inklings.co.nz – Writing by Peter Ravlich

Poetry Roundup — February 2026

A selection of writing from February. More of my short-form writing can be found on Bluesky.

Prompt: Knowingly (vss365)

She smiled, knowingly
But he’d never seen her smile
Any other way

Prompt: Beastly (vss365)

Our mediated human hopes and dreams,
Infested with abstraction and decay.
Enshittifying all until it seems,
That life is dopamine without delay.
In base indulgence do we rut and weep,
Then serve our beastly brain another taste,
And incrementally, excuses creep,
To abrogate volition in this waste.
And yet in these contortions is there cause,
To recognise a fluttering of hope—
We risk these realms, indulging in our flaws
To help more noble inclinations cope.

To find, beside the venal and the vain,
Those other seekers, striving for the same.

Prompt: Soul (vss365)

You see, she said
it isn’t right
to bifurcate the whole
to denigrate the physical
and elevate the soul;
You see, she said
with eyeballs and receptors
and a brain—
and every revelation
is complicit with the same:
Your self
your only
frame

Prompt: Ghost (vss365)

A writer
without writing
is a haunt
without its ghost

And when the words
are reticent
is when
they’re needed most

So
Write

Prompt: Lambent (vss365)

This sullen flame
which smoulders
imperceptibly alight
offers lambent
liberties to those
purveyors of the night
Its potential is
unbounded
though it sputters
in the dark
Conflagration
only checked
by symbiosis
with the spark

Prompt: Wound (vss365)

What doesn’t kill you
may make you longer
but I long to
rewind—
before these wounds
wound merciless
around your life
to extricate scar
from skin—
to let you shine
again

Prompt: Bouncy (vss365)

What goes up, they say
must then come down—
but you
transcend such
grave assent

You buoy, you bounce
where others frown
and mountains fill
the vales you rent

Prompt: Mystified (vss365)

Inside the box
you’ll see a sun
behind it shines
another one;
Beyond the suns
a mirrored face
that screams into
the void of space:
That all it knows
and all it lost
is bounded by
this tiny box

Prompt: Crazed (vss365)

The hammer fell once
And crazed this shallow surface
with flaws that endure

Prompt: Stellar (vss365)

You yearned for stardom
And now the people aspire
To know that you burn

Poetry Roundup — January 2026

My public writing exercises have been sporadic (at best) since the demise of Twitter… But a critical mass of that writing community has now anointed Bluesky the heir apparent, so 2026 finally brings more short-form work.

Prompt: Unmoored (vss365)

A vessel I wrought
of intention and dream
sits scuttled below
(an inept submarine)
And all that remains
as I weep on the pier
is the mooring and rope
that once anchored her there
I’d unmoor her, I should
a gift to the sea
for the seasons have turned
and she’s anchoring me

Prompt: Thrum (vss365)

Each sibilant
sprays from your tongue
with such
vanity and vitriol

You are the stone-thrower
the self-proclaimed genius
dicksplaining from the back—
but absent for the real work

The tedious thrum of
all your ruinous rage
sickens me

Prompt: Cusp (vss365)

She liked a life less languid
so she auctioned off her soul
The demons offered riches
but adventure was her goal:
She scuffed the ritual circle
tore the veil open wide
and there upon the #cusp of worlds
’tis said she never died

Prompt: Ruse (vss365)

“It is a panacea
a balm for any ill
and yours for only P&P”
But then I got the bill

And yes it’s true, I didn’t dwell
on bodily distress
poring over fine print
untangling the mess

Confronted with my evidence
he
admitted to a fiction
apologised sincerely—
then sold me a subscription

Prompt: Ruse (vss365)

I make my bed
so why are you always
lying
in it?

Prompt: Slip (vss365)

A slip of an idea
took flight and
plunged earthward
more down than feather

But a stray eye snagged
on its fledgling form
catching it, considering…

Until once again
it was thrust from the nest
before its time

Prompt: Drizzle (vss365)

I wouldn’t consider you
a downpour
a torrent
or
even a shower
More of an
incipient drizzle
seeping into
weekend plans
and muddying
my shoes

Prompt: Wane (vss365)

Jackboots stomped
the dying fire—
crushing coals into muddy mounds
as sullen smoke
announced the end—
then shuffled away
leaving only ashes

except

except
that single ember
borne on the breeze

who still carries
the hope of flame

Prompt: Wane (vss365)

The codecs are invalid now
the audio unclear
and resolution dismal
not much to see or hear
I play it over anyway
and long for all I lack
with each repeat the memory wanes
a steady fade to black

Prompt: Bend (vss365)

You would have me bend
But I despise false idols—
and your golden lies

Prompt: Loom(vss365)

What waits beyond this utterance
Where Inattention looms?
When purpose falls to happenstance
and nihilism blooms;
So voice again
in present tense
these self-fulfilling curses—
another song of innocence
proclaims its final verses

Requisite Words 24 – Taking Thomas Hardy on Faith

After a very 2020 hiatus, we’re back with two of Thomas Hardy’s poems, God’s Funeral and The Darkling Thrush.

Episode Music:
Be Chillin’ by Alexander Nakarada | www.serpentsoundstudios.com
Music promoted by www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Photo is in the public domain, from wikimedia.org

Requisite Words 23 – Shakespeare’s Sonnet 127

This episode we share the first of Shakespeare’s Sonnets to the Dark Lady, Sonnet 127, alongside a brief contextual reading of the piece.

This episode was inspired by Patrick Stewart’s A Sonnet a Day initiative, which has been a source of much delight in recent months, but overlooked this one piece during a break.

Photo is in the public domain, from wikimedia.org

Poetry Roundup – August 2020

I’m publishing (on average) a short piece per day on Twitter, including a mix of poetry and prose, so I’m posting a “highlights reel” here, and ~~the rest can be found on my profile, @PeterRavlich.~~ Edit: I deleted my Twitter content following unethical behaviour by the platform’s new ownership, and the prospect of having my work harvested to train proprietary Large Language Models.

From 2026, my short-form public work is now published on Bluesky, with many of the former writing community from Twitter.

If you enjoy ultra short form work, there are hundreds of other poets and writers creating moments of delight, tension, wonder and bravery, most consistently using the hashtag #vss365.

Prompt: Swoon (vss365)

You are so
far
beyond me
in every
single dimension—
I can’t even

Prompt: Flutter (Poetryin13)

That sweet
lub-dub was
so sufficient—
but feeling
this flutter
is bittersweet
bliss

Prompt: Integer (vss365)

In your influence
I feel
infinite
and yet constrained
Ordered
only to your orbit
where I’m dying
to remain
Count my singular
resolve
and salve this pain

Prompt: Concern (painfulprompts)

There are only four chambers
inside this heart
but I can’t seem to find
my way out

Prompt: Triangle (vss365)

The first is a fragile instant—
A heart is surrendered and won
The second a cognitive frisson
A deft dalliance is begun
The third is the angle unchallenged
Who toys with the others in turn
He’ll posture and pout as misdeeds echo out
But never be ready to learn

Prompt: Commute (vss365)

Everything you are to me
an absolute anomaly
in isolation can’t exist
(the pun misplaced but accurate)—
This is a sum that can’t be split
the product is inviolate
no cognitive coherence how
you’ve come to populate my now

But I’m glad

Prompt: Complex (vss365)

You say you’re
simple—
so simple

maybe it’s the word
that’s insufficient

maybe it’s me

because simple

has never meant
so much

Prompt: Field (vss365)

A heart is not a book
but a library
Where the authors each submit
a single tome
Whose pages leave us shook
and sad, and teary
But where sometimes we still sit
to dream of home

Prompt: Vector (vss365)

Turn my key until it binds
and point me down a stumbled line
I’ll be your rusting soldier
til the end
And when that final spring unwinds
my clockwork heart, my whole design
will be no single fraction colder—
For I’ve had you as a friend

Prompt: Calculus (vss365)

You nudge me
unexpectedly
and sometimes
off the edge—
how is one to
ascertain
these rates
of change?

If I were in
any way a smart
predictor I would
hedge—
It is not at all
unpleasant
but it’s strange.

Prompt: iff (vss365)

I just can’t see a case
that tests for true

When something ill-defined
and ephemeral is
lost
what do you weigh?

I know it’s my fault
But not how
when I can’t
be false
again

Prompt: Vector (vss365)

I have value
I know
and volition – a vector
so why
does my verse
tend
to zero
on you?

Prompt: Enhance (vss365)

If wishes
worked—
even once
You’d be unafraid
still perfect
but content
too