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Rachel

@vignettes.bsky.social

2.5K followers 3K following 1.7K posts

Absurdist, writer, explorer, escape artist. Copywriter, writer of poetry and prose. Bookish & writerly banter. British, living in Italy. 🇮🇹🇬🇧

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 28d

I am thrilled to have a piece published in Issue 6 & overcome the hurdle of audio recording. Like many things, the idea was worse than the reality. Support from @thebrokenspine.co.uk poets encouraged me to submit. Thanks to all of you & the gentle guidance of Kristin @epistemiclit.bsky.social 😁

Epistemic Literary- Read Issue 6: Nostalgia now! @epistemiclit.bsky.social · Sep 8

Issue 6: Nostalgia is LIVE!

Read, share, and tell us YOUR pieces of nostalgia!

Congratulations and THANK YOU to all of our contributors — this issue is yours! We’re privileged to shepherd your work into the world!

epistemiclit.com/current-issue/

Current Issue -

digital literary anthology accepting submissions based on theme to open conversations aimed at interpersonal understanding.

epistemiclit.com

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 8h

Best to be safe. You don't really need bodily organs playing tricks on you! Glad to hear you are ok.

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Reposted by Rachel

Jan Peters - Solivagant Wisdom @janpsolivagant.bsky.social · 21h

🙏 @dragonslayerma.bsky.social as #PromptCombo host.
#SimplePleasures of #Solitude #daydreaming #solitaire #gitanes (I no longer smoke 😁)

#poetry / #photography: ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025/2008

#LeGrandMeaulnes #Sologne #EscapeRoom #Philemon #Baucis #Chateau #InnerLife

Lost Estate

La Sologne,
Sand-and-clay implacability, where
Maquisards,
Oblivious to time’s march, melt into a
Marsh-and-meadow melee.
Where hedgerow-cached
Portals open onto pingo-pond,
Sylvian dominions
Pooling the nameless, numberless Consolations of
Solitude.

Readers chanced upon a clearing here in
Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes
A century ago - its enigmatic
Lost Estate the tale’s symbolic pivot.

Mystery and transience of youth,
Doomed quest for a vanished world,
Now sequestered in a nondescript Chateau:
Museum-retreat fashioning a
Charmed, homespun niche amidst the
Upheavals of interwar France.

I see them with my mind’s eye, ninety Years on: ageless, reclusive
Philemon and Baucis, in whom Bukowski’s Gods still delight.

Game of solitaire arranged on the disused Billiard table in a shower of sun-gilded Motes, overseen by a tarnished
Suit of armour out of the foxed, Mildewed pages of some chapbook.

Unfinished letter, article, story or Manifesto lodged in the
Underwood typewriter, unsent to Minotaure, Pages Folles or Le Figaro -
Ashtray studded with Gitane stubs in Unfailing attendance.

Hunting trophies consigned to the boot Room, mounted askew or littering the Workbenches like decapitated
Dollies in some child’s dark, Mad Hatter Fantasy.

I hear the Lost Estate has begun hosting
An Escape Room that harbours
Twin torments for hermit souls:
Teamwork and claustrophobia.

Millennial-Zoomer masochism – gravity Of a dystopian coworking hub warping The space-time fabric of their inner life.

Imagination now a peer-driven,
Groundhog-Day litany of
“Check In,
Action This,
Get Aligned,
Circle Back.”

I recall a more spacious age, not long ago,
When I visited this nondescript chateau in An obscure corner of
France de l’intérieur.

© Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2008

Staircase, hallway, open door, window admitting sunlight in a nondescript chateau in Central France.

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2008
Beekeeping paraphernalia (?): white beekeeper's hat resting on one of two conical structures on the sill of a window admitting daylight.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 8h

I read this earlier on my phone but I've just re read it in a larger format with the time it deserves. Wonderful piece of writing. The solitaire game, decapitated benches, such vivid scenes, moments, and emotions evoked.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 8h

Thank you Jude.

Reposted by Rachel

Eric @madp03t.bsky.social · 16h

“I hear birds on the roof,” she said as the machines buried her. Rain on steel, quiet work. When they finished, her voice echoed through the soil, soft and steady.

#fromoneline No. 394 #prompt #writing #5amwritersclub #blueskywriters #writingcommunity

FromOneLine - submissions OPEN @fromoneline.bsky.social · 1d

#FromOneLine 394

Where can we go with just one connecting #prompt line? Let's see how many different places we can discover from just one starting point! Start your poem/vss with the opening line :

I hear birds on the roof

#FromOneLine 394 #prompt

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 16h

This curry chat is wonderful. I've had lunch, but now i'm hungry again.

Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 16h

Live a bit of whimsy. This one made me salivate. I do miss an Indian curry, not easy to come by in Italy.

Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 16h

Thanks, Paul.

Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 17h

Thank you. 😁

Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 20h

I used to pretend the kite was for the benefit of my children, but they've outgrown it, whereas I've not.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 20h

Thanks @dragonslayerma.bsky.social
What a delightful prompt to start Monday morning. My secret simple pleasure that returns me to childhood joy is flying a kite. I keep it in the boot of my car.
#promptcombo #simplepleasures

Simple Pleasures

The wind frets at the pebbles,
salt spray burns my face.
The kite jerks like a stubborn gull,
its red plastic heart flapping,
tail tangled, untamed.
Thin bamboo bones creak
as it strains for sky—
a sailboat chasing invisible tides.
I laugh, barefoot, skirt & hair whipping,
each tug of string a pulse returning—
old hands, yes,
but the girl is still flying.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 21h

You are on a roll. Congratulations 😁

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 1d

blossoms underfoot / the crunch of vanished colour / thrums through weak sunlight

#DailyHaikuPrompt
#haiku

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Reposted by Rachel

PatchieSteve @patchiesteve.bsky.social · 1d

Leaf
Still, in motion
Held, in mid-air.
Frozen, afloat
Neither here
Nor there
This fall, not falling
Held, by the unseen
Still, spinning there
Golden, syrupy maple
Sunlit, spider spun
Once begun,
Some things are never done

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 2d

Thanks so much, Merril 😊🤗

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 3d

Powerful, tender filled with remorse and delicate hope. An important piece. It's left me with a lump in my throat.

Reposted by Rachel

Thomas L. Vaultonburg @wolftwinthomas.bsky.social · 3d

each fern unfurls
a slower version
of my breath
#haiku #poetry

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Reposted by Rachel

Raymh @rayhourigan.bsky.social · 3d

Had swerved to avoid
The verve of such fervour, no
Favours in fever.
#vss365 #verve #haiku #senryu #poem #writing #writingcommunity

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Reposted by Rachel

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 3d

Good morning! I wasn't going to do this prompt for #PoemsAbout #imperfectMe but started writing it yesterday @paulwritespoems.bsky.social writing group. It's still rough. Thanks as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Poem:

Still Standing

The scar on my right breast
a faint tracing,
the charcoal under the artist’s paint,

tattooed dots,
ellipsis signaling the story continues—

always a before
and an after--

so far, always an after--

the sagging of flesh, the greying of hair,
points for endurance, if not for style,

as vain as anyone, I suppose,
but embracing the imperfect,
me.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 3d

The delicate metaphors are wonderful, charcoal and dots. A tender human piece.

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Reposted by Rachel

Malachy Moran @malformed-poetry.bsky.social · 3d

Today's #poetry #prompt:

I read a poem today about the items in an apartment speaking to the owner. Write me a poem in conversation with an object you can see

#MPPrompt
I repost replies. Follow for daily prompts

(#Poem is 'en mann med egen leilighet' by Nil-Øivind Haagensen. It's in Norwegian)

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 3d

That's gracious of you, but I suspect you have created your own luck & it's paying off. 😉

Reposted by Rachel

Raymh @rayhourigan.bsky.social · 3d

In a state of forced
Evolution, growing wings,
Angel or demon?
#vssmagic #evolution #haiku #senryu #poem #writing #writingcommunity
@vssmagic.bsky.social

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Reposted by Rachel

lichtbringer @saintghost.bsky.social · 3d

misty garden light
the rabbits are wearing
raincoats of dead leaves

#haiku
#DailyHaikuPrompt

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