Long Before Guerrilla Gardeners There Was My Mother   When I was in my infancy, so was the estate where I lived. New, fresh everything gleamed with the last dregs of post-war idealism. The footpaths of black tarmac cut through grassy banks and small hills, created from the rubble and earth displaced by the foundations.   Mum decided there weren’t enough flowers and trees. She didn’t complain to the council, or ask for a grant. My dad took us on outings to local forests. We visited elderly relatives, house-proud and garden mad. Pulled over at the side of highways to rescue saplings, finding everything a new home on our small estate. Bit by bit the plant revolution took place   I am much older now. So is the estate.   The patched tarmac has faded to grey. The houses have seen many wars. But the trees grow strong and tall.   A voracious rowan has sired an empire. No autumn journey can be made without the crunching of red berries under your shoes. Bluebells settle under golden forsythia, as the blossoms of ornamental cherries and magnolia flutter down in the evening breeze, carrying the scent of honeysuckle twisted around old signposts.   We walk amongst her legacy. Her gardens bloom in every corner. Christmas berries lay down a red carpet. Bluebells nod their approval. The confetti of scattering blossoms celebrate the gift she planted for us

I am having an awful time at the moment as I am currently in hospital keeping vigil at my mom's bedside, waiting to say goodbye.

This is a poem I wrote about her a while ago. It seems a fitting tribute to share here.

Love you Mom 🩶

#PoemsAbout #InBloom
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

#AcrosticJanuary #coal
@daveashleypoet.bsky.social

COAL

Coming from the Black Country
Of course coal is in my blood.
Ancestors delved deep below
Landscapes shaped by mining.

#Emoetry #Cautious

#writingcommunity #poetry #prompts

Keeping close, needle-paws testing trust. In the engine of your purr, the room steadied. Tucked into warm spaces where the sun paused. Time worked quietly, silken fur dulled. Every goodbye outweighed your fragile body. Nothing left. I learn the house without you.

Everything is turning into an acrostic. I think I've been doing too many!

#WildWalkPrompt #Kitten
@sonnetsmith.bsky.social

#AcrosticJanuary
@daveashleypoet.bsky.social

Aunt Hilda I was scrubbed and pushed into the lavender dress, the one that arrived in the post, scratchy at the neck. My hair tied up, wedding shoes on. Bundled into the car, given instructions on how to not be me. We didn’t visit often. You weren’t one of us. Not a comfortable granny with chunks of cake and a tea-stained apron. Not a laughing, red-faced uncle who smelt of coconut and smoke. You were stiff, like the lace at your throat and wrists, sitting in your flat like a doll. Painted smile, bird eyes, in a bejewelled costume. Your claw-tipped hands made tea the proper way, no bags, a warmed pot, served in cups that rattled on tiny plates, handles my short, chubby hands could not grasp, and bitter biscuits in bright foil wrappers. We never stayed long, only an eternity, and when I left, clutching my fifty pence, I took off my dress and travelled home in my vest and tights.

It's my first time trying a
#SenseWrds Prompt poem, but I read this one, and these memories came flooding out!

#Prompt 173

Searing skies flay the crust. Clouds churn and cry only dust. Ombre outcrops litter the fields. Roiling, red magma is all the earth yields. Corporeal chasms guard the unseeing. Hell hath now come into being.

#AcrosticJanuary #Scorch
@daveashleypoet.bsky.social

Poem written in chemical element symbols about autism

Hello @victoriaspires.bsky.social for #promptcombo #subtexts in solidarity with my autistic son who is taking GCSE English later this year and really struggles to decipher meanings which to him, are hidden. He finds chemistry far more accessible. Originally published in The Alchemy Spoon

In Costa After the Fight We enter without words,  the hush between us  thicker than steam rising from cups.  I order the large coffee,  a mug with two handles,  as if my steadiness could be held in porcelain.  You choose winter spiced tea,  its glass tall and fragile,  a vessel for warmth,  where nothing is hidden.  We settle at the back table,  your chair turned away from the shop,  a quiet protection against the possibility of tears.  The silence lingers,  not sharp, not cruel,  just the aching remnant of something small  that grew too loud.  You lift the cinnamon stick,  thick, rough-edged,  turning it in your fingers  like a question.  “Do you think this is real cinnamon?”  The words break the stillness,  gentle, almost playful.  I say I’ll look it up,  thumbs moving across the screen,  and soon musings on the merits of cassia and ceylon spill between us,  disguising forgiveness.  We share a smile and the distance between us diffuses like spice steeping into tea, the warmth of a second chance.

I may be stretching the #subtext a bit on this one, but I'm still working on a terza rima, so could well have another go later.

#PromptCombo
@victoriaspires.bsky.social
#poems #poetry #writingcommunity

Divine Subtext Pages searched for meanings Dante hid, footnotes quarrel with the lines I see, each canto murmurs what the poet did. The plot pushes onward, guiding me toward grudges dressed with moral bent, politics reframed as necessity. I feel the wire pulled tight with clawed intent around those he learned to loathe with rage, justice formed from this man descent. In Purgatory, the air becomes a cage, the voice grows softer as regret is penned, as if revising grief on the page. By Paradise, the metaphors blur and bend, light enacts what language can't explain, a man rewriting grief without an end. Reading him now, I recognise the strain of a poet building heaven from private pain.

Today I learned:

- Dante created the terza rima for the Divine Comedy;

- my memory of this epic was more sketchy than I would like;

- I am prone to going down rabbit holes;

- terza rimas are really hard!

@victoriaspires.bsky.social
#promptcombo #subtext

That's because birds don't react to capsaicin.

Saturday is Curry night Overall I'm Regretting the Challenge where Heat was a factor. It Ended badly for my Derriere

#AcrosticJanuary #Scorch
@daveashleypoet.bsky.social

TGreat #horrorprompt from @fizzytwizler.bsky.social ❤️

#Shrine

This is what I prayed for.
All those nights on my knees.
All those small sacrifices.

It worked.

You sent him to me. I know you did.

And now I’m ready to make the sacrifice you deserve.

Gosh, if I had a thousand pounds Real money for that tattoo I liked And some left over for the dentist. No, blow it all on those red-soled heels... Decadence is only for dreams.

#AcrosticJanuary
#GRAND
@daveashleypoet.bsky.social

Longing I wish these memories would be silent, but they persist, soft‑footed and certain, returning me to places I locked away. Twisting beneath the surface, undercurrents of a frozen stream, murmurs of buried longing, curling through the quiet. They find me in the hush of night - in that fragile pause when the world folds into stillness and all that remains are the whispers of what might have been.

I love lazy Sunday mornings, and when prompts align in my head to make a poem ❤️

#vss365 #murmur
##WIPSnips #remain
#BSPP49 #FrozenStream
#OurPoetryX #silentmemories

Bumble Me I bumble through my daily life with all the grace of cheese, a wobbling, bobbling, half‑awake discount knock‑off bumblebee. I drop my keys, I spill my tea, I trip on phantom air, and somehow still survive it all through luck and mild despair. I buzz with wild intention, then forget what I began, a tiny, frantic creature with no master plan. But, like bees, I keep going, though I’m clueless as can be, a soft and silly creature in a world too sharp for me.

#WildWalkPrompt #Bumble
@sonnetsmith.bsky.social

#prompt #writesky #blueskypoets #writingprompt #nature

Gimme Five Five more minutes and I'll go to bed It's eleven o'clock, but the show just got interesting Five more minutes and I'll go to bed It's midnight but I need to finish off this boss Five more minutes and I'll go to bed It's one a.m. but I didn't get a chance to read my emails all day Five more minutes and I'll go to bed It's two in the morning but my feed is blowing up Five more minutes and I'll go to bed It's three o'clock and there's breaking news overseas Five more minutes and I'll go to bed It's four in the morning, I shouldn't have had coffee so late Five more minutes I'll have to get ready for work.

#PoemsAbout #TimeSlips @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Awakening The morning cuts into the room like a knife, a blade of golden light slicing our bodies with gentle warmth. Where did the night go? How can one person be so all-consuming that time becomes meaningless in her arms? I was born to be a cynic, trained to mistrust. Love was a trap for the weak-minded, the foolish. But in those lost hours, I saw the light. We rise, begin our day with smiles and gentle touch. I want to tell you that I would give you every minute, every second I have left, if it meant I could spend every morning like this one. But I don’t. You might think me a fool for telling you. You might not feel the same as I do, and my heart would not survive the loss of you. So I keep it to myself.

#PoemsAbout #TimeSlips @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Timeslips Ten shots in. Having fun. Wake up on the curb outside my house. What happened? A needle in a vein. Nothing matters. Wake up in a squat, breathing among the dead. What happened? Pills washed down my throat. Don’t want to wake up. Do anyway. What happened? Get clean. Try a steady life. Monotonous routines. Wake up and I’m fifty. What happened?

Another Friday and another #PoemsAbout

Mine is a bit miserable today, but that's been the vibe this week!

Can't wait to read everyone else's offerings.

#Timeslips

@alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Dew The unmowed lawn becomes a silent festival, spider‑lace droplets stitched across the ground, each bead a lantern-strewn thread to honour the turning of the year. The earth exhales its last warm breath, meeting the first shy chill of autumn in a soft, shimmering embrace. And I, delighted intruder, wander through their ceremony, footsteps carving a giant’s path across delicate dawn celebrations. A guest who cannot help but dance through their silver bunting.

#WildWalkPrompt #Dew
@sonnetsmith.bsky.social

Memo to my FRIENDS For the love of God Remember I’m an introvert. I don’t want to mingle with Everyone. I want to stay at home. No contact except by text. Don’t drag me to your weddings and parties. Select interaction carefully.

Picture of a quote about how introverts make friends.

#AcrosticJanuary #Friends

Uncertain could be my spirit word!

#Emoetry #Uncertain
#writingcommunity #poetry

Heartfelt I cannot tell you how my heart felt the time we first kissed or that night we parted. It did not skip or break. It continued to beat, unnoticed, feeding my body, even when I wanted it not to. My stomach ties itself in knots. My bowels often indicate my mood. My face grows hot, my skin prickles and sweats. But my heart feels nothing at all.

#vss365 #prompt #heartfelt

TENTACLE There in their glasshouse you sat, green and fat. Elongated arms whipping in the fan’s breeze. No one paid you any attention Till the sparrow flew in, tempted by our scones, And perched close by, too close. Clamped within seconds, we watched it struggle. Looking on in horror as it stilled. Everyone left quickly after that.

A slippery one for
#AcrosticJanuary
@daveashleypoet.bsky.social

and a tardy submission for
#WIPSnips
@wipsnips.bsky.social

#TENTACLE
#WriteSky #WritingCommunity #WritingPrompts

Fluff How gently it clings to the barbs, yet the cruel winds cannot prise it from the nook in which it nestles with steel resolve. Strands fly fragile and alone, do they mourn the loss of a time when they belonged to the herd? One day the fluff will be gone, and with it the joy of watching it waving a greeting to the breeze.

#WildWalkPrompt #Fluff
@sonnetsmith.bsky.social

The World Between My soul is not night-black, but it has long since left behind the light of day. Darkness clings to it, a looming threat, an inevitability? It walks in shades of twilight, clouding my world in a fire-like glow. The light too bright to walk toward, the grey shadows a warning of things to come. I stand between both, a soul bathed in the setting sun.

@ignorantfairy.bsky.social
#FaeSense #ShadesOfTwighlight

Pick Your Battles I will not stoop to your level, not out of some misguided sense of altruism. It is because if I let go, if I met you on your battleground, I would not stop until all around you lay dying. So I do not fight. I do not let go. I do not give in to rage. Because I know I would lose myself to it. You are not worth the price. You are not worth my soul. But do not mistake this restraint for cowardice.

#vss365 #prompt #stoop
@fhpowellwriter.bsky.social

Yes

Agatha   She watched the world from behind lace curtains. Where gossip tangled like roses. And every smile had a shadow stitched beneath it.   She understood the weight of small details.  A misplaced glove. A pause too long. The way guilt stains even the most polished silver.   Her mind was a corridor lined with locked doors. She knew which ones to open, and which to leave ajar, whispering secrets.    For her there was no final mystery. No grand farewell. Just a quiet retreat into the folds of fiction.   No note. No struggle. Only silence. The soft echo of a woman who knew too much about endings.

Black and white photo portrait of Agatha Christie by Angus McBean.

Agatha Christie died 50 years ago today, although her legacy will live on forever 🖤

#AgathaChristie

Angry chaffinch It sits outside my window and shouts at my cats with its incessant video-game gun bleating. Its grabby little claws scratch along the windowsill trying to find purchase on the stiff white plastic. I look at this tiny vision of a mould-mottled peach and wonder how something so perfect can be so annoyed and annoying.

@sonnetsmith.bsky.social hope you are feeling better today.

Here's another one about my love/ hate relationship with birds (and their feet).

#WildWalkPrompt #Chaffinch

INSTANT TRANCE I take the bump Needles drop onto music Swaying in the rush Tempo takes hold And just like that Nothing else is real Time flows backward. Tabs and toots fill my boots Rhythm rages Against all the machines Now the strobing starts Carrying me further in Everything is light forever.

@daveashleypoet.bsky.social yesterday was #PoemsAbout day, so everything else went for a Burton.
Therefore, I have done two in one to catch up!

#AcrosticJanuary