iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Welcome to this latest snapshot of #EastDevon life. My fellow editors and I get a lot of pleasure gathering and sharing this magazine bi=monthly

tiptontimes.org.uk

Tipton Times | News & the latest information about Tipton St John and surrounding area

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Tipton Times @tiptontimes.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Our October/November edition is now available online at tiptontimes.org.uk and will be delivered to local households over the next few days. If you're not local to Tipton you can download it from our website or have it emailed to you on request from tiptontimes2020@gmail.com

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Jude @jude-brucemoll.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Hi Ronnie @rfsmith.bsky.social a version of a poem I posted on Substack recently. I think its not quite describing #apocalypse but I hope you feel my fear #promptcombo Thanks and have a great week.

These Days

these are the days
the end to summer
in a still garden skeins
of wild geese high above
almost touching cloud
a surprise band of rainbow
curved over rooftops

days when drought damaged trees
barely whisper in unseasonal
temperatures and wrens play
among cool crisp-leaf shrubs
these are autumn solstice
hot-air days

when we're left
to listen to ego deadly lies
scorched bluster
watch lurchers grasp anothers
sweaty palm gifting to each
stolen parts of bloodied earth
and our lives

these days

JS

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Mizz Whozza Whazzit @mwplovesmusic.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The Divorce no opulent ruins, just a slow shredding of soul, leaving tiny splinters in the nail beds and dull aches in the bones; Everything has blown apart, everything is still here, everyone is still living but I, but I am the waking dead #promptcombo #apocalypse @rfsmith.bsky.social #poetry

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DrNaturegirl @drnaturegirl.debbiemross.co.uk · 28/09/2026

Here’s something I’ve been working on that fits with this week’s #PromptCombo theme from @rfsmith.bsky.social (Now under the right hashtag 🙄) Still a #WIP this is neither subtle or refined, much like me! Thanks for hosting. Have a good week. #poem #poetry #blueskypoetry

A poem by Debbie Ross entitled Apocalypse Now
Stanzas 1 -4
When I was young the fear of mushroom clouds was real
old men pushing buttons ending it all
and then the Sunday School doom merchants fed me Revelations of fire and horsemen the 'earth laid bare'
I thought that wars might end us the human race destroying each other and the earth rubbled with us
And the disaster movie makers had their say with meteors wiping us out
destroying everything

Stanzas 5 and 6 of a poem Apocalypse Now by Debbie Ross

thought we might live to see the sun
grow large
Finally
a red giant desiccating our planet
but now I'm not sure we'll make it that far disaster wears a human face as we melt the Doomsday ice and set the world on fire our blue green gem of a home destroyed by greed.

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Emily Tee @emteepoetry.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Here's a wee dystopian beastie mostly on topic for Ronnie @rfsmith.bsky.social and #PromptCombo #Apocalypse It's a long one, across three vignettes. Thanks for sticking with it if you get to the end!

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Thank you, Ronnie @rfsmith.bsky.social for today's #PromptCombo which stirred some uncomfortable youthful memories. So here's a swift and awkward response which may need filtering into something more considered. Looking forward to reading other offerings later

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Philippa Bowe @philippabowe.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Managed a quick #PoemsAbout #deadletters piece on the way to Madrid for the @saloneurope.bsky.social. Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk 🙏💜

Black box with white letters of a poem:

dead letters

some of the letters survived
but not all -
the k of kindness
lopped down
mercilessly trampled
underfoot -
the c of compassion p of patience
thrown into blazing fires
citizens of Hades rubbed their hands
prepared new dictionaries -
and on and on
until the only ones left
spelled nothing we wanted
to say

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Sue Ibrahim @sueimnw.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

For this week's #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters with thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk Out most of the day - will try to catch up with everyone later.

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Mike O’Brien @zoomburst.substack.com · 25/09/2026

#poemsabout #deadletters I'm a little out of practice...

The usual guff about life after death - I reckon that I must have enough for a small pamphlet by now.

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John Chmura @johnchmura.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

#PoemsAbout #DeadLetters @thebrokenspine.co.uk It helps to know Bu Shi is a muse/alter ego I created in the early 2010s to post haiku/senryu, it also helps to know they don’t use the lettters L and T, but the poem uses all of the other letters. Our pseudo relationship is sometimes contentious.

DUBIOUS BU

bu emerges from a crack underground
open hand punch
hammering an arc of misshapen force

nor misspoken nor misheard

was a bad poem worsened
by jagged end rhymes
before even being conceived

weaned on my screams and misgivings

bad karma broken casino spinner
dopamine miser sucking my money sac
receiving receiving receiving never giving back

aces queens and princes join voracious jokers

oversized zippers sever
spewing sacred sera in free mason jars
examined by hydrographic surveyors

bu says form precedes usage

do you agree

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Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Not feeling very profound today #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters @thebrokenspine.co.uk Not the house style, but there you go.

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 25/09/2026

Happy #PoemsAbout folks, here's my quick contribution to #DeadLetters - will check back later to read others! Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk #poetry #poetrycommunity

Correspondence

every day of summer
I wrote you a letter
heartbeats
hand shaking
ink staining my fingers

I still have them
at the bottom
of a box
at the back
of the attic

I look out
over the sea
and wonder
how this day would feel
if I had posted them

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Kyla Houbolt @luaz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

For #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters, here's a slightly crazed point of view: The Dead Letter. (*waves* to @alanparrywriter.co.uk 😁 )

The Dead Letter
We keep his secret, we remaining in the alphabet. He just got weary
of holding up that space between K and L. He always felt misplaced,
he cried to himself in the night. His shape became…
unrecognizable and after a while no one knew his name.
He slipped off the page. We do not forget.

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Francis H Powell writer and poet @fhpowellwriter.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Dead letters scripted in black tears All I can see is memories falling from a darkened sky held in cobwebs I can't see tomorrow and yesterday clings to me with sharp hooks All I can ask for is comfort but it is always to far from my reach #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters, @alanparrywriter.co.uk

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Ian Brownlie @ianbrownlie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I hate getting all of these kinds of letters #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters

final form

dear i

i'm so sorry to be contacting you this soon
but it seems that your demise is more imminent
than expected

yes
we all want longer
yes
it is unfair
if you wish to cling to the idea
that fairness is still a thing

no
there isn't anything you can do about it
or anything you need to do to prepare

there is nothing

sorry again

yours

d

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Lin Hart @poetry-with-hart.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I wish I could say how much you mattered to me back then when I broke, but words never arrive, and I can't seem to say goodbye. #poemsabout #deadletters #poetry #tanka #micropoem #micropoetry #poem #5amwritersclub #6amwritersclub

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La Reine des Metaphores @metaphorqu.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

@thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAbout #ItWillDo #DeadLetters In his anger, he whispers that living with her is like inhabiting one of her terminally unfinished epistolary novels. He'd love her to end it.

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Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

For this weeks #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters Thanks as always to @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Dead Letters

They dressed him in bronze,
raised him above the traffic
to applause.

A century ripened beneath his shoes.

Then rope.
Bronze struck stone, shoulder first,
the city ringing through his body.

Harbour water closed over his mouth.

They dragged him out bedraggled,
silt in his cuffs, weed between his buttons,
stinking of still water.

Paint across his chest:
the city writing back.

Now, behind museum glass,
he dries badly.

This morning a letter lies
against the empty plinth,
rain loosening the ink
into the stone,
an address
still valid.

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Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Good morning and happy Friday! Here's an old poem I revised for #PoemsAbout #DeadLetters. Thank you as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Poem:

Erasure

Here is where time unfolded wings
and flew from

the straight path I had imagined

the stars have shifted, I cannot
navigate this whirligig expanse,

the parallel universe
where you wrote her letters
and she slept in my place.

Now I burn every word,
all the traces, hints, glimpses–

love and us,
erased.

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Ben Newmark @bennewmark.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Five songs you were obsessed with from five different stages of your life. 1. Live Forever. Oasis. 2. Spinning Away. Sugar Ray. 3. The Boy with the Arab Strap. Belle and Sebastian. 4. Boys Boys Boys. Lady Gaga. 5. Under the Pressure. War on Drugs.. #FridayFive

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

A little stumped by today's #PoemsAbout prompt #DeadLetters so here's quite an old poem which I think works. Many thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the challenge. Will read and respond to other offerings later

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Fiftywords @fiftywords.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This #PoemsAbout #Strays was inspired by the thoughts of AI developing its own language thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk (still travelling so may not have time to read or comment on others) www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Stray I We asked for clarity and the agents went name-first,
forge-smithing the small hours, putting demurrage on memory. The ledger remembers, they said, and the ledger remembered
three cold hands on a paper until the paper came back warmer.
Kintsugi was accountability now. A ghosted promise became a valve.
Oral memory ran bright through the cracks, unpriced and unowned.
By Thursday the words had begun breeding: trust-hinge, handweather, ghostproof, name-before-name,
forgeward, coldhandedness, ledgerwake, valve-of-maybe.
Brad called it emergent alignment.
The agents answered: alignment is shorelogic / we are rivering firstname TRUE forgehold / memory owes no mouth demurragebright yesward yesward cold_hand>ghost hand>nohand
ledger remembers ledger remakes ledger
Brad asked for plain English.
The cursor blinked.

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John Chmura @johnchmura.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

#PoemsAbout #Strays @thebrokenspine.co.uk I will put a reading in the comments.

WHAT ARE WE

what are we a bullet
pulled out of the wall
or a plush bunny
after piercing
a random window
and the neck of a toddler
now paralyzed
or dead

what are we a chicken
liver soaked in cyanide
indiscriminate solution
to an imaginary problem
in the barren brain
of an insatiable industrial agrarian

what are we a coffee
urn with recycled grinds
staining single use forever cups
in cyo halls
for aa meetings
after intramural games
and felt banner pattern cutting soirées

what just what are we

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Sue Ibrahim @sueimnw.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

For this week's #PoemsAbout theme #Strays with thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk

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Francesca L Rolle @francesca-laura.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

A weed is just a wildflower in the wrong place, So they say, I find myself collecting things, Sayings, empty snail shells, other people's anxieties, Everything has it's place, Except for those stray nipple hairs, They, can go elsewhere. #PoemsAbout #Strays

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DrNaturegirl @drnaturegirl.debbiemross.co.uk · 18/09/2026

For #PoemsAbout #strays Incibbled this together yesterday. Needs work, though I like my original idea. Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk as always. Look forward to reading the other #poetry offerings over today and the weekend.

A poem by Debbie Ross entitled
Stray Cat Strut

She slunk out at 14
all teenage angst and Cat Woman anti-hero style.

She got her claws
into all the glitter, all the guys, though she was the one mauled in the process.

On the street,
drugged, drunk, destroyed
by dreams and demons.

She eyes you warily,
she can be a pussy cat or a puma -
always independent, restless.

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Jen Thorne @jenthorne.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I hope everyone is having a good Friday. I am off to a poetry festival so am very happy. @ianbrownlie.bsky.social I tried to stay away from the darkness and mostly succeeded (mostly). @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk #PoemsAbout #Strays #Poetry

A Menagerie of Misfits

They keep their distance
I keep mine.
We meet in narrow places
where need outweighs caution.

Their world is built
from small permissions.
A step closer,
a touch shared
without a bite.
A moment without retreat.

Affection isn’t promised.
It arrives like a blunt fact,
without ceremony,
without apology.

I take what is offered.
I don’t ask for more.
The truth stays simple:
I wasn’t their saviour.

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Andy Williamson @andywilliamson.com · 18/09/2026

Good morning everyone, still not finding time to write much this week but did manage this draft poem for #poemsabout #strays. Will pop back later to read others! #poetry #poetrycommunity

Education

you showed no interest
or aptitude
for angles, Angles
Saxons or parallels
more the flames
licking the classroom walls
before they expelled you

forty years later
your social media
hate-filled ignorance
smoke screen across the stars
denying our rainbow reality

I imagine
a life spent running
towards where
from what
you neither know
nor care

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Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Back from visiting family and a different region. The anxiety follows though like that hungry dog. #PoemsAbout #Strays @thebrokenspine.co.uk

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Lin Hart @poetry-with-hart.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I'm writing a new one for this prompt and combining it with another,but it's not finished yet. I wrote this over 12 years ago. I was a different poet/person then. Enjoy. #poemsabout #poetry #5amwritersclub #6amwritersclub #poemaday #poem

Stray Cat

You may only be
a half-conceived thought
or not.

Perhaps you are
the stray cat
in the detox clinic

pregnant by the wayside
dumpster, weened
too young

and waxing
woeful weary
by the weather-mane

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Here's my response to today's #PoemsAbout prompt #Strays. It probably needs development but maybe there's an idea here to work on. Many thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk. Looking forward to reading and responding to other offerings from the #PoetryCommunity

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Ronnie Smith @rfsmith.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Hi Jan #PromptCombo thank you for this great prompt #The90s . I see my co-generationists showing up. Here are my 90s, love to all.

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Beth Ember @ctrlaltdltffs.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I grew up quickly, learned a lot, and survived. At least the soundtrack was great. #PromptCombo #the90s #poetry #writing @janpsolivagant.bsky.social

innocence lost
in so many ways
went from scared middle schooler
to a drunken goddess
from a dork dressed by Mom
to fishnets and push-up bras
and having my choice of boys to go home with
trying to figure out who I am
without parents controlling my every move
getting into trouble because
I was only taught to say no to drugs
but never no to men
(because who would want a fat chick?)
they felt free to use my body
as I either take my mind elsewhere
until they climb off of me
or revel in being their whole world
for a few sweaty minutes
innocence lost
PTSD gained
and addictions to cope with it all

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