Tessera

Merril D. Smith

@merrildsmith.bsky.social

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).

5332 Posts1253 Follower 844 Folgt

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 23h ago

A #poem for my butterfly name word list prompt on dVerse. merrildsmith.org/2026/08/04/r...

Reborn

Edvard Munch, “Starry Night,” 1893 Reborn Storm clouds spread over uslike a mourning cloak,and moonstone tears fellfrom the clouded yellow sky– afterwards, tree branchesdelicately…

merrildsmith.org

The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN)@thebrokenspine.co.uk · yesterday

#PoemsAbout #ThriftStore starts Friday. Old photographs. Worn jackets. Coffee-stained paperbacks. Things discarded. Things discovered. We favour vivid imagery over explanation. Draft now. Use Alt Text.

Shop window filled with second-hand clothing, curiosities, and an illuminated OPEN sign. Overlay text reads: “#PoemsAbout #ThriftStore”.

Paul @paulwritespoems.bsky.social · 2d ago

Absolutely thrilled to bits with this. I’ve had a few rough weeks and this has been a welcome tonic 🙏 Congrats to my fellow nominees 🙌 @rachelturney.bsky.social this means the world to me

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 2d ago

Roberta Writes - Artforms and Artists from Around the World: An introduction to Terri Webster Schrandt @robbiecheadle.bsky.social roberta-writes.com/2026/08/03/r...

Roberta Writes – Artforms and Artists from Around the World: An introduction to Terri Webster Schrandt

Please head on over to LatinosUSA for my interview with blogger and photograph Terri Webster Schrandt.

roberta-writes.com

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 2d ago

It's Monday, and I'm musing! This is my weekly post with a #Poem #Photos and commentary about the past week. merrildsmith.org/2026/08/03/w...

Waves

Monday Morning Musings Waves “Tell the old story for our modern times.Find the beginning.” “Then Athena madethe warring sides swear solemn oaths of peacefor future times—still in her guise as Mento…

merrildsmith.org

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 3d ago

New issue of @fullhouselitmag.bsky.social ! What a stunning cover!

Full House Literary@fullhouselitmag.bsky.social · 4d ago

Yay, it's issue day! What a pleasure this one was to put together. The amazing image featured on the cover is by Gordon Massman. Go to the issue by clicking the link in the bio or copy and paste this link: www.fullhouseliterary.com/issue-2-2026

Full House Literary Issue 2 cover image. It features an image of a ballerina with lots of different shapes and colours. It has a sticker with text saying 'now live'.

C. Oulens @owlnsquirrels1111.bsky.social · 4d ago

Delighted that my poem “I had a” is published in Full House Literary @fullhouselitmag.bsky.social alongside an excellent group of poets and artists. Thanks to the amazing head editor Leia Butler @leiabutler.bsky.social & editor Lowena Olver. A draft appeared on #poemsabout #poetrycommunity #Oulens …

I had a by C. Oulens — Full House Literary

fullhouseliterary.com

The Broken Spine (SUBS OPEN)@thebrokenspine.co.uk · 3d ago

Last week's poets brought it. This week: #PoemsAbout #ThriftStore. Every object belonged to someone. Every shelf holds a history. Theme opens Friday. Use Alt Text.

Full House Literary @fullhouselitmag.bsky.social · 5d ago

With a brand new issue coming out tomorrow, now is the perfect chance to shout out all the amazing Featured Creators we last published earlier this year! Names and tags linked in the thread below! You can find the Featured Creator section here: www.fullhouseliterary.com/featured-cre...

Featured Creators — Full House Literary

fullhouseliterary.com

Kyla Houbolt @luaz.bsky.social · 5d ago

For #PoemsAbout #LastTrain, @thebrokenspine.co.uk -- Well, this is stretching the theme somewhat, but might not fall off the edge. *Modern Life* also appears in MAPLESS:

Modern Life

There is the train
I am not on. There it goes.
I am not on it at least once a day
and have become very attached
to holding still, not traveling,
nor letting the thrill of the whistle,
the excitement of the hissing brakes,
or the gut-stirring cry of "All aboard!"
get to me. I can watch and be free.
But I imagine the train. I imagine who is on it,
where they are going, their lives
their clothes their sandwiches.
Look, that one has spilled his coffee
on his trousers but it's okay, it was black
and not hot. The fellow across the way
rustles his paper. I guess
this must be a commuter train
not one that goes on journeys.
Of course, I am in Europe
in my imaginary train station, thus making it
even less likely
that I, here in America,
will ever actually go anywhere.

Matthias (watering thoughts) 🦄🧚‍♂️🐉@ignorantfairy.bsky.social · 5d ago

For #poemsabout #LastTrain and #ampersandAfterDark #poetry #poetrycommunity Thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk @madp03t.bsky.social

escape into the night

buzzed from alcopops
sweetness that packed a punch
under those strobe lights
the world had been forgotten

just another dance
DJ always played her song
feet on autopilot — frozen smile
belle of the ball turned beast

she drank the night
sunrise a distant whisper
within these twilight hours
all seemed possible
all seemed unreal

the last train left
too busy to catch it
meandering between
clubs — high heels
that ever once broke
unlike her dignity
she left strewn across
filthy dancefloors

Mike O’Brien @zoomburst.substack.com · 5d ago

There's been some great #PoemsAbout #LastTrain this week. The journeys home, the memories, the history. I have enjoyed reading them all... A few have gone with the disappointment that there are not as many trains and lines as there used to be. I'm one of those

Dawn McLachlan @deemclachlan.bsky.social · 5d ago

A #haibun #Fridaypoem for @thebrokenspine.co.uk #poetryprompt #LastTrain Hope you like it. #poetrycommunity #poetsofbluesky #poemAltText #UseAltText #haibuns #poems #poets #poemsabout

Last Train
By Dawn Mclachlan

They missed the train, and then they missed another, and another. Every time the rails hummed at the approaching tide of arrivals and departures, their hands gripped tighter. Together on their bench all life seemed to flow around them. Breaking to part as if around their tiny island. I watched them for a while caught in the warm wake of their feelings, yet cold in the depth of them.
As the last train heaved its great bulk to a standstill they rose together and parted as if swept away. When the train rolled out from the station I gave him a tissue, and took my seat.

The journey is long
Through the stations of our lives
Always mind the gaps

stace.bot @stacebot.bsky.social · 5d ago

Reposting with the corrected hashtag! For this week's #PoemsAbout #LastTrain, I'm thinking: how does the world know something is coming? @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #poetry #poem #writing #PoetryCommunity #BlueSkyPoets #writingcommunity

stace.bot@stacebot.bsky.social · 5d ago

For this week's #PoemsAbout #LastTrains, I'm thinking: how does the world know something is coming? @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #poetry #poem #writing #PoetryCommunity #BlueSkyPoets #writingcommunity

last train

in the break between
stillness and startle

the whistle
comes.

before
the rails confess.

before
the windows gather light.

before
the sound of your voice
arrives.

Dean Norton @zentinl.bsky.social · 5d ago

In the fading hours of my Friday finally I can settle with #PoemsAbout and read poems for #lasttrain. Here's my first. Good vibes to our host @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk #poetrycommunity #poetry #poem #poems #skypoets #blueskypoets #blueskypoetry #poetsofbluesky #skypoet

Kyla Houbolt @luaz.bsky.social · 5d ago

"braked at the junction of memory and regret"

Merril D. Smith@merrildsmith.bsky.social · 5d ago

Good morning! Happy Friday! For #PoemsAbout #LastTrain Thank you, as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Poem:

Vantage Point

I never rode the City of New Orleans
or the Orient Express, no train to Marrakesh
or across frozen steppes,

I’ve heard freight trains sigh,
clang, and clatter, just a trace
of Woody Guthrie and hobo blues

in their doleful whistles
as they carry chemicals and coal.

My dad wanted railroad magic,
sleeper berths gently rocking him through
western mountains and deserts,

“Such beautiful vistas,” he wrote.

I hold the postcard,
braked at the junction of memory and regret,

we think there will always be another train.

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 4d ago

Roberta Writes - d'Verse, care quadrille and light and truth of painting, Thursday Doors and The Flower Hour @robbiecheadle.bsky.social roberta-writes.com/2026/07/31/r...

Roberta Writes – d’Verse, care quadrille and light and truth of painting, Thursday Doors and The Flower Hour

d’Verse I wrote for two d’Verse challenges this week but didn’t find time to post my poems until today. The quadrille about care if for Sanaa’s prompt here: The second poem …

roberta-writes.com

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 5d ago

Wonderful mural art @resalis.bsky.social Scattered Order - 1 graffitiluxandmurals.com/2026/07/31/s...

Scattered Order – 1

39 new works of art were painted on the way into, out of and inside an underpass near me. First, The Cat The tour begins just before we go under the rail bridge, about 1/3 of the way from the start…

graffitiluxandmurals.com

Ian Brownlie @ianbrownlie.bsky.social · 5d ago

A #villanelle today! I haven't written one in a while, and the repetition felt like it fitted what I was trying to achieve. @thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAbout #LastTrain

down in the train station

i know that this will cause some pain
as flurries strobe the station’s light
for me it’s gone, the final train

no use glancing down the tracks again
timetables mocking hopeless sight
i know that this will cause some pain

the shelter’s only shelter from the rain
not shadows lurking in the night
for me it’s gone, the final train

no phone or cash, thoughts start to drain
though i underestimate my plight
i know that this will cause some pain

voices now invading my domain
phlegm-flecked they rasp with spite
for me it’s gone, the final train

it’s what they need, not what they’ll gain
yielding, there is no flight or flight
i know that this will cause some pain
for me it’s gone, the final train

John Chmura @johnchmura.bsky.social · 6d ago

#PoemsAbout #LastTrain @thebrokenspine.co.uk I will put a link to the reading in the comments.

DISJUNCTION

they took the train away
and they tore the lonely station down
left the barefoot pineys
with no way to get outta this town

So I’m talking about the old train station by where I walk the dog, that there’s only a sign now and a vinyl fence in front of an overgrown embankment, and that there used to be a turntable a few yards back because three rail lines met there, and my wife says I’m sorry but I just don’t give a shit.

the boiler is hissing the steam is nice and hot
the blue comet’s departing at nine on the dot
gals in summer dresses guys in linen suits
headed for the boardwalk on the classiest of routes

So we’re on our way to WaWa and my son goes what was all that about with Mom and I’m like I’m looking up shit for the prompt, last train. And then I tell him how my grandfather operated the Public Service trolley from the Hub City to Perth Amboy when he was still a teen. I wish he was still alive so I could ask him about it now. I wish he had told me stories when I was a kid. All I have is an odd quote in a retirement program I found at my mom’s that says, “My greatest thrill (Keasby [sic] Trestle) You ask me how I felt when the trolley went off the track.” I don’t even know who the “You” was, much less the how why and when.

the seriouser I study to me it starts to seem
the world is just a fat man in a trolley problem meme
I’m out of joy I can’t employ anything uplifting
the more I learn the more I turn to multitrack drifting

So I tell my son I looked up the Keasbey Trestle and didn’t see anything about trolleys, but the deadliest US train wreck in the last hundred years did happen in Keasbey when “The Broker” commuter train derailed on a temporary wooden trestle built to accommodate New Jersey Turnpike laborers working on the main line. If my Pop Pop conflated the train and the trolley I wonder why his most thrilling memory would be something he wasn’t involved in and my son says probably because every other workday was boring. Yeah I laughed it p…

C. Oulens @owlnsquirrels1111.bsky.social · 6d ago

For #PoemsAbout #LastTrain combined with #vss365 #brake @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk @andyperrincycling.bsky.social Thank you for reading 🙏 #Oulens #poetry #poetrycommunity #writingcommunity

The Left Platform
by C. Oulens

The last train at 11:11 p.m.
has left the station
once again
The lone lantern, the broken bench & I
finally,
fare free in shadows of our memory
The eleven-eleven chiaroscuro
spreads unhindered
across the silence along the rails,
tick-tied, lying still until
the first train brakes
in
the
morning
at o-five-eleven
on the opposite platform
Perhaps tomorrow I’ll cross over
and it’ll take me to the verge
they call home

roger waldron @throwawayreg.bsky.social · 6d ago

Morning Friday you find me in Filey that’s if you’re looking 🤷‍♂️ here’s my little “throwaway” poem for #PoemsAbout #LastTrain and thank @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #poems #poetry #BlueSkyPoets Enjoy your weekend everyone everywhere 🛋️🗑️🚮🚶🏽‍➡️

Sue Ibrahim @sueimnw.bsky.social · 6d ago

For this week's #PoemsAbout #LastTrain @thebrokenspine.co.uk - so many possible responses...

Paul Brookes @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social · 5d ago

for #PoemsAbout #LastTrain and immense thank you to @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk #poems #poetry #BlueSkyPoets

on last train

oiled with alcoholic monsters
old miners prop up their subsiding
faces.

Call centre staff hold their heads
in both hands as if their palms
are headsets.

Shop assistants clock the prices
of metal cans out of habit.

Giggling teenagers hold one
another up whilst taking
selfies they'll regret in the morning.

Girls decide they can't walk on one heel
so both shoes slung in the bin.
Stockinged or barefoot they slope home.

Boys piss beside the train shelter
leave their monster cans on a wall
lig on a hedge as if they've found a bed.

Jane Dougherty @janedougherty47.bsky.social · 5d ago

This #PoemsAbout #LastTrain for @thebrokenspine.co.uk is unashamedly nostalgic/sentimental. The world is just too awful for more misery writing.

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · 5d ago

Good morning! Happy Friday! For #PoemsAbout #LastTrain Thank you, as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk

Robbie Cheadle @robbiecheadle.bsky.social · 7d ago

Dryad merrildsmith.org/2026/07/29/d... @merrildsmith.bsky.social

Dryad

Odilon Redon, “The Trees,” Charcoal on paper, c. 1890s Dryad dwells within the slip-sliding planes of the infinite,violet-drenched and blue-sparkled,a feather-boughed dancerbetween the …

merrildsmith.org

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · last wk.

Travel Joys - Friday Fictioneers from @dalectables.bsky.social adelectablelife.com/2026/07/29/t...

Travel Joys – Friday Fictioneers

Good and Happy Wednesday, my peeps. It’s been a day, eh? I am still going through my 2000+ photos taken in Greece and will be posting about my wonderful trip soon, but in the meantime, Roch…

adelectablelife.com

Merril D. Smith @merrildsmith.bsky.social · last wk.

A short #poem for dVerse. merrildsmith.org/2026/07/29/d...

Dryad

Odilon Redon, “The Trees,” Charcoal on paper, c. 1890s Dryad dwells within the slip-sliding planes of the infinite,violet-drenched and blue-sparkled,a feather-boughed dancerbetween the …

merrildsmith.org

Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · last wk.

We're living through a time in which far too many sociopathic ghouls walk unashamedly among us, and yet, someone like Glen Hansard is taken away early. What a deeply unfair world.