit hole on this one, as ever. It's a first draft so may be a bit clunky in places. 🫟

Mitternacht

The Bible tells you that the light is there
to sweat your night candle, a blessing
for believing that the darkness will perish,
however much it descends and drags you
reluctantly with it, holding you in that
suffocating lonely shroud of purgatory,
telling yourself always that it’s safe to close your eyes, that the dark never was yours, only the loan of the sun to the other side, spinning a cocoon to fix you fast and still, your formless nightly dream predators
passing sentence on your inner discords
and endgames while you sleep.

© Glenn Barker January 2026

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Dec 31

This week I have been reading...'Love's Labours by Stephen Grosz, on the work of a psychoanalyst. Problem solving of a different kind. Unsettling.

Rother Writes@rotherwrites· Dec 27

How do you reflect on everything after those first two, and intense, days of Christmas? Here's a reflection from 2021 on the point at which we have arrived: the Third Day of Christmas and its accompanying French hens.