<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Poets Wall]]></title><description><![CDATA[Poets w. Parkinson’s]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/the-wall</link><generator>RSS for Node</generator><lastBuildDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:49:33 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.poetswall.com/blog-feed.xml" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><item><title><![CDATA[On Reflection]]></title><description><![CDATA[Here’s corporate, anonymised, cellular bodies, occupied; efficient use, compacted space - in case of fire, can route be traced - a brand where people lose themselves, amongst the herd of common mark, compartments, hutches beyond hatch, enhanced battery, human farm? To doorway frames, vertical bars, like lines laid down in corridor; but not, I fear, secure unit - enlightened wing, HM detained - but packed into their padded dwells, where muffled cries are medicate, or straitjackets fit the...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/on-reflection</link><guid isPermaLink="false">695e67e039cce6528fa5a636</guid><category><![CDATA[challenges]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 07 Jan 2026 14:06:12 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/https://static.wixstatic.com/media/33cfdc_a273eedd676e498cb48360b2def95bb6~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Stephen Kingsnorth</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mince Pies as big as eyes]]></title><description><![CDATA[Mince pies big as eyes   Mum’s getting stressed The twins won’t get dressed   Hot mince pies, Cold turkey thighs ‘a charming little white’ See Alfie’s already tight   Christmas cake stuffed with fruit and brandy Hang on gran’s looking randy   Mum cackles mouth full of bacon wrapped fig Have you ever seen a carrot that big Cousin Fanny gives her danny a look Hides his face in a book   Auntie take the weight off your feet Come on you lout, you’ve nicked her seat Who wants more of the meat ?...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/mince-pies-as-big-as-eyes</link><guid isPermaLink="false">694e7737e7745ecd17cea0c0</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Fri, 26 Dec 2025 11:53:46 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Mark Mardell</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[A Stable Place]]></title><description><![CDATA[It may be music of the spheres, the call of whales we need to hear, that singing to which ears untuned, as well as such when blackbird chants. We note the tune when species speak, the score as game is shared between, the scale, communication scene, or choir enjoined, a chorus line, the orchestra all tuned to A, setting the same, all in a chord. The noise flows forth in harmony when ears are used before the mouth, as hear, to listen, is attuned, that change of tone, we hope, new year, without...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/a-stable-place</link><guid isPermaLink="false">694aa5e101af90502a31263e</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:24:03 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Stephen Kingsnorth</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Red or Dead]]></title><description><![CDATA[Red hair,  Tick Six foot, Tick Suit, looking smart, I fell like a brick. It didn't take long to get his attention It took longer, maybe years, to find his intentions. He's loyal, He's true although he doesn't suffer fools. That's ok,  because there are none around. We know who we are now on solid ground I'd rather be here with him on a bad day Than a good day with anyone else Still laughing,  still living,  just We'll be ok]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/red-or-dead</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69409ea3cfc2ea52e7363f35</guid><category><![CDATA[challenges]]></category><pubDate>Tue, 16 Dec 2025 00:10:19 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8f8c2b_651eb33930ee46edb2479e999b3dbcd8~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Rose Donaldson</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[No words]]></title><description><![CDATA[There are no words without you, like an inkwell that has run dry. My life would be empty, like an unwritten book. If you were not by my side.]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/no-words</link><guid isPermaLink="false">693ee01f7dbf00d525dc7d32</guid><category><![CDATA[challenges]]></category><pubDate>Sun, 14 Dec 2025 16:05:11 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/8f8c2b_651eb33930ee46edb2479e999b3dbcd8~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Darrell Troon </dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Poets News December 2025]]></title><description><![CDATA[Hello Again, Poetry Lovers,   And so we reach the end of another year together. So far in 2025 we have between us shared 188 poems which have been collectively viewed 5,600 times by 600 different visitors. There are now over 1500 of our poems collected together in the Poets Wall and they are all brilliant!   Unfortunately I am finding it increasingly difficult to maintain the Poet’s Wall website and am very conscious that there are now many links that do not work and complete sections that...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/poets-news-december-2025</link><guid isPermaLink="false">693be70fc5a82c28b606d0fe</guid><pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2025 09:58:59 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/a51588_6e9d88c0ed6f452282e1d0eee24805ab~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_938,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Martin Pickard</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Hybrid]]></title><description><![CDATA[Reserved My poem written, but reserved, unfit for public facing space - too honest, bout entanglements, which caused admiring love to grow; I’d not offend by baring truth. So sadly reckoning defies a celebration, love defined, for Valentine was martyred too; though tempting to rehearse that verse, such fragile can’t be sacrificed. Identity, faith, politics, with gender, nationality, are sensitive in families, more so if God thought on one side; inheritance can be a curse. I’ll take the...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/hybrid</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6939fd0e7dbf00d525daba37</guid><category><![CDATA[challenges]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2025 00:04:36 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/https://static.wixstatic.com/media/33cfdc_9ce0f2593c39417aa806bedc30391c0e~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Stephen Kingsnorth</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Pooling Resources]]></title><description><![CDATA[After ‘Impulse’ &#38; ‘Intuition’ by Camellia Morris (Australia) 2017-2018 Accustomed, coast our weekly width, until the unexpected falls; some sudden dive, slap bellyflop, or foreign body floating by - watery grave as just passed, died - but otherwise, routine applies. Slow crawl, then breast, now butterfly, they’re making waves for those sedate; this aqua pool marine in tone, sees shallow wading through resist in complementary mix of styles, both impulse, intuition drives. It being of the blood...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/pooling-resources</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6931a0d2aa74b8193362ff3d</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 04 Dec 2025 15:13:56 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/https://static.wixstatic.com/media/33cfdc_12afa4f23958494094c486a8fd245980~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Stephen Kingsnorth</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Hellish Days of Christmas]]></title><description><![CDATA[On a hellish day at Christmas my Parkinson’s gave to me, health, some shortcomings, heaven’s snipers sniping, tension stops me sleeping, nothing life enhancing, hate it, jaded, wilting, senses gone or dimming, sickness not allaying, synuclein; more scrawling words, free charity pens, truth hurts, its dross ah Parkinson’s apathy!]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/the-hellish-days-of-christmas</link><guid isPermaLink="false">692cb119aa74b81933610929</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Sun, 30 Nov 2025 21:04:19 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Jarlath Busby</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Ballad of Elizabeth Snagge]]></title><description><![CDATA[The night was dark, a velvet band around a lover’s eye. The moon was slowly dying in the late December sky. The wind was gently crooning its malignant lullaby, when Lady Snagge came riding - In haste she came down Wood End Lane, homeward bound to Lord Moreteyne when she came riding by.   With hat pulled down, in cloak and gown to ward off winter weather. Her saddle, crop and boots were made of finest Spanish leather with golden chains and sparkling rings drawn from her Lordship’s treasure....]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/the-ballad-of-elizabeth-snagge</link><guid isPermaLink="false">692c0ee6495848230dc1eb36</guid><category><![CDATA[challenges]]></category><pubDate>Sun, 30 Nov 2025 09:33:29 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/e2a56f_5f7d4b58d5b04d7688e1ee64aed8f108~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Martin Pickard</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Lessons from The Greenman]]></title><description><![CDATA[With xylem flow and flight through phloem tree colonnades of forest trunks feed spreading arched roof canopies. So vigour growing down and up for city of cork cambium continues unseen in its tasks, transmitting, porting as required, a tree of life if ever was. Those bent on clearance, baring place, with chain saw grip now doubled up, fell columns for wealth capital. About their heads filled capitols - those fallen populated skies, cathedral vaultings far from earth, though Greenman’s holy...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/lessons-from-the-greenman</link><guid isPermaLink="false">69282cd1d062fbd49d1052bd</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 27 Nov 2025 10:52:10 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Stephen Kingsnorth</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Shadows in the night]]></title><description><![CDATA[As the darkness of night spreads throughout the house, Strange shadows shift and move about. Through an open door there hangs a cold, damp mist, all that it touches gets engulfed as it drifts. What things lurk out there in the dark? Just our own imagination where childhood scars have left a mark. Colours that shone brightly are now hidden away, still there but gone into the darkness of the end of the day.]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/shadows-in-the-night</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6927119bd062fbd49d0fdd64</guid><category><![CDATA[challenges]]></category><pubDate>Wed, 26 Nov 2025 14:41:53 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Darrell Troon </dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Halloween Party ]]></title><description><![CDATA[Have you danced a Danza with the devil, whilst hells fire licks between your toes. Or Waltzed with a werewolf, wearing blood stained shredded clothes. Meringue’d with a mummy, then all she did was moan. It’s the darkest party of the year, Frankensteins monster was fantastic, as he quick stepped across the floor, until some poor stitching caused his head to roll out the door. Dracula and his bride tango’d toe to toe, before stopping for a Bloody Mary, who will never be see again. A real...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/halloween-party</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6924b477d062fbd49d0ed42c</guid><category><![CDATA[challenges]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 24 Nov 2025 19:40:32 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Darrell Troon </dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Que Sera]]></title><description><![CDATA[A clockmaker builds a device that doesn't just tell time - it alters it. Write about the consequences of their invention and the moral dilemmas they face. His workshop was in Coventry, the city blitzed during the war, his family amongst those killed. Emerging decades afterwards, Enigma, Nazi code machine, had been cracked and raid known about. Maintaining secrecy was all; decision made, Godiva ride, for laid bare as the city paid. And now devised, new time engine, machine that made Time Lords...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/que-sera</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6923c773d062fbd49d0e5fb6</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 24 Nov 2025 02:52:50 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Stephen Kingsnorth</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Picture Framed 
(thoughts on a photo found)]]></title><description><![CDATA[He and I are one, the one soul, one face but he will remain forever just the same as I grow old on nature's whim and grace he’s protected by glass and wooden frame   while I walk frail, prey for the bandit time. He looks up with the arrogance of youth, the assured poise of a man still in his prime never to know life's plain simple truth   that you can not cheat it's absolute decree. As my gaze comes to rest upon his form past and present merge as with his eyes I see a boy showering under a...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/picture-framed-thoughts-on-a-photo-found</link><guid isPermaLink="false">691f301c7598a27c82bf1e08</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 20 Nov 2025 15:18:24 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/9cf662_4216373a35a04924b648a162f9fe64ad~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_968,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Nigel Smith</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Tree]]></title><description><![CDATA[Lichen to a north face trunk, so similar to old man’s beard in grizzled clumps curled about bole, knee bowed, gnarled knurl thrown prone in gales. Lopped to side despite the bark, rings bitten, chewed to oval shape. through high flow low tight isobars, as though new highlight paradigm. 	 I know that wizened moorland scrag, two more on either side of tump, a tumulus of ancient land; the grouse where skylarks fear ascent, where Sycorax trapped Ariel, thin xylem as capillaries, grey cambium,...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/_tree</link><guid isPermaLink="false">691a645cad4cf24b8a7e1264</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 17 Nov 2025 00:01:58 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/https://static.wixstatic.com/media/33cfdc_822780ec435d498b9db3bf97410a7fe2~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Stephen Kingsnorth</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Haunted Typewriter

]]></title><description><![CDATA[Author’s Note: This poem is inspired by  A Christmas Carol  by Charles Dickens, whose timeless tale of ghostly redemption continues to illuminate my path from suffering to healing. In the hush of night, the keys await, My trembling hands, my shifting fate. The typewriter stares with iron eyes, As shadows stir and spirits rise. I try to write of love and grace, But horror floods the empty space. Each letter typed, a haunted cry— Each sentence ends with Why? Why? Why? Then comes a knock, so...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/the-haunted-typewriter</link><guid isPermaLink="false">691154222a0fdb40ec33bed3</guid><category><![CDATA[challenges]]></category><pubDate>Mon, 10 Nov 2025 03:03:03 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/33cfdc_047feccf163f4fcb95d3c5a750944c3f~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_896,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Paulette Mehta</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[At The War Memorial]]></title><description><![CDATA[Applause rarely applies in remembrance; without warning, following whispered request, he read the poem - a man of maybe forty. Assuming nervous, we raised our eyes towards the faltering voice; with deep breaths, pregnant with pause, he sobbed onwards through the lines, cords straining to sound words, seconds of steel propelling him to complete a phrase, as images tore at his grief. Thus we joined our hands in common spontaneous admiration, as he had made real the remembrance for which we had...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/at-the-war-memorial</link><guid isPermaLink="false">6910c50bf1bb48ff117f18f8</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Sun, 09 Nov 2025 16:46:12 GMT</pubDate><dc:creator>Stephen Kingsnorth</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Languorous?]]></title><description><![CDATA[After the Walk, by Lyn Aylward (England) 2023  [Public Domain] Languorous, as vowel stretch, each glyph laid out in sounding shift, aligned with sleek unbothered reach, with dreams of scents, encounters, rest, now prone, exhausted, inked arms linked. On crumpled pastel, crease and fold, all pillows, hills of dimpled sheets, in crevice, blues, pink, yellows, green, seen stream and sky, buds, blossom, sward, addressed on fabric, ruffled, flesh. Carved capitol above slab slump; a classic wage...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/languorous</link><guid isPermaLink="false">690d29c4b34bcf14a8c9ff45</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:01:55 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/https://static.wixstatic.com/media/33cfdc_c8d33a55908d42d0aec0907d3ab7b493~mv2.jpg/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Stephen Kingsnorth</dc:creator></item><item><title><![CDATA[Old Father Time]]></title><description><![CDATA[Old Father time  - The Poem (song)   The chill of old father time shoots down my neck Like a cold north wind keeping me in check   My Parkinson's filling me with apathy and woe I can’t be bothered and it’s starting to show   Fatigue visit’s and it’s time for a  snooze My body jerks like I've blown a fuse   This random body twitch, where the electricity flowed Riding this shock wave, as I deal with the overload   The goose pimples and the shivers, Electricity which flows through me like rivers...]]></description><link>https://www.poetswall.com/post/old-father-time</link><guid isPermaLink="false">690c5bb8b34bcf14a8c98782</guid><category><![CDATA[written word]]></category><pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2025 08:29:20 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://static.wixstatic.com/media/5c7073_3e3e689bbba14eada80a2dbaa367cf00~mv2.png/v1/fit/w_1000,h_1000,al_c,q_80/file.png" length="0" type="image/png"/><dc:creator>Paul Dennison</dc:creator></item></channel></rss>