Author | Lightnews

Dave Kurley

@badvibrations62.bsky.social

780 followers 1.5K following 620 posts

Poet, writer, photographer. All my own work. All my own photos. All my own teeth, too. No DMs, please - unless I know you personally. Please repost the stuff you like. First book of poems: ‘Irritating the Silver Lining’ - available to order online.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Reposted by Dave Kurley

Mike O’Brien @zoomburst.substack.com · 4d

The #poetry of Dawn Kirby. Astute observation on the thoughts of flies, the significance of laundry day and our feathered friends.

85. Dawn Kirby

She's Coming Out - a published poet offering gifts of observation.

sixtyoddpoets.substack.com

1 4

Reposted by Dave Kurley

Paul Brookes @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social · 23h

The Starbeck Orion Issue 13, Day One celebrates the art of Ruairdhri Wright
the880.substack.com/p/the-starbe...

the880.substack.com

2 7

Reposted by Dave Kurley

Paul Brookes @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social · 3d

#TheStarbeckOrion Countdown: 3 days to go. Do you want to be a headliner? Have a whole day to your poetry and artwork? Contribute to this forthcoming October edition of The Starbeck Orion. Details below:
open.substack.com/pub/the880/p...

Contributions

How to contribute to The Starbeck Orion

open.substack.com

6 8

Reposted by Dave Kurley

Sue Ibrahim @sueimnw.bsky.social · 16d

For this week's #PoemsAbout #ImperfectMe with thanks as ever to our host @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk and to everyone.

12 9 31

Reposted by Dave Kurley

John Chmura @johnchmura.bsky.social · 15d

#PoemsAbout #ImperfectMe
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
I will put a reel in the comments.

IMPERFECT ME

On days my son was measured
in length rather than height
I held him shirtless in one arm
while I lathered my face to shave.
Leaned on my chest, warm,
he plunged an explorer’s hands, decisive,
into my foamy cheeks, gaining agency,
the intimation of form, and play
affirmed in his corporeal birthright.

And me, significant, generative,
like the god of the psalmist,
I could do no wrong.

Whiskey it wasn’t that imperfected me
in his eyes. I may never know
which particular betrayal
inspired that loss of grace.
But it did boost his swagger to say
for the first time fuck you, Dad,
and I absorbed the preordained assertion,
concussive, cracked like a plastic bucket
abandoned on the back porch
when water expands into ice.

36 33 76

Reposted by Dave Kurley

C. Oulens @owlnsquirrels1111.bsky.social · 16d

For this #PoemsAbout I’ve found the perfect #ImperfectMe (no lying🤥) and now that the 🐱 out of the 🎩 (was it a 🛍️?) I’m gonna 💨 for the day (JK…) Thanks to host @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
also for #haikuchallenge #anecdote for host @bleuowl.bsky.social
#tanka #Oulens #blueskypoetry

Confessions of an unabashembellisht
- C. Oulens

Oi, I’m a hatful
of lies that hurts umm… no one?
okay… almost.— there!

you browse your own bags while I
~embellish~>
anecdotes of…
nowhere—… .. . _ -

Afterword

* if I’ve to ‘embellish’ (instead of ‘spin’) ‘anecdotes’ (instead of ‘tales’) it’s reasonable that I be permitted 2 extra syllables in the #tanka for my extra-churned services…?🤔

14 17 76

Reposted by Dave Kurley

David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 15d

Thanks again @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk for an excellent #PoemsAbout prompt #ImperfectMe. Here's a poem about the imperfection of yielding to hope over experience

15 15 53

Reposted by Dave Kurley

Jane 🏊‍♀️🚴🏻🏃‍♀️🌻 @halfironmum.bsky.social · 15d

This is my contribution to this weeks #poemsabout #imperfectme - a bit of silliness really but ai enjoyed writing it.

With thanks as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the prompt.

Friendship

Buy it
You deserve it
It's just your colour
It's only money don't worry about it

Skip work
Let's go outside
And dance in the sunshine
Raise our faces to the sky

Eat the cake
Have another
Cake is good for the soul
Calories don't count when your standing up

Let's go out tonight
Have a drink
Have another
Go on how often do you get to let your hair down

My best friends
You imperfect me
Don't ever stop

5 6 18

Reposted by Dave Kurley

Paul Brookes @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social · 16d

For #Poemsabout #ImperfectMe @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk I'm posting early as I have an early tomorrow. Here's a poem from my ebook collection "As Folktaleteller":

Chuckle

at his military haircut garden, her delicate wineglass posture backyard, my cracked concrete yard, rotted wood fence and gate and don’t feel guilty for once, or that it’s a provocation for others to take it out on me. I marvelled at my late sister laughing off her mistakes, whilst I felt inadequate, incompetent at mine. How did she do it? Don’t take life seriously is the lesson. Took me years to learn I defeat myself. Now I laugh at my incompetence, and remember her chuckle.

11 11 28

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 15d

So sorry - I never got round to replying to your comment. Thank you for picking out a line that I deliberated over. Trying to find a way to describe the stare of a showroom dummy and the void behind it. Thanks again.

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 15d

I've opted for brevity for this week's #PoemsAbout prompt, #ImperfectMe - thanks, as ever, to @alanparrywriter.co.uk for hosting! @thebrokenspine.co.uk

I'll be reading/reposting/replying later

#poems #poetry #poetrycommunity #poetsofbluesky

Screenshot of this week's poem - a haiku/senryū addressing this week's prompt - the desktop background (but you can't really tell) is a low-orbit satellite picture of a cloudy Earth.

Imperfect Me

In the mirror, look
Decisions, most of them bad
Reflect back at me

© Dave Kurley 2025

6 7 40

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 20d

It would have been my Mom's birthday today. Two years she's been gone. I wrote this for her funeral.

#poem #elegy #stillgrieving

Screenshot of my poem 'She Was' with trees in the desktop background.

She Was

She was
Rarely Patricia
Even though it was her given name
Just for forms and formalities

To family and friends
She was always Pat
But woe betide
Anyone who called her Patty

She was
Paddy in the Wraf
Cos she had one hell of a temper
And she wouldn’t call anyone ‘Sir’

She was
Nurse Whitehead
A strong, brave, stubborn single mother
To a son who always called her Mom
Not Mum, Mom. No idea why
It’s not as if we were American

Some said she was a ringer
For Sophia Loren, even though
In her youth she preferred a Triumph
To a Vespa, and then

She was Nurse Kurley
With an instant family
(just add marriage)
And then she was Grandma
And then she was a carer
And then she was a widow
And then she was a little old lady

But she was always Mom
To me
Not Mum, Mom

1 3

Reposted by Dave Kurley

Dawn McLachlan @deemclachlan.bsky.social · 22d

This week’s #poemsabout prompt is #mannequin
Due to illness my poem is short and dark from fever dreams and the news.
@thebrokenspine.co.uk @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social #poemalttext #UseAltText #poetrysociety #poetsonbluesky #poemsforpeace

Mannequins
By Dawn McLachlan

She thinks of them as mannequins
Lined up
Nameless
Cold and still
Too many to count
Beyond the rope-stitched canvas
She can see rows of them
With their hideous labels
She thinks of them as mannequins
Because to say "shroud"
Is to drown in grief

18 17 46

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 21d

Thank you 🙏

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 21d

Mannequins are, I think. Human-like, but empty. Thank you, Sue.

1 1

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 22d

‘I am the silence/that stares back’ - ooof! Brilliant!

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 22d

This is a future documentary! Great stuff.

1 1 1

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 22d

Love it - beautifully bitter, but said with a smile!

1 1

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 22d

‘like a bite/that won’t let go’. Neither will those last lines.

1 1

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 22d

Just one more thing…

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 22d

Grandma’s Footsteps is a theme I return to often. The freezing of a moment, the panic, the potential threat. There’s something fascinating about it. Thank you for your thoughtful and perceptive comment, Mike!

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 22d

Don’t blink!

1 1

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 22d

Thank you very much, Debra!

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 22d

Wow, thank you so much!

1 1

Dave Kurley @badvibrations62.bsky.social · 22d

Thank you, Paul!