Merril D. Smith
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merrildsmith.bsky.social
Merril D. Smith
@merrildsmith.bsky.social
1.1K followers 810 following 4.1K posts
Poet, Historian, Lover of river walks and the sea. Cat Lady. Poetry Collection: River Ghosts (Nightingale & Sparrow Press) New Poetry Collection: Held Inside the Folds of Time (Jane's Studio Press).
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merrildsmith.bsky.social
Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 5d
Another current events poem for #PoemsAbout #Undressed written after I listened to Rep. Pramila Jayapal discuss Bondi's disgusting performance at the oversight hearing. Thank you as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Waiting for a Meteor She—they—coerced, undressed by eyes and hands. She—they—unapologetic, bedecked in lies, adorned with blithering blather, perform for an audience of one, while unredacted names are trawled through the swamp-- victims, survivors, naked, exposed again-- their predators mud-crawl through the murk, like dinosaurs, not yet extinct, they rumble and hiss, smile crocodile smiles across their buried secrets, fondle their gold.
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
thebrokenspine.co.uk
#PoemsAbout #UnderTheSkin starts Friday.

Write what settles in quietly.
Scent.
Memory.
The pressure of being known.

Some things don’t bruise the surface.
They change the way you move.

Draft now.
Share from Friday.
Tag your post.
Use Alt Text.
A person stands in low, warm light wearing a yellow sleeveless bodysuit. Their arms are tattooed, and they hold a pineapple at their lower torso. Their head is slightly bowed, expression unreadable. The Broken Spine fountain pen logo appears in the top left corner. “@thebrokenspine.co.uk” is written in white at the top right. Bold white text in the lower right reads: “Read Repost Reply #POEMSABOUT #UNDERTHESKIN”.
February 17, 2026 at 9:00 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
thebrokenspine.co.uk
A5 page. 2 poems. 10pt Times New Roman.
That’s the formality.
Everything else? Break it.
Rip up the rulebook. Burn the workshop.
Write it like it matters.
#PoemsAbout #LiftToTheSky #PoetsOfBluesky #WednesdayWIPs #Poetry #SubmissionWindow
Call for Submissions: Poetry With Spit, Spine, and Something to Say - The Broken Spine
Submissions Open Throughout February 2026 | Publication Later That Year
thebrokenspine.co.uk
February 17, 2026 at 7:00 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Some Kisses Are Best Forgotten adelectablelife.com/2026/02/16/s...
Some Kisses Are Best Forgotten
It’s Prosery Monday on dVerse.  This week, Mish is hosting and she pulled me in with the request we use the line “Lips forget what they have kissed” from the wonderful Toni Morrison’s p…
adelectablelife.com
February 17, 2026 at 11:09 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
It's Monday, and I'm musing. This is my weekly post of #poetry, #photos, and commentary on the past week. It took me awhile to get it together this morning.

merrildsmith.org/2026/02/16/h...
Hold Fast
Monday Morning Musings Hold Fast “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars”–Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” Leaves of Grass “Hold fast to dreamsFor …
merrildsmith.org
February 16, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
thebrokenspine.co.uk
This prize won’t change your life.
Neither do most prizes.
It rewards one editor’s favourite poems and pays them.
You helped build it with us. That’s what matters.
#TheBrokenSpineAward #ByPoetsForPoets #PoemsAbout #LiftToTheSky
Black-and-white graphic of a vintage typewriter seen from above. Torn paper strips sit in the typewriter reading “£1200 RAISED” and “WIN CASH” in bold lettering. Below, the hashtags “#TheBrokenSpineAward” and “#ByPoetsForPoets” are printed. The overall style is gritty, high-contrast, and zine-like.
February 16, 2026 at 5:00 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
brendafromia.bsky.social
#poemsabout #undressed

I
stand here,
my mouth agape,
Injustice surrounds
me like a cloak.
Racism
undressed.
Bare.

Bare.
Undressed,
Naked hate.
I scream aloud,
Is there no recourse?
Love is greater
than hatred.
Undressed
Love.
February 14, 2026 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
stacebot.bsky.social
For this week's #PoemsAbout #Undressed, I'm thinking about edges made plain.

Thank you to the host @alanparrywriter.co.uk and
@thebrokenspine.co.uk and to all of the other writers.
bodies are a boundary-- a field of nerves. not desire. undressed, the border shows. mediation gone. cover gone. skin is not softness. it is edge. a room without curtains is still a room. a body in a doorway is still a door. breath marks the air. distance remains. the throat. the hollow. edge made plain.
February 14, 2026 at 4:11 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
samanthaterrell.bsky.social
#poetrylovers , have you got your tickets to the launch of For, On, or After yet?! Join us for an afternoon/evening of sharing & celebrating the craft of poetry and those we write for, on, or after! www.eventbrite.com/e/for-on-or-...

#poetrycommunity
#booklaunch
#writingcommunity
eventbrite screenshot
February 11, 2026 at 8:43 PM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
poetryman1.bsky.social
Here I am, over here! Some good ones this week!

@alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk

#poemsabout #undressed
February 13, 2026 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
fhpowellwriter.bsky.social
#PoemsAbout #Undressed

@thebrokenspine.co.uk

@alanparrywriter.co.uk
February 13, 2026 at 7:05 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
rburrows.bsky.social
This #PoemsAbout #Undressed is a true one - names and nicknames changed - slightly! 😂 Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk #poetry
February 13, 2026 at 6:52 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
ignorantfairy.bsky.social
Not an easy write this time
Here's my offering for #poemsabout undressed

Again I didn't went the literal route.
#poetrycommunity
between the tents stripped of anything they wore rights, dignity and clothing because clothing constitutes identity and identity means nothing between the tents between the fences where every snap becomes a threat — electrified truncheons electrified minds detention centers modern euphemism for concentration camps where your voice becomes a hush, a whisper, then nothing worse than underfunded federal prisons, where at least there is a future outside stripped of anything they were rights, dignity and clothing because clothing constitutes being human and between the tents that's where humanity gets lost — between confiscated jeans and jewellery
February 13, 2026 at 3:40 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
janpsolivagant.bsky.social
🙏 @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAbout #Undressed

#poetry: ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

#TheGaze #Depression #Adolescence #Vulnerability #IngmarBergman #FannyandAlexander
The Gaze Puberty has pounced, Painting my Gauche, Bumbling, Graceless Eleven-year-old self in Ever more egregious, Hormonal hues. A Year passes. We move. Felixstowe Beach, Summer 1983 - Perhaps the last time I would Look good in skinny jeans. Buoyant, voluble interludes Between bouts of familial dysfunction Punctured by a Presence that Only I seem to be aware of. Stranger: pallid, corpulent, Puffy-faced, blank-eyed Forty-year-old mother, Unseasonably clad in Black and brown layers – Mute, motionless, Expressionless, with Evident hair loss. My barely acknowledged Horror, revulsion at finding myself on a Noisy, crowded beach in Summer has likely found its Fleshy form. Simile, analogy Elude me. Incongruity: Not the woman, but the Mirth, Conviviality. Weegee. Coney Island, 1940. Girl flashes a smile at the Camera, while her Drowned boyfriend is tended to by Lifeguards. Muscled, young-buck Rubberneckers glare back at the viewer, Some perhaps in years to come: Corpses themselves – Shot up, charred, washed up - on Utah, Omaha, Iwo Jima beaches. Then I myself am Rubbernecked. Executing a maladroit Manoeuvre under a bathing towel, Changing into or out of trunks, I lock eyes with The Gaze. Her husband, children, My siblings, parents Dissolve into shits and giggles at my Twelve-year-old awkwardness. The Gaze is of those Sunk up to their oxters in Quicksand or slurry, no longer Struggling – but surrendering. Eyes glazed, resigned, but not vacant. I feel Her Gaze is parsing some Hidden portion of my psyche. Three years later, I meet The Gaze again, Watching Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander. © Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025 This time, I’m a teenage Alexander Ekdahl, face to face with Aunt Elsa who – Toad-like, mute, Immobile, bed-ridden - Bodies forth the joyless, oppressive Atmosphere of the Bishop’s house. That year, I’m riveted to my own bed for Days on end by some Malignant sadness. Until my mother literally shakes me Out of it. Years of dysthymia, dislocation, Desolation follow. I scrape through School badly bruised, travel, drift, Make it to university at twenty-one. First-classed, but adrift again, I am Blindsided by the first episode of Major depression at twenty-five - Classic age of onset, apparently. Decades of recurrent bouts ensue. What did The Gaze see all those Years ago? And who was She? Shadow? Kindred Spirit? Malign Twin? Familiar? Witch trapped by a wicked spell? Or simply a clinically depressed Mother on the cusp of midlife? I often feel I was cursed-blessed by That Gaze. Was it imparting some secret Knowledge to my twelve-year-old Self? The Evil Eye, it seems, is Not Always Malevolent. © Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025
February 13, 2026 at 6:46 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Roberta Writes - d'Verse, W3 and Thursday Doors roberta-writes.com/2026/02/14/r...
Roberta Writes – d’Verse, W3 and Thursday Doors
It’s been a bad week. I ended up resigning from my job yesterday. It is time but its been a hard decision because there are a lot of people I like at the firm and I know they need me. This is…
roberta-writes.com
February 14, 2026 at 10:31 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social
For this week's #poemsabout #undressed @thebrokenspine.co.uk & @alanparrywriter.co.uk #poems #poetry #poetrycommunity
Yr Undressed attention is distracted from the undressed fist and gun to the invaders to the invaders without fists and guns away from the invaders of our private interests and family who say the fist and gun are necessary for our health and safety. Beware the invaders are here already. They are undressed in riches but need you to look at the poor undressed in small boats.
February 13, 2026 at 9:52 PM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social
A fragment of poetry for #FragmentsFriday
@blackboughpoetry.bsky.social

Always squabbles about dust
on the mantelpiece
as the home crumbles.

When steam become clouds,
and rails telegraph.
February 13, 2026 at 7:32 PM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
andywilliamson.com
Here's a wee poem I wrote last night for the new #fragmentsfriday from @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social
@blackboughpoetry.bsky.social - the challenge: one poem 18 words or less! #poems #poetry #poetrycommunity
Vigil I wait for you on a mourning tide wondering if hoping it will turn
February 13, 2026 at 9:46 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
matthewmcsmith.bsky.social
For #valentinesday and #fragmentsfriday a night micro 🌹 😙

#poetry #micro #touch #kiss #micropoem #poet #poetry #Valentine2026 #ValentinesDay2026 #poetsofbluesky
A love poem
February 13, 2026 at 10:09 PM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
marandina.bsky.social
‪
Excited to support the new project from
@matthewmcsmith.bsky.social & @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social

Here's my contribution

Looking forward to reading everyone's work
#fragmentsfriday
Brief poem about loss
February 13, 2026 at 8:38 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
hool415.bsky.social
Hullo @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social and to the new 18 word maximum challenge
#fragmentsfriday
Thanks as always to @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social for these inventions. #poetry
My Favourite Star Is Orange And Called Alphard Historically, Heart of the Hydra earth’s atmospheric scintillations making it erratically and often rather eerily, appear to beat.
February 13, 2026 at 2:37 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
poetry-with-hart.bsky.social
Beyond naked,
what exists?
You undress me
yet parts remain
hidden, no one
must ever see.

(Reworked a scrapped start for today's prompts. Kinda fits as a micro eh?)

@blackboughpoetry.bsky.social
@thebrokenspine.co.uk

#fragmentsfriday #poemsabout #undressed #micropoem #micropoetry #poem #poetry
February 13, 2026 at 2:55 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Roberta Writes - “The Soldier and the Radium Girl Part 1: The Bloom of Youth, Chapter 1: Enlist in haste, repent at leisure (cont. 17 & 18)” by Roberta Eaton Cheadle roberta-writes.com/2026/02/13/r...
Roberta Writes – “The Soldier and the Radium Girl Part 1: The Bloom of Youth, Chapter 1: Enlist in haste, repent at leisure (cont. 17 & 18)” by Roberta Eaton Cheadle
Thank you, Nolcha Fox, for publishing parts 17 & 18 of this book. The end of chapter 1 is in sight. Jake Tanner Letter from Private Jake Tanner to his fiancé, Kate Henderson 8 January 1918 My d…
roberta-writes.com
February 13, 2026 at 6:13 PM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
fiftywords.bsky.social
What happens to a saucy postcard when the woman walks out on the gag? #PoemsAbout #Undressed Thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Well, Blow Me She wasn't undressed. She was undone by the breeze. The wind off the promenade had ideas of its own, lifted hems, loosened discipline, persuaded buttons to reconsider their loyalties. Nothing scandalous. Only clothing, briefly indiscreet. A hat went first, cartwheeling toward the pier. Then a towel, suddenly independent, falling to the sand. He stood nearby trying to behave like a lighthouse, upright, firm, wishing for a stronger gust. "Terribly draughty," she said, holding everything in place with one heroic elbow. Even her bathing suit was inclined to misbehave. Just a temporary rearrangement of respectability. A bit of pink will make the boys wink. And when the wind had quite finished, she stepped out of the postcard, and now laughs when the pen is in his hand.
February 13, 2026 at 6:01 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
davidbirch.bsky.social
Intriguing #PoemsAbout prompt today #Undressed, so it will be fascinating to see what the #PoetryCommunity makes of it. Here's my response, a sideways take on the oldest story of all. Many thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk
February 13, 2026 at 9:06 AM
Reposted by Merril D. Smith
poetry-with-hart.bsky.social
CW: drug mention

Ecstasy
undressed me
flashbang brain,
lights tasted
of licorice,
drug to mask
the pain, keep
dancing, never stop
you won't feel
a thing.

@thebrokenspine.co.uk

#poemsabout #undressed #promptcombo #ecstasy #poem #poetry #micropoem #micropoetry #poemaday #skypoem #skypoetry
February 13, 2026 at 1:21 PM