J-T Kelly
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j-tkelly.bsky.social
J-T Kelly
@j-tkelly.bsky.social
1.8K followers 1.3K following 11K posts
poet - Chapbooks: https://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2025/06/new-from-aboveground-press-more-of-how.html https://cccpchapbooks.bigcartel.com/product/like-now-by-j-t-kelly - Poems: http://www.ucityreview.com/30_Kelly_JT.html
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j-tkelly.bsky.social
Poem #smallpoemsunday
Poem It's quick the slip beads on concrete a yell in a language Later a bath Later an armed conflict You mark your door You board the window Tend your wife's wrist Who will wrap her hair Who will broker peace
December 7, 2025 at 7:26 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Travel poem
Your volume in my eye— there is no line demarking you. You are a pushing shape, erupted by colors that come to you for your use. The blue of your heart contains also green, the books you have read— charred now, leave ochre smudges. my name from your mouth yellow as a ribbon. Your eyes in motion frame and reframe the inadequate lobby. Compositions come and go. You don't believe in genius.
December 7, 2025 at 12:30 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
I am always writing a poem about Chagall
In the corner. Of the eye. Of the man. In the blue jacket. Is a reflection. Of the sky. Blue through a window. We don't see. The man can fly. We know. But we don't see. We know because. The goat. Is flying. Over the house. Though the man. Does not see.
December 7, 2025 at 1:27 AM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Time to break out this bad boy again.

Fun fact: For most of the year I keep it in a drawer that also contains my DVD set of the complete The Wire.
Me in my Norwegian sweater
December 6, 2025 at 11:14 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
2nd part
Why tho. Why is there poetry instead of nothing. And can the work be meaningful. Why write one poem and not another. If I had only written one poem, would it be enough? Meaning is not fixed like the stars or like a pigment in a medium. You make a vessel.
December 6, 2025 at 7:08 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Who wants beautiful pottery gifts for Christmas?

Contact me if you'd like to be put in touch with the artist.
December 6, 2025 at 5:13 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
What It Means The freaked out blue in a windshield means more sky is up that way.
December 6, 2025 at 4:49 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Working out some thoughts. Post-Socratic dialogue
And what is a subject worth writing about. Every any thing, you say. There is no unworthy; ergo, you know? What you write about is only the seed you build your virtual world upon. Is art a game. Am I a gamer. Do I amuse you. But then again, it isn't me I'm asking about. Wittgenstein suggested kicking the ladder away after having climbed it, but I like going back down and back up. I lose interest in the game when the spreadsheet starts showing through. No not a game but fun. The unconscious, subconscious depths, The Freewheeling Bob Dylan. Dali, Dada, Surrealism, suggestion. You can chloroform the ego, but I prefer to trick it.
December 6, 2025 at 12:26 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
I'm listening to Portrait, doing dishes and making coffee, in advance of a meeting
Screencap of Edward Norton in Fight Club, from the scene when the voiceover is saying, "Copy of a copy of a copy..." The picture is captioned, "Of which the portrait is a reflection / of which the portrait is a reflection once removed," from John Ashbery's Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror
December 6, 2025 at 11:26 AM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Two Amazon trucks meeting after dark in the church parking lot
December 6, 2025 at 1:20 AM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
poetry by @robmclennan.bsky.social
028: "The Stone Ear" In her favourite story, a stone becomes a human ear. We don't know what the earth hears, of what we might speak. Will it answer. Is this a story, or a memory? As the girl holds the stone, warm in her palm, she wonders. Perhaps it was always an ear, set at the end of the driveway, by the hedge at the property-line. She holds the ear in her hand and is silent, not sure what to do but listen. She waits.
December 5, 2025 at 3:57 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Early last spring there was a commotion outside my house. I rushed out to find a man standing barefoot in the cold, bellowing, "They have stolen my shoes!" I gave him some shoes.

Weeks later the man came back and gave us these candles in thanks. We lit them today.
A set of three red and white striped Christmas candies
December 1, 2025 at 11:40 AM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
I'm drifting through negative space A frown on my lack of a face
November 29, 2025 at 7:29 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Reading some poems
Front cover A Pizza the Size of the Sun poems by James Stevenson
November 29, 2025 at 6:31 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
November 27, 2025 at 5:08 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
When you see this post an image from your gallery to describe your mental health
Snoopy dancing
November 27, 2025 at 4:03 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Our thankfulness wall! Every year we tape paper to the stairway wall and wrote 100 things we are thankful for.
Roll of paper taped to the stairway wall. 100 things we are thankful for in progress!
November 27, 2025 at 3:58 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
November 27, 2025 at 1:06 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Good long poem
From There's Only One God And You're Not It by Stephen Paul Miller Front Cover Contemporary Jewish Poetry
November 26, 2025 at 2:30 AM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
rob mclennan Notes, on the subject of marriage
November 25, 2025 at 11:58 AM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Categories #smallpoemsunday
Categories On the one hand you have everything that exists. On the other hand you have everything else.
November 23, 2025 at 3:24 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
November 20, 2025 at 2:25 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
There are four types of guys online, no exceptions
November 19, 2025 at 2:16 AM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Poem
We Do Breakfast time is the perfect time for eggs and coffee and seeing if today you are up to the task. While I didn't want to is generally inadmissible, we do go to a lot of trouble. I like to make lists and I lie. This is how the tree trimmers who rescheduled for Thursday came up in our conversation about money. If only Harry were here. He loves eggs. And then I wouldn't have to. I could finally pay attention. I feel like the beetles are winning the species attrition races. And that maybe population growth has more to do with the failure of institutions than we think. Not too many people but too fast for the good old boy networks to keep up. And nobody else was in place. But how can you pay attention to things like that. When you don't want to.
November 17, 2025 at 10:29 PM
j-tkelly.bsky.social
Perfect album that came out when I was sixteen.
Album Rattle and Hum by U2
November 17, 2025 at 1:38 AM