Bad Lilies

Bad Lilies

@badlilies.bsky.social

A digital poetry journal, edited by @kathryngray.bsky.social and @andrewjamesneilson.bsky.social Enjoy our blooms! badlilies.uk

1,941 Followers 418 Following 186 Posts Joined Oct 2023
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2 weeks ago
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Little Griefs by Andrew Neilson Come to celebrate the launch of Andrew Neilson’s debut collection, Little Griefs!

Exactly one week from now! www.eventbrite.com/e/little-gri...

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1 month ago
Preview
Issue twenty-three — Bad Lilies

OUT NOW. Issue twenty-three: 'Wildfires' badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three

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3 weeks ago
Preview
Issue twenty-three — Bad Lilies

We've finished spotlighting the poets in our new issue! Read the whole thing, 'Wildfires', here badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three

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3 weeks ago

Always an exciting new issue from the Lilies!

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3 weeks ago
Preview
Issue twenty-three — Bad Lilies

We've finished spotlighting the poets in our new issue! Read the whole thing, 'Wildfires', here badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three

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3 weeks ago
A Cure for Wellness When I met with the stern neurologist first to be examined then wired up then told to walk a line as straight as I could towards a window fogged by light When I used the words it taught me when I tried to say what the body felt I was told what I'd always thought to be the culprit of my disposition What I'd thought was a cue to hog or otherwise a choice to smash the chair to bits or stand on it to speak

Two poems by @timliardet.bsky.social badlilies.uk/tim-liardet-2

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3 weeks ago
from Scavenger: 8/06/25 Squinting through the trees, early evening, I spot a strange creature with a lump bobbing on its rump. My brain adjusting to what my eyes message, I realise the odd vision is of a magpie picking ticks off a muntjac fawn. Entranced by this mutualistic relationship, I watch, not moving, until the magpie flies off the meal-ticket grazing its way towards the undergrowth. Cattle egrets, oxpeckers, jackdaws, crows and magpies reap the rewards of scavenging or scratching an itch.

Two poems by @lisadmkelly.bsky.social badlilies.uk/lisa-kelly-2

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3 weeks ago
A Cure for Wellness When I met with the stern neurologist first to be examined then wired up then told to walk a line as straight as I could towards a window fogged by light When I used the words it taught me when I tried to say what the body felt I was told what I'd always thought to be the culprit of my disposition What I'd thought was a cue to hog or otherwise a choice to smash the chair to bits or stand on it to speak

Two poems by @timliardet.bsky.social badlilies.uk/tim-liardet-2

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3 weeks ago
from Scavenger: 8/06/25 Squinting through the trees, early evening, I spot a strange creature with a lump bobbing on its rump. My brain adjusting to what my eyes message, I realise the odd vision is of a magpie picking ticks off a muntjac fawn. Entranced by this mutualistic relationship, I watch, not moving, until the magpie flies off the meal-ticket grazing its way towards the undergrowth. Cattle egrets, oxpeckers, jackdaws, crows and magpies reap the rewards of scavenging or scratching an itch.

Two poems by @lisadmkelly.bsky.social badlilies.uk/lisa-kelly-2

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3 weeks ago
High Aspect Ratio Line fall releasing light-boned folk into the air, first solo flight, uncertain yet of pitch and yaw: turn left and right, attempt an elementary circle at giddy heights. Waiting for the break lend weight to flight; wheel and bank and, at a glance, map movement on the ground below.

'High Aspect Ratio' by Dominic James badlilies.uk/dominic-james

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3 weeks ago
High Aspect Ratio Line fall releasing light-boned folk into the air, first solo flight, uncertain yet of pitch and yaw: turn left and right, attempt an elementary circle at giddy heights. Waiting for the break lend weight to flight; wheel and bank and, at a glance, map movement on the ground below.

'High Aspect Ratio' by Dominic James badlilies.uk/dominic-james

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3 weeks ago
Turner's Bedroom, Hotel Europe, Venice, 1840 Turner, hero of one hundred fist fights with light, he alters the sky by using his eye as a jeweller's hammer introduces us to part of a bridge hidden for centuries behind Venice's back pours out fineries of smoke-brightened vapour a stretch of lagoon is stippled-alive by washes of wheeling headstrong colour he makes every cloud and rainbow his servant the waterway gleams like lionskin or the nispero's cousin, the apple's sister

'Turner’s Bedroom, Hotel Europe, Venice, 1840' by Penelope Shuttle badlilies.uk/penelope-shuttle-3

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3 weeks ago
Les hasards heureux de l'escarpolette (The Swing) after Jean-Honoré Fragonard They've all broken in. The floating girl in her blancmange of petticoats, who kicks off her shoe like a ravenous convict tossing away a sucked-clean bone. The one who grips the ropes of the swing as if losing control of his chariot. And the hatless little priest for whom an angel just blazed into view. They've all broken in to the nuage d'orage in a flying machine.

'Les hasards heureux de l’escarpolette (The Swing)' by @shotscarecrow.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jon-stone-1

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3 weeks ago
The Demon-Barman's Song And here's a drink and there's a drink and there's a bottle, aye, and I've distilled a brew for you to please you till you die. There's whisky like a dragon's mouth and beer that's like a bed. There's rum as warm as sugar cane. There's wine that's velvet-red. I've any flavour story here, escape routes by the score - it may look like a glass to you, but it can be a door.

Read 'The Demon-Barman's Song' by Ramona Herdman badlilies.uk/ramona-herdman-2

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3 weeks ago
Les hasards heureux de l'escarpolette (The Swing) after Jean-Honoré Fragonard They've all broken in. The floating girl in her blancmange of petticoats, who kicks off her shoe like a ravenous convict tossing away a sucked-clean bone. The one who grips the ropes of the swing as if losing control of his chariot. And the hatless little priest for whom an angel just blazed into view. They've all broken in to the nuage d'orage in a flying machine.

'Les hasards heureux de l’escarpolette (The Swing)' by @shotscarecrow.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jon-stone-1

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3 weeks ago
The Demon-Barman's Song And here's a drink and there's a drink and there's a bottle, aye, and I've distilled a brew for you to please you till you die. There's whisky like a dragon's mouth and beer that's like a bed. There's rum as warm as sugar cane. There's wine that's velvet-red. I've any flavour story here, escape routes by the score - it may look like a glass to you, but it can be a door.

Read 'The Demon-Barman's Song' by Ramona Herdman badlilies.uk/ramona-herdman-2

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3 weeks ago
Their House Their house is a ship in the wind and the wind chimes chime all night like people waiting to get in, like people waiting in the walls, though these rooms have been emptied now for months and the bamboo grows between paving stones and grape vines tangle the chimes. A poet would say all wood wants to grow again. A gardener, only your grape vine needs pruning and if I was an architect I would build boats, because their house is a ship in the wind and it floats on something wider and deeper than water.

Two poems by @jwikeley.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jeremy-wikeley-1

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3 weeks ago
A Winter Inventory One light left on in the smallest of hours. A figure behind frosted glass, reckoning up the comings and goings. The dark outside is growing crystals. Longer you look, more you see: a stunted cactus on the windowsill, metronome of gutter drips, broken sycamore embossed on sky. Beyond the garden, over our fence, the local school, abandoned, has run wild:

Three poems by Michael Symmons Roberts badlilies.uk/michael-symmons-roberts

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3 weeks ago
Their House Their house is a ship in the wind and the wind chimes chime all night like people waiting to get in, like people waiting in the walls, though these rooms have been emptied now for months and the bamboo grows between paving stones and grape vines tangle the chimes. A poet would say all wood wants to grow again. A gardener, only your grape vine needs pruning and if I was an architect I would build boats, because their house is a ship in the wind and it floats on something wider and deeper than water.

Two poems by @jwikeley.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jeremy-wikeley-1

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3 weeks ago
A Winter Inventory One light left on in the smallest of hours. A figure behind frosted glass, reckoning up the comings and goings. The dark outside is growing crystals. Longer you look, more you see: a stunted cactus on the windowsill, metronome of gutter drips, broken sycamore embossed on sky. Beyond the garden, over our fence, the local school, abandoned, has run wild:

Three poems by Michael Symmons Roberts badlilies.uk/michael-symmons-roberts

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3 weeks ago
Random Forest It was the summer of suicides. Long shadows cast over the lawn. Heat gripped us. A death ray. Drove us crazy. Until we could no Longer help ourselves. Or each Other. When the time came. It came often. Without warning. Sparing only the weakest of us. Those who had less will to live. Decision trees danced in the distance. Ever present. Just out of reach. We dreamt of being caught In their branches. Enjoying picnics In their shade. Scuffed shoes and Muddy knees. Leaves in our hair. We dreamt of choices. Of paths Untaken. Roads untraveled. Possibilities dangled like future Tenses. Tempting us with certainties. Like Milgram's dial. Then winter Pulled up its cold white sheet.

'Random Forest' by @jpseabright.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jp-seabright

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3 weeks ago
Mountain Top Our heads were almost poking the clouds when we reached the mountain top. Tempted, we were, to peek into heaven — startle God a little. The dews slept in tranquil on the chest of leaves, we sat amidst lush greenery, & within touching

'Mountain Top' by Abu Ibrahim badlilies.uk/abu-ibrahim

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3 weeks ago
Preview
Issue twenty-three — Bad Lilies

Have you read our new issue, 'Wildfires', yet? If not, now is your chance! badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three

4 1 0 0
3 weeks ago
Random Forest It was the summer of suicides. Long shadows cast over the lawn. Heat gripped us. A death ray. Drove us crazy. Until we could no Longer help ourselves. Or each Other. When the time came. It came often. Without warning. Sparing only the weakest of us. Those who had less will to live. Decision trees danced in the distance. Ever present. Just out of reach. We dreamt of being caught In their branches. Enjoying picnics In their shade. Scuffed shoes and Muddy knees. Leaves in our hair. We dreamt of choices. Of paths Untaken. Roads untraveled. Possibilities dangled like future Tenses. Tempting us with certainties. Like Milgram's dial. Then winter Pulled up its cold white sheet.

'Random Forest' by @jpseabright.bsky.social badlilies.uk/jp-seabright

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3 weeks ago
Mountain Top Our heads were almost poking the clouds when we reached the mountain top. Tempted, we were, to peek into heaven — startle God a little. The dews slept in tranquil on the chest of leaves, we sat amidst lush greenery, & within touching

'Mountain Top' by Abu Ibrahim badlilies.uk/abu-ibrahim

4 1 0 0
3 weeks ago
Preview
Issue twenty-three — Bad Lilies

Have you read our new issue, 'Wildfires', yet? If not, now is your chance! badlilies.uk/issue-twenty-three

4 1 0 0
3 weeks ago
Streaker It's late but not dark yet in Essex, so I can see my father walk the garden path to her parents house, snapper in tow, camera shoulder-slung, other hacks pissed off to see them let in after a single knock (never underestimate the civic bonding made in pubs) while I wait in the car in my Guides uniform, knowing, before the nation knows, of her sprint across the silky green of Lords. And this will be tomorrow's news, her cartwheel ahead of the policeman's grasp, Botham's easy grin, all in black and white. My father now returned, overlooking

'Streaker' by @gosspoems.bsky.social badlilies.uk/rebecca-goss-1

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3 weeks ago
Under the Equinox Are you a good boy? Are you gonna die good? The man thrusts a supermarket trolley Down the street. He stops to look at me. I wonder if he thinks he knows me, if I should Turn my eyes away, move off. His cart Is stacked with obsolete computer shells, Black rectangles assembled like a puzzle, An angled space for each discarded part;

'Under the Equinox' by Ernest Hilbert badlilies.uk/ernest-hilbert

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3 weeks ago
Streaker It's late but not dark yet in Essex, so I can see my father walk the garden path to her parents house, snapper in tow, camera shoulder-slung, other hacks pissed off to see them let in after a single knock (never underestimate the civic bonding made in pubs) while I wait in the car in my Guides uniform, knowing, before the nation knows, of her sprint across the silky green of Lords. And this will be tomorrow's news, her cartwheel ahead of the policeman's grasp, Botham's easy grin, all in black and white. My father now returned, overlooking

'Streaker' by @gosspoems.bsky.social badlilies.uk/rebecca-goss-1

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3 weeks ago
Under the Equinox Are you a good boy? Are you gonna die good? The man thrusts a supermarket trolley Down the street. He stops to look at me. I wonder if he thinks he knows me, if I should Turn my eyes away, move off. His cart Is stacked with obsolete computer shells, Black rectangles assembled like a puzzle, An angled space for each discarded part;

'Under the Equinox' by Ernest Hilbert badlilies.uk/ernest-hilbert

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