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Fiftywords

@fiftywords.bsky.social

1.5K followers 2.4K following 1.4K posts

Mainly posting poetry and thinking about the world. Feel free to comment

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Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 10m

Thanks for that and hope you’ve had a good #BookshopDay

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 8h

Much appreciated Merril

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 8h

As it’s #BookshopDay here’s a revised version of my poem on the Dublin bookshop Chapters @chaptersbookstore.bsky.social

Not nostalgia, but something deeper dwells in the hush north of the river, where rain beads on the glass
and the traffic hum softens to murmur. Inside, the warmth of old paper rises,
the city left dripping at the mat.
A floorboard sighs, someone pauses over a spine
creased by a dozen owners. Secondhand searchers lean like tired archivists, labels hand-scrawled,
dust honest.
The scent, not one note, but a chord: dried glue, foxed paper,
oak oil, damp wool, the perfume of stories handled often. the smell of Dublin in winter: wet umbrellas, slow afternoons,
and pages turned without haste.
Each book, a collapsed star of thought, its weight felt, not seen, gathers the room into orbit,
binding the brittle with the infinite. Chapters is not a chain, but a conversation in low tones, tourists, students, pensioners
tracing titles once read,
a man humming to a book of poems
Here, the air listens. Spines tilt like philosophers
mid-thought, some lean toward one another
as if remembering
that knowing is never solitary. You move slowly, not out of reverence
but recognition, that every arrangement here
is unrepeatable. A fragile conjunction of stories and silence, of meanings misplaced
and perfectly found.
And you, a reader not yet chosen, wander this quiet constellation north of the river, where the next touch might be the one
that listens back.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 9h

Visceral, elegiac, and mysterious, it reimagines resurrection as both yearning and infection, faith and contagion. It’s power lies in its restraint, it gestures toward revelation but leaves it trembling, unresolved.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 10h

Thanks for that generous feedback Rachel

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 23h

This is wonderful, irreverent, tender, and triumphant all at once.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 23h

Thanks for your comments Carolyn

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 23h

Thank you for the wonderful feedback

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 23h

This poem’s precision is remarkable; every image does double duty, sensory and emotional.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 23h

I love how the poem uses verb tenses to chart the evolution of desire and regret, it’s both playful and poignant. The linguistic conceit never feels forced; it deepens the feeling rather than distracting from it

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

There’s a subtle musicality here, soft consonants and measured rhythm that mirror the calm of acceptance.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks Tracie, I really appreciate that

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you Paul

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

The final turn (‘as vain as anyone, I suppose…’) is quietly disarming, humour and humility intertwined.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

This is beautifully written, a meditation on identity and performance that feels both intimate and universal

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

This is exquisitely written, the imagery of fluid, fruit, and flesh intertwines with emotional fragility beautifully. I love how the poem merges the physical and psychological bruising, swelling, and erosion as emblems of feeling.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

The poem is disarmingly conversational, yet the undercurrent of longing gives it real emotional depth

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

This is beautifully spare, each phrase feels carved, not written

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

This is fierce and unsparing, every line hits with the shock of broken glass.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

This is raw and musical, the rhyme and metre drive the poem like a heartbeat under strain

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 1d

Here’s to the imperfect, the mislabeled, the beautifully unfitting. This piece is for all of us who will not be named by other people’s judgment. #PoemsAbout #ImperfectMe Thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and this wonderful community @thebrokenspine.co.uk

The Name You Gave Me
You gave me a name I never asked for,
a word carved from your slant of sight,
what you call incomplete. But 1 know no lack, my world hums with fullness, my life lived in a key
you refuse to hear. You measure in steps, in movements that conform, while I am content in the spaces
where stillness grows its own rhythm. I carry no burden, but your gaze is heavy,
my being
a question left unanswered. Yet I move through my days
whole, free of the silence
you called a name.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 2d

Wrote this a little while back on the 2nd

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 3d

Today’s #vss365 is about the great Irish revolutionary James Connolly #speirgorm

Lillie
Your Beautiful Life? The fire wouldn't light that morning: smoke curled into the room,
refused to rise. They carried you like a burden
no one dared to name.
No last words. No glance. Only the shuffle of tired boots and one man watching
a wall turn red. I kept your letters with dust in creases, your hand was steady,
always.
Others claimed you.
Recited you in chambers
where no cleaner earns a living wage. Raised glasses to your name
with wine you never tasted.
You were never theirs to own.
Not flag.
Not state. Not the party men
with soft hands and slogans.
You belong to the dream not yet diminished, to bread shared fairly, to work that holds its dignity,
to shelter without shame. To the quiet defiance of those who still believe life can be better
than this. And to us,
the ones who know your words were fire
and are not yet ash.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 4d

This one seems appropriate for today’s #vss365

Teenage Riffs I was fifteen, already full of life, laughing loud, limbs quick, the world still wide and mine,
but then a riff kicked in,
pierced me, like the sound had been waiting for someone alive enough
to catch it.
It sparked me. Buzzcocks on a battered tape,
a Clash lyric like a dare.
I unleashed. Ripped jeans, radio static, hair razored to rebellion,
vinyl sleeves spread out
like maps of who I already was. We moshed in basements, sweat, spit, black nails, Doc Martens stomping out
the heartbeat of the lost. We didn't want tomorrow, just the chorus, louder,
louder, till the walls shook with it,
and we howled it back:
"No Future!"
Our idols were broken angels, Poly Styrene, Howard Devoto, Siouxsie Sue, we worshipped them in stickers and patches, zipped up in leather
and adolescent ache. Every track was a flare,
every night a manifesto.
We believed,
God, we believed,
that songs could save us. And maybe
they did.

Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 7d

Here’s one for today’s #vss365