Allisin Bloom
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allisinbloom.bsky.social
Allisin Bloom
@allisinbloom.bsky.social
19 followers 23 following 190 posts
poet
photographer
musician
massage therapist
parent
soother
lover
recovering cyborg
mortal
fool
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allisinbloom.bsky.social
DRAGON CHASE

they say it was the snake
snuck in the sacred secret
bite by which we all were
banned
as if the snake were not
the garden itself
and we, the licking tip
of it’s tail-hungry tongue
October 23, 2025 at 8:22 PM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
DON’T CALL ME TRANS

#poem #poetry
or woman, man
or girl or boy
i’m an alloy
alluvial fan

a mix of matter
just tryna find
if you don’t mind
a place to void my bladder

■
August 24, 2025 at 6:13 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
stitched back, alive, or segments on the floor
i’ve left instructions for the dismemb’ring door
that—though i’m hopeless
when it comes to keep friends
intact—for you, she always swing wide open
It looks like a dark-painted eyelid, fully shut…or else a demon eye, dark and textured wrong, and open. 'Struth, it's just a Yeti mug, with cream and coffee strangely-dried to form a flesh-like shape inside.
March 27, 2025 at 5:33 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
EASE

#poem #poetry
wake to backaches
knives in my hand

pain in waves
quiet waits
each day

i move still
soon forgetting
the way
water sinks
into the sand
March 11, 2025 at 5:54 PM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
ASPIRATION

#poem #poetry
the word means
"to breathe upon"

a blessing blown
at What Will Be
to lift its wings in flight

■
This sunlit mist rising from New Zealand hills like impossibly-white smoke stripes of silver-lined steel-gray clouds: the forest breath from which your own lungs feed
February 25, 2025 at 4:05 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
MY DOG AND I

#poem #poetry
(she’s not my dog)
both dream of running with the pack
but leashed, we are, to live alone
i, to my deep love of peace
and she, her love of me

■
When dry, this half-bred retriever's "golden" fleece resembles a wheat-covered hillside under bright sun in a strong wind—swaths of bright yellow blending into waves of tan strands, but just after splashing around in the Bay, its fur clumps into birdlike feathery points, its snout flecked dirtily with clay-heavy sand. This closeup nearly fills the frame with that furl, along with two dark-brown, reflective orbs and the textured wet nose, like dry-cracked red mud submerged—but undisturbed—under a few inches of rain.
February 22, 2025 at 2:47 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
let go like light through lightning strike
watch your lovely body fall in
wild-running
instinctive
ballistic dance
yes, leap into this next too-brief adventure
fully recovered from the last!

■
Photograph of a b/w mid-20th century photograph, somewhat sepia-toned with age, in which two pale homo Sapiens stand on a tennis court, each with a racket in hand. The one on the let (call her Eve) is barefoot, with no clothes other than a handful of large fig leaves strapped around her waist and two smaller ones over her chest. She has long, perm-waved blonde hair and a fun, wide smile aimed, like her gaze, at the open mouth of her companion, who is leaning as if to take a bite out of the shiny ball (one imagine's it as apple-red) which she is holding up for him to eat. The other (call him Adam) is also nude, but for a short skirt of fig leaves, a mat of white flowers atop his head like a judge's wig, and a pair of shoes that looks hand-made. Oh, and a watch. A bottle of champagne (label facing away) with a ribbon around the neck stands by Eve's feet…perhaps a prize in a country club costume contest.
February 18, 2025 at 9:27 PM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
anyone who thinks there are two sides to every story has not learned to count very high
February 13, 2025 at 5:34 PM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
oh, dear heart,
leap not so fast!
your beats are finite
let them last

■
A glass table at a cool cafe in Salt Lake City, whose name escapes me & whose large rainbow flag hanging in the window isn't shown here. Nor is our reason for visiting: to pass along a dog too challenging for our home…who moved hundreds of miles East where a few excellent years, finally part of a pack, were cut short by a twice-repeated snapping out nervously with a bit of drawn blood. Shown here: an image that takes some time to resolve as the mind's eye teases apart the layers…ghostly patrons, walls, window, all reflecting upside down off the tabletop, through which a cacophany of antique figurines in somber, bronze-cast colors, placed below the glass in a slightly dystopian diorama by an eclectic owner. At the top of the image, the hard edge of the glass, softened by focal distance. Across the top in a thin, wide slice: a view of the wide-curved tops of the empty chairs opposite, and other furnishings, cropped too tightly to distinguish from random shapes of solid, muted colors.
February 12, 2025 at 10:17 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
February 7, 2025 at 12:07 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
for though the Earth may grant us no respite
and though the future is as dark as bright
the whisp'ring stars on which we wish still write:

all’s alright

all’s alright

■
A field of seeming-stars, glowing pink against a background of purplish space, pierced by curved lines of yellow light, with two ghostly figures at first glance floating, perhaps flying toward the viewer. Upon closer inspection, the figures are reflections in an LED-infused ceiling of curved glass (plexi?). The figures are looking up from a floor lined with yellow guidelight strips, with one holding both arms out to the side for the picture, and the other snapping the picture on a mobile phone. Both figures have been partially edited out, and/or distorted for the preservation of anonymity.
January 17, 2025 at 8:15 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
A little visual for the kids, @elynchbell.bsky.social & @alicefraser.bsky.social?

Grist for the meme!
WOM WOM WOM Snail; 2 of 2. Prompt—”Whimsical and beautiful snail in a magical forest setting, complete with its house-like shell and a playful vibe!”—with the also-ChatGPT-generated comic-book-sound-effect-style word “WOM” added with Photoshop to make it look as though the snail is singing WOM WOM WOM up into the rays of golden light permeating the forest. Compared with the other rendering, this snail has a fairly regular-looking brown-striped shell, but it still has some unusual details. For example, some whorling patterns seem to be carved or branded into the shell like tattoos, and the center of the shell appears to be glowing yellow from within. (Side note: the shell isn’t actually a spiral, though it gives good illusion. Aside from the horn shape of the shell’s opening, it’s actually rendered as concentric circles, like a butter cookie inside a fig inside a blini.) This cheerful mollusc is hauling a many-roomed fairytale cottage on its shell, perhaps because the LLM has internalized the concept of a snail carrying its home on its back, or perhaps in imitation of some poor artist’s semi-stolen work. The house’s many windows glow yellow from within, a few pink mushrooms and mossy greens festoon the structure, and a ghostly smokestack in the background is smoking. The forest path is lined by fencing proportioned to whatever creatures might live inside the house on this giant snail. Behind the fences on either side, grass, flowers, and what look like the white-spotted red caps of Amanita muscaria. In this scene, the mushrooms glow from the gills, casting a warm glow on the fringed stalks holding them up. Upon further inspection, the house and the lane with its mushroom streetlights might be a fairy home. Evidence? Just to the left of the singing snail’s cheek, a hovering sort of sparkle could easily be a cousin to Tinkerbell…the yellow glowing Tinkerbell, not the green-dressed Disney pixie. WOM WOM WOM Snail; 1 of 2. I asked ChatGPT for a prompt, “Write a prompt to generate an image of a snail that's kinda funny but fully beautiful.” It generated an image for me—this one…technically unasked—then gave me a prompt, which I used, modified, for WOM WOM WOM Snail #2. This time, the WOM WOM WOM’s I added with Photoshop look likely to be coming from the snail’s shell itself, as the creature’s wearing a closed-mouth grin so big, the snail’s eyes sit like squinty twin crescents atop soft rounded cheeks. The wooden lane with sunbeams warmly lighting the path resembles the second image in many ways—red caps and blue tufts and tall purple flowers—but it lacks the fairy-fencing of the other. There’s a crazy-multi-level-cottage-with-glowing-windows on the snail’s shell, but unlike the 2nd image, this house is not the main attraction…because this shell is *stunning!* For one thing, it’s rendered as an actual spiral, but it’s festooned with adornments that make it look more like a jeweler’s concept than a natural shell. The bulk of it is green with decorative swirls and plating layered on in something metal…maybe bronze? More glowing windows appear built into the side of the shell, including at the center of the spiral. Unlike the other snail, this one only seems to have the anthropomorphic eyes cartoon illustrators almost always add to snail “faces”; its eye stalks curl away at the tops like shy, pink ferns, with no ocular function in sight.
January 7, 2025 at 8:00 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
THE SPACE BETWEEN US

#poem #poetry

the leaves are in the air.
the air is in the leaves.
the roots are in the ground.
the ground is in the roots.
i am in the tree.
the tree is in me.
you are in my thoughts, now.
my thoughts, now, are in you.

■
Leaves in hues of lemon, amber, and dark sunset seem to float from a tiered platform of near-zero depth. I had to lean out from the top step in order to get a shot from above showing only the mossy treads, dark from recent rain and coated with wet maple (I think!) leaves, like so many comic strip explosions. Each step appears smaller toward the top of the photo because each step is slightly further away. My favorite part of this image is the way the leaves are distributed more thickly toward the "bottom" of each tread as said "bottom" represents the places where tread and riser meet…there where the leaves are statistically less likely to be brushed away by passing feet.
January 7, 2025 at 12:47 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
but then, again, what living thing is not?

■
Sign snapped while walking through a California neighborhood, sticking out of the grass like an election season yard sign. Something about the style reminds one of the old "in this house, we believe" sign that my spouse put up…before the divorce and…though I'm sure I'd have agreed…without asking me. I like this one better, anyway. It says, "Love your Neighbor who doesn't look like you, think like you, love like you, speak like you, pray like you, vote like you. Love your Neighbor. No Exceptions."
January 4, 2025 at 5:53 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
(Seriously! Why are you still reading? Go plant a tree or touch a friend or make a stranger smile, or something. 🪺)
The driverless front seat of a Waymo car sliding through the Safeway parking lot not too far from Japantown, San Francisco. The environment sensing custom rack seems to grip the car's roof like a futuristic cannibal lawn mower.
December 31, 2024 at 10:02 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
NUANCE IN THE AGE OF McLUHAN

#poem #poetry
i would explain it to you
if you had the time to read
beyond a post or watch
beyond a TikTok spot
but it cannot be shared
but face to face in silence

■
Now-dead dog toy on a thick Persian rug. Taken from directly above and cropped wide, 16:9, there is a sort of gentle mountain range “painted” across the bottom, only the mountain range is actually the striped ripple of a wool blanket dangling off a couch. (Sorry…I find this perspective hard to explain.) The mountainous look of the blanket makes the flowered embroidery of the carpet look like an impossible sky…something out of a children’s book. This effect is further helped by the nature of the dog toy: a stuffy white lamb whose natural repose resembles Superman in flight. Plus there’s a slice of rainbow shining across the rug, directly in the lamby’s flight path. Looking closely, one may deduce that the rainbow was cast through a prism at a low angle that just clips the toy, adding a sort of glowing mascara to its long-lashed eyes.
December 30, 2024 at 11:56 PM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
ETERNAL WAR

#poem #poetry #animated #infinite
1. PROPHESY: greater love exists
2. SPREAD: principles infect disciples
3. EVOLVE: spawn Chinese whispers
4. FIGHT: prove greater fear
5. COLLAPSE: somehow still convinced
6. FORGET: essential truths remain

[repeat]

svelte.dev/playground/6...
Screenshot from the Svelte Playground which hosts an animated version of the poem where the lines rotate anti-clockwise around the title.
December 28, 2024 at 1:23 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
they say what goes up
must come down

but if breakup proceeds breakdown

was what you had not always broken?

#poem #poetry
Charles Eisenstein, “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible,” Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2013, p. 8.: photograph under yellow LED light of the title of the second chapter, “Breakdown,” and a quote from “Mr.” Fred Rogers. “The kingdom of God is for the brokenhearted.“ I love the ambiguity of this quote, and the word that Charles paired it with
December 25, 2024 at 5:23 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
i see his point, that fat-ass cat
i, too, crave the songs of boxless forests
i, too, long to sun-sleep in a tree
i, too, would rather be free
to climb out the window to find myself
stalk-watching birds, neck-deep in buzzing bush
This isn't Mulligan. (Shhh! Don't tell!) This is a closeup of Bella, a black cat whose face fur fills the frame, but for the tin-slitted yellow eye on the right side of the image, in which we see reflected a sun-lit windowsill.
December 23, 2024 at 1:35 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
NO ROAD TO SALVATION

#poem #poetry
you have been told you need saving

*snap* awake!

you are already saved

ૐ
December 20, 2024 at 8:06 PM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
OXYGEN, AND OTHER LOVERS

#poem #poetry

when you need something

not just want, but really neeeeed

buckled over from the lack

that thing, if true, will love you back
two butterflies—black with white spots in rows—copulating atop wild yellow flowers in Lassen Volcanic National Park
December 18, 2024 at 9:47 PM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
i will turn from you in desperation
seeing the Void where your Notice used to be
finally look within my self
to find it's not me there
i will close my eyes
breathe deep a sigh
and let my seeing sleep
white-plastic cyclops mannequin standing near the top of a ladder, viewed from outside the hurricane fence surrounding…gosh, where was that parking lot again? pretty sure that's a fluorescent flood-lamp behind the figure which…is it art? the painted-on big red eye stretches from temple to temple across the featureless face of the rigid head. a thick chin strap holds a hard and heavy helmet. only the shoulders have joints. two hillocks suggest adolescent, nipple-less breasts. the crotch is barbie-like, minus the seams that let her legs roll back behind her head. those are the parts the manufacturer expected to be clothed. some young girls show midriffs, though, so they gave this monster a belly button.
December 16, 2024 at 8:22 PM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
still, th'axiom, “absence makes the heart grow fonder,”
carries no significance with me;
though you and i abide points antipodal (and beyonder!)
who can measure Fond beyond Infinity?

■
against a background of towering clouds over Malaysia, an illustration of a loop of ribbon twisted once in the center, like ♾️, and once at either end, transforming what would be two 💧 teardrops into drop-containing hearts 🩵. two stick figures stand on the bulbs of those inner-droplets: the one lower down reaching up and out toward the upper figure, its arms out in a wide, distant embrace from where it stands, on its upside down segment of their shared world.
December 14, 2024 at 4:52 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
"I am all heart," i think, "and you will tire of taking my love long before it wanes, and you will find the door as open on your way out as it was when you came in."

"When will you finally understand that you cannot steal what is already yours?"

■
a loved one floating away on a parasail, sat crisply silhouetted against the hazy blue reflection of a grand, dusky sky off of Lac du Bourget, dangling from lines so thin that the iPhone's all-too-competent AI processor has mostly smudged their thin lines into invisibility
December 13, 2024 at 1:29 AM
allisinbloom.bsky.social
EASE

#poem #poetry #rsi
i wake to backaches
knives in my hand

pain in waves
quiet waits
each day

i move still
soon forgetting
the way
water sinks
into the sand
under a wispy-white sky topped with blue, a trail of footsteps stretches across the sand, where they meet a figure, walking, with the aid of aluminum sticks, toward a strange shape in the distant mist
December 11, 2024 at 5:26 AM