We had our own language of words, looks, touch— telepathic mind stuff, we read each other like custom made books... #LockedDoors #PoemsAbout @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

I'm never sure whether I find @thebrokenspine.co.uk prompts traumatic or cathartic! Either way, here is my contribution this week (get a cuppa - it's long!) #PoemsAbout #LockedDoors #poetry #poetrycommunity #blueskypoets

Big thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAbout #LockedDoors A Bad Night The now-ghoul glint of lost eyes summons up Blind janus In the odd motel Of my head shade slaver, Unresting fatal spring, A choke of snowdrops Under a winding sheet of winter.

When I saw the theme for this week I thought all my poems are about locked doors! The #poemsabout #lockeddoors gives me the perfect opportunity to reshare my poem "Host", which was published by @viridinelit.bsky.social in its summer issue on Identity @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

Honoured to be today's fiftywordstories.com publication, with my prose #poem "Last Supper" Many thanks to the editors for seeing something in this and giving it a home. #poetry #blueskypoets #50wordstories #fiction #prose

This week isn’t about escape. It’s about what stays shut. Secrets with a latch. Regret with a bolt. Write the room you can’t re-enter. The letter never sent. Tag your post. Use Alt Text. Share from Friday. Sign up: shorturl.at/0Xm7A

bramble blood— young gods wrestle through trees, firm trunks rooted #haiku #senryu #poetryfragment #vss365 #wips #poetry #blueskypoets #micropoem

For all the activists mobilising across the US for the #NoKings demonstrations. 🤝🏻Solidarity from the UK. Here's a little something I wrote for the activists putting in the work. Take care of yourselves!

perfection ✨

I do hate the way nobody ever suggests that John Hannah might have 'turned a few people bi' every time this topic comes up: www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

"your inevitable flesh dam-burst / expensive Max Factor overlay / collagen aesthetic facial zing/ teeth straight as xylophone keys." Stretched Out of Shape by @rotherwrites.bsky.social features in the current issue of Six.

Delighted to hear that my poem 'Moeritherium' has received a Best of the Net nomination! Published by the wonderful @whaleroadreview.bsky.social, it was inspired by this model in the Natural History Museum 💙

"Some days I borrow my mother’s body / to see how much she had to love a man / to make a thing like me." It’s a girl by Rowan Tate is featured in the latest issue of Six.

"The doctor is worried. Mm / is the only sound she lets me make / so I mm her at regular intervals / like someone lulling a baby." On Mother’s Day I Listen to My Mother, by Amber Krogel is featured in Six. Liminal poems for the autumn equinox.

I really enjoyed reading through these in my inbox #Poetry

"I offered sorry instead of push. / When she tore him from her womb, / I learnt what it meant to be a woman." Woman in Labour by Chisom Okoronkwo is featured in Six. Liminal poems for the autumn equinox.

"they transform into an origami egret, / battered by the wind, collapsing in the palm / of your hand, its beak gently piercing the broken air." Folded handkerchiefs by Zita Murányi featured in the inaugural issue of Six. Liminal poems for the equinox.

"Purple veins in chicken / thighs that writhe, even when / the flesh is overboiled: / I fling those grisly bastards / back into the broth to give it / the potential of a potion." Things I eat to make me strong: by Laurie Koensgen featured in Six.

It's a rare recognition of the impact of your writing when it features as one of only six. Welcome the first issue of Six, a microjournal for poems on womanhood in all its awkward liminality. Thank you @hannahflynn-poetry.bsky.social for allowing me to reflect on the female experience.

🍂 Our Autumn issue is now LIVE 🍂 The first issue of Six has hit inboxes. You can also read it here: sixpoetryjournal.substack.com/p/six-01autu... Many thanks to our wonderful contributors, Zita Murányi, Laurie Koensgen, Amber Krogel, Chisom Okoronkwo, Rowan Tate and @rotherwrites.bsky.social

The first issue of Six goes out in less than an hour, to coincide with the autumn equinox. Subscribe to get it in your inbox: sixpoetryjournal.substack.com

How lonely must a Silent planet be? Empty Of life, vacuums suck. #PoemsAbout #SilentPlanet #haiku #senryu #poem #writing #writingcommunity @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

This one’s for trans women, queer women, fat women, ageing women, ND women. All of you. #NotJustPretty is YOUR mic. 🗓 Oct 4 | 8pm GMT thebrokenspine.co.uk...#NotJustPretty@karenpgonzalez.bsky.social #PoemsAbout

Matrix comes from the Latin for womb, mother, source. This poem is not about absence, but the silence of listening. Not gone, only unheard. She waits. She pulses. We forgot how to hear her. #PoemsAbout #SilentPlanets @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

#Poemsabout #SilentPlanets @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk #Prompters #SilentPlanets Drifters We grift like silent planets in our shared bedroom orbiting our space— where touch once lived holiness gravity grows hollow. #poetry #5AMWritersClub #art #tanka #skypoets #arw-raw

✨ The first issue of Six drops on the equinox Mon 22 Sept 2025 7:19 pm It’s full of #poems about womanhood in all its forms. If you want it in your inbox the moment it goes live, subscribe here: sixpoetryjournal.substack.com Come with us from the very start — Six is only just beginning.

🌒 The equinox approaches. Submissions to Six close at midnight tomorrow night 17 September. Six poems only will be chosen. One could be yours. 📩 Send up to 3 poems to [email protected] 🔗 in bio for more details.

The latest issue of the @theargylelitmag.bsky.social is about one of my favourite topics: Food! It features two of my #poems, "Butter" and "Lasagne": a gastronomic exploration of my experiences of 'dinner party' politics in the north and south of England. www.theargylelitmag.com/theme-04-gas...

Poem 205: He Was a Reclusive Sort - a rewrite and edit of a poem I wrote a couple of years ago, presented here for #PoemsAbout #Candlelight, a marvellous prompt from @alanparrywriter.co.uk at @thebrokenspine.co.uk I'll be reposting and commenting later. #poetrycommunity #poetsofbluesky #poetry

I laughed as I wrote this #PoemsAbout #candlelight. My poem is for Claire, my best friend and worst enemy for the year we spent teaching abroad aged 18. #ProjectTrust Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the prompt. Happy Friday! #poetry

🔮 Six wives. Six seeds. Six percent conviction rate. Six is a microjournal for the liminal, the raw, the inbetween. This issue: only six poems will be chosen. Could one be yours? 📩 Submit up to 3 poems by 17 Sept, midnight → [email protected] 🔗 in bio #poem #poetry #blueskypoets

Sharing my poem 'Self-Care' originally published by @Blood+Honey for this week's #PoemsAbout #Candlelight @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Tomorrow we post #PoemsAbout #Candlelight Think confession, ritual, memory lit dimly. Post your piece. Tag your work + tag us: @alanparry83.bsky.social @brokenspinearts.bsky.social Then Read. Repost. Reply. Saturday prompts will keep the flame lit: shorturl.at/oEXAM

🌒 Seven days until the equinox call closes. Six seeks six poems on womanhood in all its awkward liminality — birth, divorce, bisexuality, climate grief, kitchens, corridors, anything. 📩 Submit up to 3 poems by 17 Sept, midnight → [email protected] 🔗 in bio #poem #poetry #blueskypoets

sitting underneath the lovers’ room— plotting ghost #haiku #senryu #poem #writing #writingcommunity #blueskypoets #dailyhaikuprompt

Very suggestive Silhouette in Dump's letter To partner in crime. The world swallows more Atrocities carried out By Netanyahu. Banksy censored in Predictably ironic Display, spinelessness. #DailyHaikews #haiku #senryu #poem #writing #writingcommunity #resist @sonnetsmith.bsky.social

doomscrolling another twist in my gut #senryu

The first submission call for Six has gone out in the latest @chillsubs.bsky.social SubClub newsletter, Where to Submit This Week (9.8.25) If you want to submit your #poetry on womanhood (all #poets are welcome to do so) find out how on our #submissions page: substack.com/home/post/p-... 📆 17 SEPT

Resharing this #tanka for #vss365 #power fossil dust obscured the template handed to me lines not visible status quo ante bellum Cold War between comrades #poem #blueskypoets #haiku #senryu

Sharing a fragment from my poem "Guest" for today's #vss365 #doorway #poem #blueskypoets. "He stood on the step, smiling softly as he waved goodbye. Then closed the door gently behind him, and turned the key he’d had in his pocket all along."

Six: OPEN for submissions for its 1st issue. DEADLINE 17 SEPT We are open to any form, by anybody, on the subject of womanhood. For #senryusunday here is our kind of flavour: blueberry, lemon not hamburger and steak pregnancy leaflet Sub guidelines: sixpoetryjournal.substack.com/p/submissions

Hello @thebrokenspine.co.uk and host @alanparrywriter.co.uk for this week's #PoemsAbout #Facades ...because we're worth it. 🎭

A poem inspired by a safeguarding training day. It was the bit about neglect… Thanks to the wonderful @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk for this week’s #PoemsAbout #facades Happy Friday #blueskypoets

#PoemsAbout #Facades @alanparrywriter.co.uk Staged Sometimes, I wonder if everyone else is just a better actor than I thought possible… if we’re all walking around in costumes that itch— applauding each other’s performances, while forgetting, we used to know how to —simply be. #arw-raw #art

#PoemsAbout #Facades @alanparrywriter.co.uk An haibun, or rather, a tragedy in three parts! Many thanks for the opportunity to contribute again. #poetry #poems #haibun #haiku #senryu

back to school puddles reflect raincoats — fractured blue sky #haiku #senryu #haiku #blueskypoets #senryusunday #poems #micropoem #poem #haikufeels #writingcommunity #poetrycommunity #skypoems #poetry #writingcommunity #poet #dailyhaikuprompt #london

📣 Submissions are open for for Six — a biannual microjournal publishing just six poems about womanhood each equinox. The first issue will launch on the September equinox: Mon 22 Sept, 7:19pm (BST). ⏳ Submissions close: 17 Sept 📮 Guidelines/subscribe: sixpoetryjournal.substack.com/p/submissions

Luckily, I'm going to be reading a couple of poems from my debut chapbook Synonyms for Love and War (among others!) at the Bi+ Community Events at Colours, Hoxton this afternoon. Do grab me for a (free!) microzine print copy if you see me. (First print run=wonky!) @thisisbiscuit.org.uk #poetry

Today is the last day you can read my debut microchapbook Synonyms for Love and War online at @bloodhoneylit.bsky.social Read it here: www.bloodhoneylit.com/microchaps/s...