Andy Williamson
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andywilliamson.com
Andy Williamson
@andywilliamson.com
2.3K followers 2.4K following 850 posts
Writer, poet, creative thinker & architect for democracy / Sgrìobhadair, bàrd, neach-smaoineachaidh cruthachail agus ailtire airson deamocrasaidh | Aotearoa & Isle of Skye | urbanbadgercollective.com http://andywilliamson.com
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andywilliamson.com
Hello everyone, slow of the blocks this week, so I've decided to share a wee poem I wrote a long time ago for #promptcombo and @hool415.bsky.social's prompt of #workinglove. Thanks Ju for hosting and everyone else for being so inspiring! #poems #poetry
First love, lost [your] fear will never be more powerful than [my] love but [my] love will never be enough to save [you]
November 10, 2025 at 3:24 PM
andywilliamson.com
Something very rough and ready for #poemsabout #lockeddoors, definitely a work in progress! Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk / @thebrokenspine.co.uk and everyone who keeps this wonderful thing going!
What kind of life why are you so in love with an idealised kind of kind of life it all goes on behind locked doors behind a mask of modestly safe suburban world is that all you aspire to or is it hiding a disappointment we can both see I dare you to dream to dream out loud make the world you really desire with me
November 7, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Andy Williamson
thebrokenspine.co.uk
This week isn’t about escape. It’s about what stays shut.
Secrets with a latch. Regret with a bolt.
Write the room you can’t re-enter. The letter never sent.
Tag your post. Use Alt Text. Share from Friday.
Sign up: shorturl.at/0Xm7A
A black-and-white photo of a sealed, arched iron door set into a brick wall. The shot is taken from ground level, rough cobblestones leading the eye toward the door. Top left: The Broken Spine logo (a black fountain pen nib). Top right: “@thebrokenspine.co.uk” in white. Bottom right: bold white text—“Read Repost Reply #POEMSABOUT #LOCKEDDOORS”.
November 4, 2025 at 5:41 PM
andywilliamson.com
Found this lurking in the kitchen this morning... an Ender dragon, apparently. Hopefully it's friendly (it did have Shreddies for breakfast)... #halloween #samhain
October 31, 2025 at 11:40 AM
andywilliamson.com
Here's a quick, possibly tenuous poem for #poemsabout #blood this week. Huge appreciation to @alanparrywriter.co.uk & @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the opportunity and to all the poets for their great posts #poems #poetry
Once winter passes your words are resolute in their anger their exactness drawing blood you carry destruction as an art, a weapon I turn away look beyond frosted windows to wonder at the winter-white and star-spun sky above at the world beyond what it will bring once winter passes
October 31, 2025 at 10:51 AM
andywilliamson.com
Getting my head back into writing after the school holidays, so a quick first draft of a poem for this week's #PromptCombo #DreamLogic. Thanks @victoriaspires.bsky.social for hosting! #poem #poetry
In darkness there is us as I close my eyes to see a future that might have been a house on the shore waves lapping against soft sand warm ocean breath there is life love, laughter children playing around us when my eyes open sand has become walls the horizon a small window in a city I can’t escape where are you now what might have been
October 27, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Reposted by Andy Williamson
patrickdunleavy.bsky.social
How the third sector became the UK’s first line of support blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandp...
How the third sector became the first line of support | British Politics and Policy at LSE
David Cameron's idea of the Big Society has been abandoned, but given local government funding cuts, the third sector continues to support many communities.
blogs.lse.ac.uk
October 25, 2025 at 9:47 AM
andywilliamson.com
School holidays, so not had time to write anything for #PoemsAbout #BurnForTheCamera this week. Looking forward to reading contributions as I get a chance and - hopefully - back in service next week!
October 24, 2025 at 9:00 AM
andywilliamson.com
The less inhabited side of Loch Fyne in black and white #scotland
Old wooden pier, Loch Fyne Wooden cabin, Loch Fyne Moody black and white photograph looking across Loch Fyne
October 20, 2025 at 10:56 AM
andywilliamson.com
Been offline down in Argyle for the last few days…
Wooded valley with steam running through. Cowal, Argyle Looking across to Arran. Cowal, Argyle Dusk at Otter Ferry looking out to Loch Fyne
October 19, 2025 at 4:15 PM
andywilliamson.com
Turning the imperfection around into an honest reflection of why a relationship failed for #poemsabout #imperfectme. Thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk & @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the prompt and glad to be back writing after an enforced break!
What you wanted you wanted someone to save you rescue you from past mistakes someone fearless their perfect life sorted out to sort yours too without you giving any energy or second thought to what kept them awake long into the night if they exist it isn’t me
October 10, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Reposted by Andy Williamson
inventingreality.bsky.social
Meet these great indie poets at the Poetry Genre Indie Authors Starter Pack! If you wish to be included in the starter pack, reply here. #poetrycommunity #poetsofbluesky #blueskypoets go.bsky.app/FBSDdFZ
Poetry Genre Indie authors
Join the conversation
go.bsky.app
October 1, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Andy Williamson
paulwritespoems.bsky.social
You can sense how personal this is from a writers perspective- and impersonal from a military perspective- Regulation sympathy, medals, formalities.
September 26, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Andy Williamson
alanparrywriter.co.uk
‘official letterhead and regulation sympathy’ — your phrasing cuts with its coldness. Your grief is set against bureaucracy, and it breaks through the paper mask.
#KeepWriting #PoemsAbout #NeverAgain
September 27, 2025 at 7:34 AM
andywilliamson.com
It's not about 'ID cards'; it's about data... @paulclarke.com saying it better than I was going to, so have a read of his thread...
paulclarke.com Paul Clarke @paulclarke.com · Sep 26
I'm seeing so many takes around parts of the "ID card" melange, I have to add a few.

It's not about cards. It's about registers. A register is a definitive 'true source' of data, about people, places, buildings, whatever.
September 26, 2025 at 12:06 PM
andywilliamson.com
For #poemsabout #neveragain this week,I reworked an older, shorter poem I wrote about my Great Uncle, killed on the Somme in 1916. Thanks to @alanparrywriter.co.uk & @thebrokenspine.co.uk for a powerful prompt and everyone else sharing amazing work for us to read #poems #poetry
Letter from your commanding officer Autumn’s early light fills the hallway. I open the letter: official letterhead and regulation sympathy. It says that you were brave, that you stayed to fight, that you stood your ground. The letter tells me that you are missed. What good is that to me? Now the future we planned is gone. What use their crocodile tears that hide behind a heavy curtain of formality and protocol? What use are medals and flags when they have stolen my only chance say goodbye.
September 26, 2025 at 8:40 AM
Reposted by Andy Williamson
alanparrywriter.co.uk
‘circling with intent in her eyes’ — the tension coils there. This thrives on restraint, a duel of predator & prey played in watchful silence.
#KeepWriting #PoemsAbout #SilentPlanets
September 20, 2025 at 6:44 AM
andywilliamson.com
Here's a fun little poem I just wrote for #PoemsAbout #SilentPlanets. Had fun with this prompt and might post another one later if there's time! Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk! #poems #poetry
Stalking She waits, circling with intent in her eyes. She hopes he won’t notice. He watches. He knows she is there, chooses not to react; keep a cool head. In this game of cat and mouse, she is the cat. And he the mouse who hopes that he will not succumb.
September 19, 2025 at 8:53 AM
andywilliamson.com
Thanks to @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social for today's #promptcombo #history, not had much time so re-worked something old and, I think, rather tenuous! #poetry #poems (apologies for the Antipodean use of 'chips', please read 'crisps' if it offends 😀)
Swimming lessons at the new pool where you took me on winter evenings transforming me into proto-selkie before hot tea and chips from the machine the pool is still there not as pristine the vending machine broken a phone call came to tell me you were gone and I remembered how you encouraged me to become someone I could believe in
September 15, 2025 at 3:32 PM
andywilliamson.com
#candlelight is such a great prompt for #poemsabout, loving all the contributions so far and will try and comment when I've time later. In the meantime, here's an fresh offering from me! Thanks @alanparrywriter.co.uk & @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the prompt! #poem #poetry
Drawing in through my window where the day ebbs to dusk a heron rises away to roost this room where I sit slowly floods with the absence of light candle flames begin to flicker through shadows reviving memories of long ago and of what is still to come
September 12, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Reposted by Andy Williamson
neilmackay.bsky.social
Slowly but surely Britain has de-limbed itself of anything which dares smack of intellectualism. This country sneers at art as pretension and intelligence as suspicious. Melvyn Bragg was the antidote to that. His departure from public life diminishes Britain

www.heraldscotland.com/politics/vie...
Where are today’s working-class role models? There are none, says Neil Mackay
The departure of Melvyn Bragg from Radio 4's In Our Time sadly brings to an end an era of intellectual broadcasting, says our Writer at Large, Neil…
www.heraldscotland.com
September 9, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Reposted by Andy Williamson
thebrokenspine.co.uk
#Submissions are now open for #Verdigris: #PoetryOfDecay.

If #LiftToTheSky is about rising, Verdigris is about falling — splendour unravelled, glamour undone.

Open all September:
Dressed to Kill, Ready to Rot: Submit to Verdigris: Poetry of Decay - The Broken Spine
Submissions Open Throughout September 2025 | Publication in 2026
thebrokenspine.co.uk
September 1, 2025 at 11:22 AM
andywilliamson.com
A bit breezy out there today…
A boat ploughs through the waves in the Sound of Sleat
September 8, 2025 at 12:12 PM
andywilliamson.com
What a great #promptcombo this week from @dragonslayerma.bsky.social - #clocksticking! Lots of fantastic poems already so going to share something I wrote just now, thanks Fidel for the prompt! #poetry #poems
And yet, almost a wing beat a prayer as you move through shadows I sense your presence and then then silence: you are gone the clock has run down the opportunity missed and I am alone dust motes in sunlight as ephemeral as my hope that one day you might return
September 8, 2025 at 8:40 AM
andywilliamson.com
BBC News website; UK to see total eclipse. Hmm, it ends at 19:50 and up here moon rise will be a shade after 20:00. What they meant was “England”, ah, well easily confused I guess.
September 7, 2025 at 5:59 PM