Jen Thorne

A close-up of military dog tags hanging on metal ball chains from a dark wooden surface. The focus is on the foreground while the background fades into soft blur. Top left: The Broken Spine logo. Top right: "@thebrokenspine.co.uk". Bottom right text reads: "Read Repost Reply #POEMSABOUT #DOGTAGS".

Last week hit hard. This week: #PoemsAbout #DogTags. Name, number, silence, war. Identity reduced to metal and chain. Begins Friday—don’t post early. Tag #PoemsAbout. Use Alt Text. For detailed prompts: shorturl.at/0Xm7A

Congratulations and good luck!

Death of a planet Cry: The banshee rends the burning sky. Ice unfound, seas unbound, Cities drowned, no safe ground. Wail: Forests fail, oceans pale. The earth is charred, the sky is scarred, The deathly bard sings her final shard. Moan: Mountains crumble, rivers groan. Ash in veins, fire in rain, The banshee names our mortal pain. End: No dawn to break, no wound to mend. The voice of fear rings sharp and clear. The death we hear is drawing near.

#blueskyrelay
#banshee

Reflections A puddle waits in the field, its glassy hush holding the sky’s rolling weight. I bend to it, the earth’s small mirror, a basin nestled in mud and light. Racing dog paws scatter calmness, each splash a drumbeat, each ripple a sudden song. My face breaks, reforms, a shifting chorus of selves dancing across the water. The puddle does not mourn its interrupted quiet. It lifts its bright shivers and shows that life is shaped not only by stillness but by shimmering reflections born from each disturbance.

The upside to all this rain is that it provides plenty of inspiration for poems!

@blueskypoetry.bsky.social
#BlueSkyPoetry
#BSPP47 #poetry
#poetrycommunity

Magpie My Father lives in the past tense. He proudly tells stories that make him smile, Like a magpie chortling over a shiny rock. He remembers them because he was there, We remember them because of repetition. He will proclaim (with no irony) that he never grew up. I remember his harsh adult, I know the 'him' he has forgotten. I give him the grace of forgetting to remember that Father. So far, for me, it remains a choice I know this decline should be terrible, but selfishly, I watch each word transport him back Days that made him smile. So I skip the ones that made me cry.

#vss365 #transport #poetry

"No memory of having starred atones for later disregard, or keeps the end from being hard"
--Robert Frost

Desire She asks me, what do you want, and I say I need a raging cattle gun between my eyes. I say, I want to go crazy, like real crazy, not this choked silent suffering but a scream that will burst every seam-crazy, neon-crazy, heroin-crazy, woman with her head in the oven-crazy. The kind with confetti and ambulances. Chalk outlines. Hot as brimstone, emergency room-bright. Look here, I want to open this here window and jump the fuck right out of it. I want to cut deeper. Darker, more demented, more desperate. I want to hemorrhage. I want you to have to sew me back together from scratch, without all of the mistakes, the failure, the fear. Twenty-one stitches is not nearly enough. You ask me, why, and I say, desire desire desire. I am going mad with desire. for him for love for belonging for applause for a hand around my neck for fame for attention for death for cheating death for outliving for the blood of christ For the rush of losing your mind. The desire to cross that line. I want to be the lady in the park that coos at the doves and flaps her arms like wings. I want to dangle from the precipice like a leaf in October, I want to be a tightrope dancer across all of your edges. I want to be that patient on the ward who barks the whole day long like a frenzied dog. I want to stick needles into my arm until I squeal like a porcupine. I want my veins fat with methamphetamine. I want a harder door, a bluer bruise, a more brutal concussion. I want to bash my head against this wall until I laugh again. I want to tear this room down this skin this padded cell a world a girl a wound that hurts like fire that is too sharp to touch to kill to feel to fuck. I want to leave myself behind to become everybody else. I want to be a poet I want to be a lover rockstar priest saint cult leader a goddamn work of art I am possessed by desire and empty as all hell.

For #PoemsAbout #Desire ✨

for @thebrokenspine.co.uk
& @alanparrywriter.co.uk

I know I need to learn how to edit but this is another one of those that just burst out of me in a fountain of blood and snot. It kind of had to get out, I guess.

Thank you for the great prompts. Enjoy your lie-ins!

All My Ghosts Have Bones All the nights collapse beneath the weight of silence, My voice cracks as I recite their broken promises, Ghosts linger, hissing names I cannot forget, Have I not screamed enough into the void to wake them? Bones rattle in the dark, brittle echoes of what was stolen. All the mornings rise distant and cold, My hands reach for shadows that dissolve in air, Ghosts of needles, pills, and despair claw at my chest, Have their trembling bodies never left my dreams? Bones of memory lie fragmented with contempt. All the years stretch forward, cruel and indifferent, My rage burns against the injustice of their vanishing, Ghosts demand I chant their unfinished songs, Have I become the dirt in their graveyards? Bones are all that remain, and even they accuse me.

How could this prompt be anything other than an acrostic?

This helped me give structure to some random lines that wouldn't come out of my head.

Thanks @malformed-poetry.bsky.social

#MPPrompt

I can honestly say this is the only poem I've written of this nature, not quite sure what I was on at the time. It was early in the Covid pandemic, if that had a bearing?

Back to read more posts later.

For #PoemsAbout #Desire
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
#poetry
#poetsonBlueSky

The Wanting Bone Desire is never sated. It howls in the marrow, a wolf in blood’s red chapel, gnawing the knuckle of night, turning lips into lanterns burning the path to ruin. Hedonism takes its toll. Writhing swarms grind cracked ribs in spiralling mills. Base beats in darkened rooms while laughter limps from the mouth of the moon. Euphoria is gluttonous. We claw with longing, dancing on the grave of restraint, feet blistered by pleasure. Throats torn by song beg the night for one more taste.

My offerings to @thebrokenspine.co.uk

#PoemsAbout #Desire

Thank you @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social for sharing my poems.

Thank you ☺️

Elegy for a Hunter of Leaves   When puss was a young and clumsy twist of fur,  He learned to hunt by chasing drifting leaves.  With silent steps and eyes that burned with fire,  He stalked the curling edges of the wind.    This game endured through all our shared years. Each autumn day, returning home from work,  I’d find the hall adorned with leafy spoils, A carpet rich with rust and brittle gold.    Always I thanked him for the gifts,  As I stroked his velvet head in gratitude, And gathered up the haul with ceremony, To place them in a temporary shrine, Until his whiskered head was turned And they could be cast away, Unseen.   But now he’s gone, when autumn comes,  The leaves fall unclaimed across the garden, And I return home to silence, swept and bare.  No rustling welcome greets my weary step,  No scattered proof of love upon the floor.  The gentle rites we shared, now memory And every clean return renews my grief.

Thank you for prompting this poem @sonnetsmith.bsky.social

#WildWalkPrompt #carpet

Amazing, well done.

#poetry #poems #poet #creativewriting #poetrycommunity

😂 that could work better!

Thank you, I'm so glad.

Glimmerwhisk’s Sappy Saga In a glade where mushrooms lie, And unicorns roll their eyes, Glimmerwhisk the fairy flew With sparkly wings and not a clue. She loved a bard named Thistle Gwain, Who claimed he’d fought the Beast of Flame. He hadn’t, it only tripped on a rock, But he bragged about it round the clock. They courted beneath the moon’s soft leer, While the unicorns snorted with jealous sneers. They kissed by a pond that judged them both, And swore their love with dramatic oaths. But bards are fickle, and often flighty, And sappy vows are traded lightly. She gave her heart, he gave a shrug, Then ran away with a banshee named Bug. Glimmerwhisk cursed his socks with flair, And he woke as a frog with decent hair. But revenge did not mend her broken heart, That one cruel trick was just the start. So in that glade, if you feel bold, Beware the myths that fairies told.

Today's prompts from @youngliz.bsky.social, @mwplovesmusic.bsky.social and @ignorantfairy.bsky.social all seemed to align today to make this bit of whimsical, happy nonsense.

#myth
#sappiness
#fairy

#vss365
#emoetry
#blueskyrelay

The cover of the forthcoming tenth volume of Sixty Odd Poets - the Last half Dozen Featuring Susan Darlington, Jim Murdoch, Neil Roystone, Eleanor Cantor, James Lee Jobe and Steve Williams.

Coming in late November... The tenth volume of Sixty Odd Poets - The Last Half Dozen... and the promise of a rebirth for the #SixtyOdd Press next year. #Poetry for all!

😲

Burn You say it will burn. Trumpets will split the sky, and I’ll be left in the wreckage. Well, good. Let it burn. Let the sky split. Let the faithful rise with their wagging fingers and Sunday-best shame. I’ll take the ash and cracked earth, the silence after sermons, the streets without judgment. You call it punishment. I call it release. No more eyes searching for sin. No more venomous mouths spitting scripture, preaching division. The outcasts will survive. Plant gardens in the rubble. Dance without guilt. Love without permission. Stay where the flames make light, and freedom makes room for truth.

#emoetry #rapture
#poetry
#writingcommunity
#blueskypoets

you take
but don't really look
like literature
passed out on the street
maybe one day
my eyes will be
something you want to meet

looking at each other
used to be a pastime
now we just pass

I'm in bed and I don't know
where you are
it's night
we should be looking
at stars

#vss365

A photo of Helen Ivory and Martin Figura, looking more than a little bit like a remake of 'American Gothic'...

And while we're here... a reminder that this year's #WolvesLitFest poetry competition is now open. Judges @helenivory.bsky.social and @martinfigura.bsky.social. £400 first prize. All the info you need is here: pandemonialists.co.uk/wolves-lit-f...

“Dude, Sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something."
-Jake the Dog

Go suck at writing some #poetry today ❤️

Does this work! A WIP experiment- possibly prose poem? Not sure?

@hool415.bsky.social
#promptcombo #workinglove

I think it works. I like it!

Julian another workinglove poem but this time schoolwork @hool415.bsky.social's prompt of #workinglove

baitthelines.blogspot.com/2017/08/popp...

I think so, but perhaps it's more about the feedback. I know the feedback I have received since I joined BlueSky had given me the confidence to write more. That, and all the prompts!

Something stirs beneath the skin of knowing,
unsure if it should rise or fade.
Meaning trembles on the edge,
a thought that fears its form.
Silence flickers once,
almost speaking,
almost seen,
almost,
gone.

#blueskyrelay #prompt #numinous #poetry #nonet #skypoets #blueskypoetry #poetrylovers

Our 3rd Annual "From Trash to Treasure" Kidlit Poetry Contest! Little Thoughts Press and the Revision Raccoon are excited to announce the return of our “From Trash to Treasure” Kidlit Poetry Contest!

Our 3rd annual From Trash to Treasure #kidlit poetry contest opens on Thursday, November 13th!

This year's special guest judge is last year's winner @tracierenee.bsky.social!

Check out all the contest details and polish up those discarded darlings!

www.littlethoughtspress.com/post/our-3rd...