Fiftywords

Thanks Merril, we seek to control that which is beyond control

Thank you, really appreciate that

Not a bad place to be

Many thanks John

This bit of fun inspired by the great James Joyce certainly gave me a laugh for my birthday #vss365

Thank you Emily, that’s incredibly kind

Thanks Jan, we are indeed a strange species

For #BookWormSat I’ve returned to Samuel Beckett’s famous stage directions for Waiting for Godot ‘A country road. A tree. Evening.'

Here’s my #PoemsAbout #BlackSky and thanks to
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

Here’s one for #vss365

80 years since an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and still we pile up nuclear weapons and seem intent on destroying our planet

Today’s #vss365 is for the great James Baldwin

Thanks for that Matthias, much appreciated

The clouds, the dull shimmer, the receding past, an exquisite mirroring of emotional erosion. A reverse Orpheus, stripped of romance. Here, Eurydice claims her voice and her fury.

That’s beautifully spare and deeply evocative, elegiac without overreaching. The metaphor of the telescope as both connection and distance is exquisitely judged.

From child's play to stellar implosion, the poem traverses scales of wonder with kinetic lyricism. A joyride through metaphor and matter, equal parts whimsy, science, and sensuality.

The poem suspends loss in a celestial register, its imagery luminous and echoing with tender awe.

A gentle anthem of longing and resilience, its refrain echoes with emotional clarity and quiet strength.

Celestial and corporeal, this poem charts intimacy through the metaphor of ink and orbit, where tenderness meets hesitancy. It’s witty, sensual, and bittersweet - a poem that traces the skin's surface only to reveal the emotional terrain beneath.

Thanks so much for that Jan

It’s not what I intended but that’s where it ended up. Thanks that

This week's #PoemsAbout #StarCrossed is a meditation on the divine feminine as the source of all things. It asks: what happens when Earth betrays her origin?
When the world chooses greed over memory, conquest over connection? @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Not martyr, not metaphor. Just breath made unbearable. The dust held his shape a moment longer than justice allowed. A stillness not born of peace, but of a rifle's decision to rewrite the land in silence. Some men walk with a tenderness that unsettles walls. They name the trees. They listen to ruins as if they still speak. He was one of those, the kind who believes the horizon can be taught like language, like memory. But this is a place where belief is punished with precision. Where names are erased before they echo, and grief must pass through metal gates. So now, one fewer voice to tell us what the stones remember. One more grave in a field that still waits to be whole. And still, we do not forget how the air once bent around his presence. Or how even in dying, he made them afraid of gentleness.

Not martyr, not metaphor. Just breath made unbearable. The dust held his shape a moment longer than justice allowed. A stillness not born of peace, but of a rifle's decision to rewrite the land in silence. Some men walk with a tenderness that unsettles walls. They name the trees. They listen to ruins as if they still speak. He was one of those, the kind who believes the horizon can be taught like language, like memory. But this is a place where belief is punished with precision. Where names are erased before they echo, and grief must pass through metal gates. So now, one fewer voice to tell us what the stones remember. One more grave in a field that still waits to be whole. And still, we do not forget how the air once bent around his presence. Or how even in dying, he made them afraid of gentleness.

In memory of Awdah Hathaleen, a teacher, activist, and voice of peaceful resistance killed by an Israeli settler while defending his village.
He was not a symbol, yet his life and death speak to the cruelty of occupation and the quiet strength of those who endure it.

Thank you for that

Thanks Rob

This is for today’s #vss365

Sport can be healing but it can also hurt. This piece is about the quiet courage behind the game, especially in GAA, where pride and pressure often go hand in hand. #GAA #AllIreland
#SpeirGorm #Donegal #Kerry

Thanks for that, I really appreciate it