Fiftywords

That’s very kind of you, thanks so much Sarah

Bonny Breathless bright-eyed, wind-cheeked, mud-fingered, loud with laughter, all sunlight and mischief, loosed like a lark in the morning's wide wonder, running, running into the day.

Some childhood joy for today’s #vss365

Thanks Jen but not as gorgeous as his playing

Harmolodic Prayer for Ornette Not a note, but a flight, not a chord, but a shimmering rift in the fabric, a blue-hot seam where breath meets eternity, a saxophone unraveling the seams of silence, shaking off the weight of time. Who said melody must follow the road? Who said the line must bow to the shape? Your horn, a river ungoverned, slipping past history, breaking the levees of all that was known, and still, still, still it sings, it soars, it prays. This was always church, not the cathedral of form, but the open air temple where sound is wind , where free is not just a word but a way, where music is light bending, voices colliding, time folding into itself, a human body blown into brass. Brother Ornette, you knew, harmony is not a prison. Dissonance is only freedom misunderstood. And love, love is the note not yet played, the sound that lingers when the band walks away. Today, in the shifting air, your saxophone still speaks. Somewhere, the harmolodic saints are lifting their horns, peeling open the sky.

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

Whatever happened to Romaine calm and carry on 🤦‍♂️
Looks great and I think the soundtrack makes it

That’s great. Look forward to hearing it

Then the Voices Came Not in thunder, not in orders, not from podiums or pulpits, but from corners, curbs, classrooms, kitchens. They didn't wait to be summoned. They arrived in their own time, like spring, like breath, like the truth you forgot was yours. It wasn't harmony. It was a thousand keys at once, notes clashing, histories overlapping, griefs carried together until they rose. A hand lifted, fist clenched, and did not lower. And someone said: Is this what it feels like to speak without permission? And someone else said: We are not echoes anymore. And the voices kept coming. Some cracked. Some roared. Some wept when they rose. But still, they came. And the silence, so long mistaken for peace, finally let go. Now listen. Find the note only you can sing. Let it rise. We are waiting for your voice.

A paean to collective action for today’s #vss365

I think that would be wonderful. Thank you

Chorus of the Clouds (A Monologue After Aristophanes) We are the Clouds, the soft-spoken gods of confusion. We drift, we dazzle, we decorate your delusions in hues of sunset and half-truth. We watched Socrates float in his basket of air, sniffing lightning for logic. Now we watch your gurus do the same, but with ring lights and conspiracy hashtags. You don't want truth. You want drama that evaporates before the rain can test it. You want clouds: shifting, seductive, safe from consequence. We're not your teachers. We're your cover story. And when the storm comes, as it always does, you'll blame us, forgetting we warned you beneath the noise of trends and likes, in every rumble of doubt and every flash of realisation. Now hush. The wind is changing. And we have new shapes to wear.

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.

Thanks for that Rosanna

Thanks Sarah, much appreciated

Thanks for your perceptive comments Matthias

Absolutely. Thanks for reading and commenting

Thanks Sarah, really appreciate those comments

Thanks Beth. Have a great day

Biddy Early They said she kept a blue bottle. The colour of deep water, of bruises. Men with books came searching for the thing they feared inside it. But the hills had already told her their secrets. Bog-myrtle. Foxglove. The slow grammar of rain. Women crossed the dark fields to her door with quiet emergencies. Milk gone bitter. Blood that would not come. The future pressing like weather. The priests called it witchcraft. The law called it fraud. But the land had always trusted her hands. perdans ined nothing. Only the dangerous rumour that a woman might know what the earth knows.

In Irish tradition, a bean feasa (“wise woman ”) was a healer and seer who worked with herbs, lore, and the wisdom of the land. Biddy Early was one of the most famous. Denounced by some clergy as a witch, she was brought to court but never convicted. #vss365 #SpeirGorm #SpéirGhorm

It was an excellent piece, as always

This feels expansive and inward at once: domestic anxiety, ecological awareness, love, and political dread braided through morning consciousness. The poem’s emotional intelligence lies in its refusal to separate tenderness from dread.

Steel Lines Steel lines, straight as virtue, carry us swiftly into forgetting. The future rushes in, bearing the oldest sins.

Let’s have a go at this #fragmentsfriday then
@blackboughpoetry.bsky.social @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social

Very perceptive as ever Jan. Thank you

Yes and that act of curation is also a form of discipline

Thanks Rachel

Definitely not what I was after 😂

A sharp, compact meditation on consciousness observing itself. The recursive structure brilliantly enacts the idea of infinite regression.

A finely poised encounter between human and animal consciousness. The fox is rendered with quiet authority, ancient, composed, unhurried.

Thanks John and all the time you take to read and comment

That’s very kind of you

I’d probably go for Joyce “I cannot say anything about this book because I haven’t had time to read it. Competent critics have called it the greatest contribution to the fiction of the 20th Century and equally competent critics have called it tosh. I leave it to you.”

Thank you Merril and fully agree about Evie

Many thanks John