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Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

360 followers 470 following 120 posts

Writer, gardener and conservationist. Lots of interests and endlessly distracting hobbies like music, literature, nature writing and poetry. North-east England.

Blogging at https://burnedge.wordpress.com

Poems at https://write.as/robgalpin

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Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

Here's a dream or memory or both for #PoemsAbout #Desire - thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @rotherwrites.bsky.social
write.as/robgalpin/i-...
#poem #poetry

I dreamed of the horse and you again

and we were riding
up the valley on our bicycles,
stopping, skidding on the gravel—

you almost ran to its chestnut glow.
You—in your worn-out shorts
and frayed top, boots untied,

long hair filtering the sun—
reaching for its glossy flank,
its simple face, black mane. And you

so poised and pleased as it moved
gently, in the heat, under your hand.

And at the top—this part, I think, was real—
we lay by the corrugated barn
and watched the valley spread—

the red-brick terraces, blank white warehouses—
and heard the clangour
of the distant scrapyard.

And in that moment, it became the time
we got lost in a narrow field
with a nervous stamping horse,

our bikes a muddy hindrance,
time running out on a frozen afternoon.
We had gone so far that day

but still I was afraid to climb the fence.
You only laughed and said nothing:

Then crouched—hands cupped,
and braced.

November 14, 2025 at 7:08 AM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

Hi @hool415.bsky.social - here's my response to #PromptCombo #WorkingLove #poem #poetry

The Burn Closes
Another silent afternoon,
stunned in the supermarket
by the this-ness of the shampoo bottles
on the shelves, and of the workers
who stocked them—
bawling happy insults at each other
across the stock room floor.

So I took the long way
home through the burn closes:
to the plateau with the little
ruined church, the grounds
herb-rich and rabbit-bit;
the rich greens of the gorse,
the grass, the trees
blending with the sky—
the sky glaucous,
and carnation.

And through the pink, rusting
70s fence to the
medieval Holy Cross—
a ruin by 1800 — and St Peter's,
down the bank, not built
for another seven years.

And in that church-less gap,
all the parish souls, married,
with or without offspring,
in a pen-stroke deemed
on the instant illegitimate—
their ties illegal, the registers annulled:

A portcullis authority
over small, quiet lives.

November 10, 2025 at 5:14 PM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

Hi @youngliz.bsky.social and #vss365. Response to prompt #language

Language
The guinea pig can not
converse with the rat,
nor the pig with the fox,
the worm with the camel.

But there is the story
of the ape
who spoke with the sky,
with the river and the sea,
with the squid and the moth,
with the absence of light
in the night-time pines.

Finding itself nonetheless alone,
it spoke in never-ending circles—
finally, and only,
with itself.

November 8, 2025 at 3:41 PM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

Thank you Jan - can't resist sharing this, the final final version!

November 7, 2025 at 5:13 PM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

I won't prompt tag again to save spamming, but this - THIS! - is the one 😂
write.as/robgalpin/ar...
#poem #poetry

Arundo donax
Unsuccessful meditation;
no green and yellow to earth the wires.
In this dreadful quiet the doors won't open—
try instead the free-blown fires:

The sprung Arundo donax—
animal squeal and ominous rumble,
war-born spiritual, spittle and click.

It's a rattling spell to raise it.
Shaking reeds in a fizzy jungle—
summer morning, city park.

Grasses feed us twice:
The stick that strikes
the silent chimes
springs locks, lets jumbling words through—

maddeningly perfect, an ever-blowing riff—
tall rushes in a meadow.
The sweep of sounds won't solve you,

but could—like this enjambment—
have you freed, and stepping through—
across the opened door jamb.

November 7, 2025 at 2:12 PM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

A better draft! #PoemsAbout #LockedDoors
write.as/robgalpin/he...

Help Me Out Here
No success in meditation;
is it green or yellow to earth the wires?
In dreadful quiet
the door won't open—

try instead the free-blown rush.
The sprung Arundo donax—
animal squeal and ominous rumble,
war-torn spiritual, spittle and click.

It's a spell to call it—
shaking reeds in a fizzy jungle;
summer morning city park.
So grasses feed us twice:

the stick that strikes the silent chimes
springs locks, lets jumbling words through—
maddeningly perfect, an ever-blowing riff:
tall grasses in a meadow.

The sweep of sounds won't solve you,
but could, like this enjambment,
have you freed, and stepping through
across the opened door jamb.

November 7, 2025 at 10:35 AM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

Felt like I was writing against the prompt here - an unusually (?) chirpy one from me! #PoemsAbout #LockedDoors - thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
#PoetryCommunity #Poem #Poetry

November 7, 2025 at 9:12 AM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

#vss365 #geography #poetry

Geography

Are there too many places?
And here we are, struggling to get the washing dry.

Well, moving from one place to another,
I see that it is not raining there—
and although the sky is grey,
the cherry leaves are golden.

On bikes, the boys pass a spliff.
The smell is agricultural, the way muck-
spreading invades passing cars.

Back home, solidarity is languid—
though there is the company of bricks;
of damp indoor air.

November 6, 2025 at 3:52 PM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

Hi @rfsmith.bsky.social and #PromptCombo - here's my offering for #Storm, based on notes made after our summer wind storm
#poem #poetry

The Wind-lover
I’m balanced on a bicycle,
motionless,
halfway up the hill
in the mountain wind,

face full of oxygen
I can’t breathe in—
the slap, slump, and wallop
increasing with every upward inch.

Below, the storm is rolling its palms across the scrubland.

Sycamores are stripped, and willows cracked open.
Huge, astonished lime trees lean east.
The lake shivers, lifts, resettles,
edges for the exit.
A greenhouse catapults a fence.

Even the daws are not so cocksure now.
The gulls have gone to ground,
or decamped to the river
and its ghosted granary towers.

The storm has blown us back in time.

It’s autumn, and the ships will not be sailing.
They roll, maddened, in the docks,
pouring their North Sea spill
over the white-washing-line terraces,

sending the black and white kids in wellies
running for safety up the valley…

Night. The wind begins to walk away.
There’s the sound of someone opening and closing a door,
softly, repeatedly, dementedly,
again and again—

My son, the wind-lover,
windows open—
and unbelievably asleep.

November 3, 2025 at 3:38 PM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

Lightly dispiriting walk through the old mining village of Dudley yesterday. Lots of flags, obviously. The colliery is now a decent country park however - loads of kestrels
#poem

Dudley

I walked the flags of Dudley.
Space, rain and rattling crows.
The train flashed over the viaduct;
The pubs were closed.

November 2, 2025 at 5:48 PM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

#Poem of the leaving year
#poetry
write.as/robgalpin/wi...

Wildflowers and Light
The gentle movement of bodies in water—

boiling eggs and pebbles.

The derangement of the woodcock,
its clatter and panic...

The year is leaving.

I coppice the wood I don’t own
for wildflowers and light.

October 31, 2025 at 3:29 PM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

This is why the flags are going up around here. I don't condone it, but I do understand it. There's communities like ours all over the country, ripe for the picking. All the fascists need to do is give people who have nothing something to get angry about.

www.theguardian.com/society/ng-i...

Graphic from the Guardian showing the area I live in as one of the most deprived in the country, and showing it's got worse since 2019

October 31, 2025 at 12:56 PM

Rob Galpin

@robgalpin.bsky.social

I hope this is read in the way intended. The #blood prompt led me in quite a serious direction - this wasn't tossed off, and I hope I've treated the subject (colonial violence and complicity) with... well, whatever it deserves. #PromptCombo, @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk