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Jack Groundhog 📸📝

@jackgroundhog.bsky.social

2.2K followers 580 following 4.9K posts

I post a poem and photo daily All content © me 🇺🇸 from VA and MN In 🇩🇪 since 1993. 📍 Potsdam/Berlin ♿️ Invisidisability 🚫 DMs 🚫 Follow for follow 🚫 AfD/MAGA 🚫 AI Tried building a God detector, but kept setting it off

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Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · Sep 2

My apologies to my followers:

Due to ongoing mental health issues and problems with my work, I've been unable to make my deadline for publishing my first book of poetry.

I'll post a further update as soon as possible.

Thanks for your support and interest.

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · May 1

Dear followers,

This #poem is a repost from a year ago.

👉🏼 I did so to announce that I will be publishing my first-ever #book of #poetry and #photography by 31 August 2025. 👈🏼

Will post details, previews, and updates as work progresses.

Thanks for reading and thanks for your support! 🙏🏼

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · May 1

The dogwood
A #poem in three parts

—

i.

A dogwood I planted
back when my dad died
reminds me of my home
that I had to leave behind

🧵👇🏼

#poemaday #poetry #death #virginia #flowers #bloomscrolling #photography

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Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 20h

Made up

Bright Baroque façade
on a dark, simple, building —
plain face applies gloss

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #monochrome #blackandwhite #history #photography #travelphotography

👁️ An ornate marble Baroque façade on a plain church building
📍 Nerudova, Prague
📅 11 Jun 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ6.3, -0.3 ev, 1/500s

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Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 1d

Plenty

Old James Bond poster
glued to a crumbling townhouse —
diamonds, forever

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #poetrysky #abandoned #street #window #urbanphotography #photography

👁️ A decaying urban exterior covered with graffiti and old posters, including one for a concert of James Bond music
📍 Dresden Newtown
📅 12 Jun 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ5, -0.7 ev, 1/80s

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 2d

Look back

Kaleidoscopic
paint job on an old Trabant —
tinted rear mirror

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #photography

👁️ A closeup of the headlight of a Trabant car with a riotously colored paint job
📍 Alexanderplatz, Berlin
📅 23 Oct 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ1.8, -0.3 ev, 1/250s

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Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 3d

iii.

And the workers still are broke
and they still have little say,
but those glorifying murals —
welp, they still praise them today.

✋🏼🧵

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 3d

ii.

praising all the workers
in quasi-religious iconography
while the peasant-worker state
was built with concrete atrophy.

The workers had little say
in what they had for rights,
but they got their fair share
of lignite-dusted urban blight.

🧵👇🏼

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 3d

Mural
A #poetry thread

—

i.

Karl-Marx-Allee,
boulevard of Berlin dreams
with vast official murals
that were not what they seemed:

🧵👇🏼

#poem #poemaday #berlin #germany #streetphotography #urbanphotography #satire #cityscape #photography

👁️ A somewhat abstract street scene with a blurred green traffic light in the foreground and a Communist mural on a GDR-era building in the background
📍 Haus des Lehrers (House of Teachers), Berlin
📅 23 Oct 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ1.8, -0.3 ev, 1/1250s

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Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 4d

Weather

Bare stone archway lies
heavy on shadowy walls —
inward sky: clouds part

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #monochrome #blackandwhite #minimalist #silentsunday #photography

👁️ A stone arch with the sky visible beyond
📍 Prague Castle
📅 9 Jun 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ4.5, -0.7 ev, 1/800s

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Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 5d

vi.

Had I seen what I saw,
heard what I heard?
Or was it merely the call
of a moon-borne black bird?

I sat in the pew,
a pause in my grief:
for a beat, all I knew
was that he’d granted relief.

✋🏼🧵

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 5d

v.

In the space of a thought
I heard his song ringing out,
its ribald melody naught
but a sing-song glad shout.

And then he was gone
from my now drying eyes,
the echoes of song
faded — a dust-mote of sighs.

🧵👇🏼

1 2

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 5d

iv.

As I sat in the night
of the darkened stone space,
the flickering candlelight
briefly showed a pale face

of a laughing young man,
his silver cup raised up high
in toast to the lands
beyond the farthest of skies.

🧵👇🏼

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 5d

iii.

Some say those who mourn
might hear the voice
of faithful departed, reborn
in the shadows: rejoice.

🧵👇🏼

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 5d

ii.

On this night of All Saints’,
their many souls gathered ’round,
flitting in shadows, faint
and making no sound

that could be discerned
by physical ears
except by those who’ve learned
to listen with tears.

🧵👇🏼

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 5d

All Saints
A #poetry thread

—

i.

I sit in a Gothic cathedral
of stone tracery,
late medieval
with things we can't see.

🧵👇🏼

#poem #poemaday #gothic #allsaints #allsouls #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography

👁️ A carved figurine of a laughing man raising a cup in a Gothic cathedral
📍 St. Vitus’ Cathedral, Prague
📅 9 Jun 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 16000, ƒ10, -1.3 ev, 1/80s

1 1 13

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 7d

Happy Hallowe’en,
All Hallows’ Eve,
Samhain!
🌙💀🎃👻

#halloween #samhain #halloween2025 #photography

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 7d

Sanctum

Old stone windows, dark
against the summer sunshine —
man on bench, eyes closed

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #cityscape #urbanphotography #sky #clouds #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography

👁️ Old stone buildings with darkened windows in the afternoon summer sun
📍 Betlémský Obvod, Prague
📅 8 Jun 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 1250, ƒ22, -0.3 ev, 1/800s

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Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 8d

Pedestrian

Tourists, zebra stripes
through traffic on busy street —
metal lions growl

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #streetphotography #cityscape #urbanphotography #photography

👁️ Tourists crossing zebra stripes on an urban street with a streetcar in the background
📍 Betlémský Obvod, Prague
📅 8 Jun 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 500, ƒ22, -0.3 ev, 1/80s

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 8d

iii.

Beneath autumn’s blaze
of oranges and reds,
in silver fog’s haze,
they silently said

how blaze-tinted timbers
echoed the fire once felt lost,
where rekindled embers
warm their heartwood in frost.

✋🏼🧵

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 8d

ii.

By their feet, pine needles
and leaves now set free
in nature’s cathedral
beneath the calm of the trees.

Just there in a clearing
by watchful maples and oaks,
a smooth pond collecting
a fallen leaf cloak.

🧵👇🏼

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 8d

Tinder
A #poetry thread

—

i.

Two hands entwined
on a walk in crisp air
beneath tall trees and vines
in painterly flair.

They’d come back together,
after years, estranged,
a once severed tether
once more knotted and changed.

🧵👇🏼

#poem #poemaday #autumn #fall #naturephotography #photography

👁️ A reflecting pond surrounded by trees in fall colors, with a stone bench on the opposite side
📍 Dr. Max Fraenkel Country Garden, Berlin-Kladow
📅 3 Oct 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ22, -1 ev, 1/3s

1 7

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 9d

Crystal

Dahlia dances
in the chill of northern winds —
Frostglow veils the sun

#haiku #poem #poemaday #poetry #bloomscrolling #autumn #naturephotography #photography

👁️ A yellow and red variegated dahlia bloom
📍 Dr. Max Fraenkel Country Garden, Berlin-Kladow
📅 3 Oct 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 100, ƒ3.5, -0.3 ev, 1/320s

1 13 150

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 10d

ii.

White marble priestesses
stand, their garments unfurled.
Caryatids carrying
the weight of the world.

Where Hercules boasts
and old Atlas groans,
they quietly stand,
unbowed, not alone.

The duchess, forgotten,
is now merely bones.
But the message she sent
is carved in whitest of stone.

✋🏼🧵

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 10d

Dukedom
A #poetry thread

—

i.

In an old palace
of opulent design
rebuilt by a duke
to say “this is mine”,

I stumble across
an irreverent detail,
a chamber for the duchess:
two figures, silent, female.

🧵👇🏼

#poem #poemaday #feminism #symmetry #monochrome #blackandwhite #photography

👁️ Two caryatids uphold the ceiling in an opulent round Baroque chamber
📍 Schwerin Castle
📅 20 Aug 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 2500, ƒ8, -0.7 ev, 1/320s

1 1 16

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 12d

ii.

This flaw, once rejected,
becomes cornerstone,
by stonemasons elected
to the chapel’s high throne.

I sit in the nave
and look up at gold stars:
I once felt rejected,
now wear the vault of my scars.

✋🏼🧵

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 12d

Marred
A #poetry thread

—

i.

In an old Gothic chapel,
I spot a mason’s mistake:
high vaulted ceilings
where the fine pattern breaks.

Yet this stray distraction
stands resplendent and bold,
a deep blue starry sky
with rosette bosses in gold.

🧵👇🏼

#poem #poemaday #gothic #silentsunday #photography

👁️ An unexpected irregular pattern in the highly decorative vaulted ceiling of a Neo-Gothic chapel
📍 Schwerin Castle Church
📅 20 Aug 2025
📸 Nikon D5600
⚪️ Nikkor DX 35 mm ƒ1.8G
🎞️ ISO 4000, ƒ7.1, -0.7 ev, 1/80s

1 3 49

Jack Groundhog 📸📝 @jackgroundhog.bsky.social · 12d

iv.

This little garden house
wears its feisty Phrygian hat,
a revolutionary mouse
that laughs at claws of urban cats.

In this tranquil place
ringed by herds of motored beasts,
I smile: a defiant garden’s grace
where I'd expect to find it least.

✋🏼🧵