During the Trojan War, Briseis was taken as a war prize and became a point of conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon. Her voice is largely absent from the surviving accounts. #vss365

This #PoemsAbout isset after the legendary sailors who passed the sirens’ song, concerned less with the myth than with what lingers after. Thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk (Travelling today so may not get to reading others)

Early Irish sources speak of five great sacred trees, they were centres of meaning, places where land, memory and authority met. Their loss trees marked not just physical loss, but the ending of a way of understanding the world. @janpsolivagant.bsky.social #TotemTree #PromptCombo

In 48 BC, at Battle of Pharsalus, Roman fought Roman, Caesar against Pompey, in a civil war that broke the Republic. #vss365

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

Here’s another for #vss365 #Speigorm

This is for today’s #vss365

Here’s a contribution for #PoemsAbout #SignalLoss Many thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

For today’s #vss365

Here’s one about a famous daydreamer for #PoetsofDoom #daydreams #triolet

Many of us will experience the trick of money/ capital on a daily basis #vss365

In 1077, amid the struggle between imperial and papal authority known as the Investiture Controversy, Henry IV waited outside Canossa for three days, seeking absolution from Pope Gregory VII, an act remembered as both penance and political necessity. #vss365

inspired by some recent travel, here’s one for #PoemsAbout #Gravity many thanks as ever to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

This #vss365 is a celebration of words

For today’s #vss365

As the great Samuel Beckett was born 120yrs ago today here’s a #vss365 using only one vowel letter inspired by Beckett

In the 8th and 9th centuries, the Carolingian Empire promoted a standardised script across Europe. Irish scribes continued to write in their own style, producing some of the greatest works of calligraphy such as the Book of Kells. #vss365 #Speirgorm

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

Here‘s one for #PoemsAbout #EdgeOfKnowing Thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

As people are remembering the Easter Rising of 1916 toda, here’s my poem about the great Irish Republican James Connolly #speirgorm

Here’s a #vss365 for the great Johnny Cash

Here’s one for #fragmentsfriday and for those who invoke faith to justify murder and aggression. Thanks to @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social and @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social

This #vss365 is written from the perspective of the pen of Oscar Wilde

Given the day that’s in it, here’s one for today’s #vss365

This is a #vss365 about the conduct of a president (it’s a loose translation of one I originally wrote in Latin to try out a particular form and to brush up on the language)

Here’s one for today’s #vss365 #speirgorm

From Byzantine emperors to modern presidents power can be seen as an illusion #vss365

Here’s one for #fragmentsfriday Thanks to @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social and @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social

Here’s one for today's #PoemsAbout #InBloom Many thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

Gone back to the Latin root of fascinus for this #vss365 and tried a fescennine poem in my approximation of saturnine metre (I’m obviously going through a Latin/ Ancient Rome phase at the moment so forgive the self indulgence 😉)

Inspired by Elena Giusti's work on absence in Roman literature and her argument that gaps, silences and erasures function as generative, structuring forces. This takes that idea inward: if history is assembled from what survives, so too is the self #promptcombo #nothing @janpsolivagant.bsky.social

This #vss365 was inspired by a William Blake poem in The Rossetti Manuscript

As its world puppetry day here’s a #vss365 inspired by Plato’s view of humans as puppets controlled and divided by the golden cord of reason and the iron cord of emotion

Not everything melts in the pyroclastic surge, the echo of objects, gestures and absence are held in place. Here’s another for #PoemsAbout #Melt Thanis as ever to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk

I’ve shared an earlier version of this but is right for today’s #PoemsAbout #Melt @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

Happy St Patrick’s Day. This poem is written in the tradition of St. Patrick's Breastplate but it’s for those that modern Ireland often forgets. #StPatricksDay #Speirgorm

Happy St Patrick’s Day. This poem is written in the tradition of St. Patrick's Breastplate but it’s for those that modern Ireland often forgets. #StPatricksDay #Speirgorm

For today’s #vss365 a man it’s hard to surpass

Obviously too much time on my hands this Sunday #PoetsOfDoom

Here’s one for today’s #vss365

Happy #MothersDay to all the wonderful mothers out there but this poem is written for those of us who have lost our mother

And here’s a bit of fun for pi day

This #vss365 explores that delicate space where memory fades but feeling remains, and the hands still reach for something once held, once cherished. Sometimes, the emotion survives the forgetting.

For today’s #vss365 I’ve gone for two corners. Apologies to non soccer fans but it was a great night (if you were a Man Utd fan)

In a damaged world, truth survives only in the fractures. A sorter and more accessible take on this weeks #PoemsAbout Thanks as ever to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

This prose poem is written in conversation with the closing movement of James Joyce’s Ulysses, Molly Bloom’s great “Yes.” It takes that current of affirmation and reimagines it through a more collective, contemporary voice. #PoemsAbout Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Some childhood joy for today’s #vss365

This older poem written for the great Ornette Coleman also fits today’s #vss365

A paean to collective action for today’s #vss365

A #vss365 inspired by Aristophanes’ Clouds but aimed at our modern temples of truth: the algorithm, the scroll, and the glow of the ring light. In this piece, the Clouds watch us trade truth for spectacle, complexity for comfort, and points to storms that inevitably follow.