David Birch
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davidbirch.bsky.social
David Birch
@davidbirch.bsky.social
1.2K followers 840 following 1.5K posts
Worked in education and mostly taken up with poetry these days: see some of my poems at https://wildfire-words.com/?s=David+Birch and in the latest @thebrokenspine.co.uk collection 'Beautiful Little Fools'. Also editor at https://www.tiptontimes.org.uk/
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Reposted by David Birch
grahamandre.bsky.social
So tomorrow we start our 9th #FebMusicChallenge can't wait to see what songs you pick this year #FebMusicChallenge26
January 31, 2026 at 12:21 PM
Reposted by David Birch
andywilliamson.com
Good morning everyone, happy to share this draft poem with you for #poemsabout #blackveils. Another tricky prompt from @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk! Look forward to reading others later!

#poems #poetry #scottishpoetry #scottishwriting
Shelter in the veil of night we shelter in a cave this thin place above corries and rocks wind or voices of people or others past or present whistle or echo in song outside a storm lashes the hillside inside there is calm I am not alone
January 30, 2026 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by David Birch
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! This one was another difficult one from #PoemsAbout #BlackVeils Thank you as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Poem: Dazzle and Decay Bright blue skies belie the bleak, this winter’s sad-eyed mien, mourners, raven-clad, the salt of stars and sea within their tears, a flood of memories. And with another turning, the world is further, feather-veiled, the crows cry warning, as faux dragons puff smoky breaths-- the monsters are but puny men living for their self-written myths, who’d enshroud the sun for their noxious dreams, then charge a fee for light’s gift.
January 30, 2026 at 11:30 AM
Reposted by David Birch
johnchmura.bsky.social
#PoemsAbout #Blackveils @thebrokenspine.co.uk
I will put a reading in the comments.
BLACKVEILS I. onyx eagle black veiled raptor resisting a rest artist the god beclouding their eyes with hallowed hollows flightless avian carved from night by sharp pens written in undiluted blood to protect and to serve of thee I sing a cappella a funeral carol II. Facing a day awake, watching the puppy breathe slow, synchronic puffs, laid upon my wife’s reclining chest, soft ruff brushing her smooth cheek. Peace be with you. I mute my phone to silence the shutter while I snap sleepy pics cute AF, then dumbly shudder, doomscroll, balaclava veiled agents of death shooting people in the face, in the back.
January 30, 2026 at 12:57 PM
Reposted by David Birch
pvcannon.bsky.social
For #PoemsAbout #BlackVeil

With thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and the @thebrokenspine.co.uk
A free verse poem that explores dealing with past pain and hanging on to it, but yet the light pierces the black veil of it.
January 30, 2026 at 1:23 PM
Reposted by David Birch
anna-orridge.bsky.social
#BlackVeils #PoemsAbout #tanka

Your apologies,
simply black veils to cover
a void of concern.
Know I see through the dark gauze
as I would the mists of dusk.
January 30, 2026 at 5:08 PM
Reposted by David Birch
bennewmark.bsky.social
#FridayFive is nostalgic.
1. Nightswimming. REM.
2. Grand Canyon. The Drive by Truckers.
3. Life in a Northern Town. The Dream Academy.
4. The Little Pot Stove. Nic Jones.
5. River. Joni Mitchell.
January 30, 2026 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by David Birch
rotherwrites.bsky.social
Here's a voice that wants to make a statement. Don't think I've written anything like this before for #PoemsAbout #BlackVeils
@thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoetsOnBluesky
Impact Statement #BlackVeils Was I tainted by this mantle, or was it you. Did I cover myself for your pleasure, or your obedience. Know that what lies hidden is mine to keep my shroud revealing nothing, all light absorbed. I don’t reflect your gaze or your appeals. This is not for you but me, unless you will it otherwise while you hold me in shadow, a vassal of your own fear too impotent to press your own light through. I stand empty, nameless and opaque while you look. I am alive within, my flame small but constant held over until you and your kind are gone you always dimmer than I will ever appear. In dying this way I have gained new life. This black is my freedom, my purity. © Glenn Barker January 2026
January 30, 2026 at 8:11 AM
davidbirch.bsky.social
Delighted to hear that 3 of my poems have just been published by @wildfirewords.bsky.social. you can read them here (and listen to me read them) pol01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...
Open Submissions 9: Share Your Original Writing Today
Join Wildfire Words for Open Submissions 9! Submit your poetry or flash fiction by Jan 1—original work only, audio welcome!
pol01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com
January 29, 2026 at 8:11 PM
Reposted by David Birch
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo @rfsmith.bsky.social
and to #promptcombo #moment
Will look for something else too but this is the sort of short write @victoriaspires.bsky.social delightfully calls a poetic ‘trinket’.
Have a great week all!
Sunbeams True story: knew a college-girl, said she was self-experimenting with a home-cooked joy when at the most moment, a sunbeam appeared. These two images for me cannot now be untied: those gentle, warming, first reaching fingers of love.
January 26, 2026 at 11:49 AM
Reposted by David Birch
victoriaspires.bsky.social
For @rfsmith.bsky.social and your #PromptCombo #Moment.

Death, indeterminacy and musical notation.
January 27, 2026 at 12:09 PM
Reposted by David Birch
poetry-with-hart.bsky.social
I'm an abundance
of incomplete thoughts swirling,
snow drifting moments
with feet frozen to the ground.
I'm screaming, without a sound.

#promptcombo #moments #tankathursday #frozen #wildwalkprompt #abundance #tanka #tankaboutit #poem #poetry #micropoem #micropoetry
January 27, 2026 at 2:20 PM
davidbirch.bsky.social
Thank you @rfsmith.bsky.social for your #PromptCombo #Moment which brought to mind a recent moment that brought home the fragility of existence. Looking forward to other contributions later
January 27, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Reposted by David Birch
stacebot.bsky.social
For this week's #PoemsAbout #FalseCrowns, I'm thinking about shine mistaken for sanctity.

Thank you to the host @alanparrywriter.co.uk
and @thebrokenspine.co.uk and to all of the other writers.

#poetry #poem #writing #PoetryCommunity #BlueSkyPoets
adoration sometimes the shape of a crown doesn’t hold. as if patina weren’t a real thing. that i read about in books. christ church. your jesus christ pose. the blue green. the green blue. false. false orange. knelt behind cars in the dull-sun shine. your hands in my pockets. warm. dark. dirty pennies.
January 23, 2026 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by David Birch
rburrows.bsky.social
I think our system falsely peddles intelligence as the key to success - it’s definitely overated! 😂Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk 🥰 for the #PoemsAbout #FalseCrowns prompt. Apologies to those who aren’t familiar with our exam system! (GCSEs at 16 - graded 1-9) #poetry
January 23, 2026 at 6:59 AM
Reposted by David Birch
rotherwrites.bsky.social
For #PoemsAbout we have been given an easy and prescient carrot to savour with #FalseCrowns. For this week my dramatic personae are:
Jack, Lord of the Flies
Biff, Back to the Future II

You may guess where I'm going with this.

@thebrokenspine.co.uk
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
“Bollocks to the Rules” That’s Jack talking. Public school to feral animal spear, loin cloth and war-paint. This king’s new clothes. Biff, dolt with a kingship kink. He got lucky on a punt, made the deal from a steal, built the tower became enamoured of a demi-god. Jack and Biff; no metal on their heads. Dirty tricks promotion to king of the hill bully-boy ball crunching skills perfected at Tom Browne’s School of Management and that West Point methodology. Peace is a sharpened stick, ready to skewer diplomacy in a strangle hold a twist on “letting someone have it your way”. The conch, all hot air, to me to you paralysis rulebook burnt for a new way of iron the old order a boiling pink froth dumped into the sea. Jack and Biff, deal-tree seismic shakers fiction or allegory, adults still fresh from nursery school, grabbing all they can while everyone is watching. © Glenn Barker January 2026
January 23, 2026 at 8:27 AM
Reposted by David Birch
janpsolivagant.bsky.social
#PoemsAbout #FalseCrowns 🙏 @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk

#newpoem: ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

#WickerMan #Satire #FanFiction #FolkHorror #WeirdSisters #70s #Cults #ProsePoem

#image: ©Richard Littler, 2016
Wicker Man Sequel I: Winter of Discontent, 1973-74 Once the ice cubes are Sucked dry, Our frosted breaths spell D—th: Mouthed but never, ever Sounded. They come in Threes: Tokens hinting at some Calamity afoot. Firstly: Our genial hybrid – part folk horror, part Noir, part musical, part documentary – Mangled into some double-feature, B-movie schlock fest. Secondly: The Burren Head Wicker Man ruin Prefiguring the fate of the Director’s Cut negative, buried under Pylons that prop up the M4. You just don’t do that to a negative! Sergeant Howie would no doubt Liken such an act to desecrating the Host. Thirdly: Prophetic atrocity nested in an Islander’s dream. Christ mocking us with His earthly span: that execrable “Not the Bees!” Hollywood Remake, Thirty-three years hence. Baulking at child sacrifice, We abandon a plot to kidnap the future Leading man, just nine years old in 1973. We get what we want: a Bountiful harvest. But demand for our apples Plummets in the aftermath of the October War. We enlist the W.I.* Expertise of matriarchs from Christian neighbours in the Archipelago, who teach us the Lost alchemical arts of Chutney and bottled preserves. Their dignified, often formidable Bearing stuns us. We start to wonder at Our role as bit-part players in those Tawdry, communal Sex romps splayed nightly before The Green Man - enacted to Delight Our Laird and His Inner Circle, Three Blonde Weird Sisters. Yes, Lord Summerisle – that Hefner-cum-Dracula Cult commandant, with his Walt Whitman snail fetish; His drag-queen shtick Designed to Upstage the May Queen. He languishes Now that the Weird Sisters - The Landlord’s Daughter The Headmistress The Librarian – have Fled the island. ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 With Emotional incontinence Born of intemperance, He weeps at photographs Blazoning his Prize crop; Searches the inscrutable Gaze that rivets him to the Life-size portrait of his Victorian grandsire; Wakes in cold sweats at Nightmares in which his Venerable forebear’s Eye sockets bore into the Back of his head. Elsewhere on the island, with the Three-Day Week in full swing, Televisions and lava lamps expire as Dusk falls. Lindsay Kemp - Alder MacGregor, if you will - Teaches bored kids the art of Shadow-play mime by Guttering candlelight. The Green Man is plagued by the Ghost of Willow MacGregor’s Butt-naked Body double pounding on the Wall adjoining the Guest Room – a scene Played out in Infinite loops. At our wits’ end, We coax a grim-jawed Exorcist out of his Glasgow Presbytery. He grudgingly agrees to Rid us of this Maddening nuisance. All the while, Lord Summerisle - Listless, demoralized, Drunken recluse in his Baronial manor - Slouches towards his Appointment with the Wicker Man. ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 *W.I. – Women’s Institute ©Richard Littler/Scarfolk, 2016 Scarfolk spoof of a heritage-site road sign which, in this instance, signals the proximity of the Wicker Man site (just 300 yards away) managed by "The Necromantic Trust."
January 22, 2026 at 11:20 PM
Reposted by David Birch
fhpowellwriter.bsky.social
#PoemsAbout #FalseCrowns
@thebrokenspine.co.uk
@alanparrywriter.co.uk
January 23, 2026 at 6:55 AM
Reposted by David Birch
johnchmura.bsky.social
#PoemsAbout #FalseCrowns @thebrokenspine.co.uk
I will put a link to a reading in the comments.
IMPERIAL AMERICAN BLUES got the Imperial American Blues the Imperial American Blues my second Barbie can’t afford a pair of plastic shoes got the Imperial American Blues wake up every evening a man without a song remember that I’m grieving and everything that’s wrong got the Imperial American Blues the Imperial American Blues my second Barbie can’t afford a pair of plastic shoes got the Imperial American Blues God bless this bleak dominion and all the children in it blow your wad on Mega Millions but you’re never gonna win it got the Imperial American Blues the Imperial American Blues my second Barbie can’t afford a pair of plastic shoes got the Imperial American Blues traded in his teenage zits and classic redneck mullet for camo that don’t nearly fit immunity and bullets got the Imperial American Blues the Imperial American Blues my second Barbie can’t afford a pair of plastic shoes got the Imperial American Blues acronyms across his back and pockets full of mace attack him with a simple fact he’ll shoot you in the face got the Imperial American Blues the Imperial American Blues my second Barbie can’t afford a pair of plastic shoes got the Imperial American Blues he takes the land from the free and the brave from their home there ain’t no room for dignity with Trump and Kristi Noem got the Imperial American Blues the Imperial American Blues my second Barbie can’t afford a pair of plastic shoes got the Imperial American Blues got the imperial American Blues
January 23, 2026 at 5:53 AM
Reposted by David Birch
jenthorne.bsky.social
It's Friday, it's #PoemsAbout day.

Here is my offering for #FalseCrowns.

@thebrokenspine.co.uk
Flags in the Fire I see them raise their flags shields, stitched from my colors. The fabric trembles against the poles as if even the wind refuses to swear allegiance. Those banners crack like inherited whips when they snap in the air loud enough to scare the weak, but never strong enough to silence the ones who see. Beneath those fluttering distortions the crowned pretenders, gold flaking off in dull spirals, sit on thrones built from splinters and empty promises. They wave their flags harder when the truth gets close, hoping cloth can cover rot, hollow symbols can outshine the weight of what they’ve tarnished. But flags remember. They remember the hands that raised them, the blood that darkens their hems, the storms that tore them free. And when the reckoning comes quiet, yet inevitable, those false crowns will hit the ground first, and the flags will fall beside them, finally unburdened by the lies they were forced to carry
January 23, 2026 at 8:15 AM
Reposted by David Birch
janedougherty47.bsky.social
A short one for @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk
#PoemsAbout #FalseCrowns
January 23, 2026 at 8:18 AM
Reposted by David Birch
anntigone.bsky.social
#PoemsAbout #FalseCrowns

He put me up there
on a throne
with a gaudy crown

and what was I then
but a symbol for him?...
January 23, 2026 at 7:17 AM
Reposted by David Birch
fiftywords.bsky.social
In a time of rising fear and fragile freedoms, this #PoemsAbout #FalseCrowns speaks to the quiet strength of people who refuse to bow. Many thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
No Kings A nation made a promise no kings, only people. But a rotting pumpkin idol dreams, of crowns, of chosen blood, of borders turned to hate, speaking the language of order and vengeance. Enforcers come at dawn, armoured in law, naming neighbours scum. Doors splinter, papers scatter, children shiver in the blue light of their screens. The state calls it duty; the people call it fear. They speak of enemies within, of traitors in the crowd, of patriots betrayed by truth. Each charge, a warning; each trial, a performance to feed the faithful and frighten the rest. They do not seek justice, only vengeance dressed in law. Yet defiance moves unseen, burning through the fear, through streets and silent rooms where courage still whispers. The crown will crack. The lie will fracture. There are no kings in what is coming, only people, bound by common breath, reclaiming the republic.
January 23, 2026 at 5:58 AM
Reposted by David Birch
pvcannon.bsky.social
For #PoemsAbout #FalseCrowns

With thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
A free-verse poem that speaks about those who feel they are entitled to take power over us. The poem references MacBeth, Arthur, and Game of Thrones in the process.
January 22, 2026 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by David Birch
sueimnw.bsky.social
For this week's #PoemsAbout theme #FalseCrowns @thebrokenspine.co.uk
January 23, 2026 at 6:02 AM