Merril D. Smith
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merrildsmith.bsky.social
Merril D. Smith
@merrildsmith.bsky.social
1.1K followers 780 following 3.2K 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
Good morning! I had trouble with this one--do I write that every week?😂 I wrote two short ones that maybe I'll post later, but then I decided to consult the Oracle for inspiration for this third one. #PoemsAbout #Desire
Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Poem: Haunted The hard need of the heart, like flower-celebrations, like cloud-bellies opening— soft rain, salt-scent, storms-- you wonder about it later, after life over without a word.
November 14, 2025 at 1:03 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! A poem for #PoemsAbout #LockedDoors. This is a revision of an old poem. Thank you, as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk for these weekly prompts!
Poem Threshold The massive door has always been locked until now it stands slightly open like parted lips whispering yes. You imagine a turquoise sky, peach sorbet clouds— the opposite of this grey-shrouded world. You touch the weathered wood dotted with knotted eyes, wonder how far eternity is-- how wide? How deep? But there is the latch, undone, there is the handle, so, you inhale, exhale, and pull-- a sea-salt breath brushes your skin as you step over the sill. No more doors. No more locks. This is where your life begins.
November 7, 2025 at 11:59 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
My copy of "The Storms" arrived! And yesterday's Zoom launch was wonderful. (Tears in my eyes at Damien's closing words.) I haven't read too much yet, but my feline friends say it's great! Thank you for including my poem @eatthestorms.com and @rhonagreene.bsky.social
Grey cat with black stripes and pale green eyes in a blanket-lined basket with the journal The Storms, Issue 5. Black cat with yellow eyes on an Oriental-style rug in colors of red, blue, and yellow with The Storms, Issue 5
November 5, 2025 at 12:31 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Halloween micropoem for @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social

Blood-flowers bloom,
drip on breathing walls,

that damned dare,
the damned--

Too late!
Blood-flowers bloom, drip on breathing walls, that damned dare, the damned Too late!
October 31, 2025 at 1:12 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! Happy Halloween! For #PoemsAbout #Blood
This is also for a prompt where the first line comes from a horror movie--this one "The Sixth Sense." We're seeing Macbeth this weekend, so there may be more blood poems! Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Poem: Blood and Fiddles I see dead people, rooftop fiddlers and Chagall souls floating like speech balloons waiting for their frame-- artists, musicians, lovers, and practical idealists, they enter my dreams, my mother, my father, a caretaker who talks of her dissertation on Einstein and divorce, it’s relativity, I say— he also being Jewish and dead— like my parents and their parents, my ancestors, their DNA carried with traces of stardust in my cells, giving me curly hair and nearsighted light eyes, a recessive negative blood RH to balance my normal positivity, and through all the blood lost and recreated, blood spilled and regenerated, the bow glides across strings of generations my great greats who traveled continents and oceans so I could live where I do, be who I am, (I hope that’s still true.) I see you hovering. Rest. It’s OK. I’ll be all right. Blood and Fiddles I see dead people, rooftop fiddlers and Chagall souls floating like speech balloons waiting for their frame-- artists, musicians, lovers, and practical idealists, they enter my dreams, my mother, my father, a caretaker who talks of her dissertation on Einstein and divorce, it’s relativity, I say— he also being Jewish and dead— like my parents and their parents, my ancestors, their DNA carried with traces of stardust in my cells, giving me curly hair and nearsighted light eyes, a recessive negative blood RH to balance my normal positivity, and through all the blood lost and recreated, blood spilled and regenerated, the bow glides across strings of generations my great greats who traveled continents and oceans so I could live where I do, be who I am, (I hope that’s still true.) I see you hovering. Rest. It’s OK. I’ll be all right.
October 31, 2025 at 10:31 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! This was another difficult prompt from #PoemsAbout #BurnForTheCamera I woke up thinking about this one. Thank you, as always @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk I will catch up with reading and commenting over the weekend.
Marilyn “Fame I'm gonna live forever (fame) Baby, remember my name” --Dean Pitchford, Michael Gore, “Fame” In that famous photograph, skirt swirling high from the subway vent blast (revealing, not-revealing) she looks happy, burning for the camera, I like to think she was, that there was just the right amount of oxygen then before the gusts extinguished her flame.
October 24, 2025 at 11:01 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Take 2 for #PoemsAbout #BreakingTheMould We're terrified the mold might break! Originally published in Fevers of the mind and in my new poetry collection. @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social with thanks!
Thanksgiving, the Year of Covid-19 We passed the dish of memory, transferring without touching the squirrel-shaped mold, its ceramic a bit care-worn, appearing empty, though we knew it was full of recollections and dreams, tart and sweet, like the cranberry sauce that once filled it, and would do so again. Now these thoughts of past Thanksgivings, filled it, dripping over to fall in tears. It won’t be the same, we say, and do you remember? Her laugh, our laughs together-- not together this year. Photo of a cranberry sauce squirrel on a white china plate with a gold rim.
October 17, 2025 at 4:12 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! Here's my poem for #PoemsAbout #BreakTheMould. This was another difficult one for me, but this came to me last night. Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk And thank you to @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social
Poem: Shatter Shells, Melt Ice Smug smirkers strut empty inside, they feed on fear to swell their swords (unzip, zip) Jabber-chat, hate flows through leaks (drip, drip) please break this pestilent mold c r a c k
October 17, 2025 at 11:08 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! I wasn't going to do this prompt for #PoemsAbout #imperfectMe but started writing it yesterday @paulwritespoems.bsky.social writing group. It's still rough. Thanks as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Poem: Still Standing The scar on my right breast a faint tracing, the charcoal under the artist’s paint, tattooed dots, ellipsis signaling the story continues— always a before and an after-- so far, always an after-- the sagging of flesh, the greying of hair, points for endurance, if not for style, as vain as anyone, I suppose, but embracing the imperfect, me.
October 10, 2025 at 3:47 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
For #PoemsAbout #Mannequins
This was a hard one for me. Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk I'll be back to read and comment later after I finish some work.
Poem: October is Full of Surprise They stood as mannequins, bodies posed, faces without movement or expression as the carnival barkers harangued and cajoled, grotesque as funhouse mirror images. I thought of a TV show my children once watched, where after closing the department store mannequins came to life, and I wonder what those expressionless generals did, what they said after I hope they came to life-- I hope we all do.
October 3, 2025 at 1:42 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
I went for a walk after I posted my #PoemsAbout poem. All I'm reading and writing is bleak. The walk helped some. I don't usually post photos here, but maybe someone else needs to see some beauty and light. I guess I'm trying to be a helper in a small way.
A photo of the Delaware River at Red Bank Battlefield. A wooden wharf extends in the water with a reflection on the water surface. Early morning clouds are in the blue sky with faint sunrise colors. In the foreground, there are autumn leaves on the rocks.
September 26, 2025 at 1:26 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! This is a revision of a poem I wrote after a bombing of a theater in Mariupol filled with children. There's a tradition in theaters to keep a ghost light burning. For #PoemsAbout #NeverAgain Thanks as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk .
Poem: Ghost Light Every theater has a ghost that flickers and flits through stage shadows, appears in dressing room mirrors, appeased with a light. Blink in the somber gloom, recall the pre-show diamond sparkle now obscured by smoky sleeves and bursts of bright arterial blood. Never forget, we say, as we do. Every theater has a ghost, but this one has a multitude, here the final curtain fell with jet-thunder and bomb-burst booms, and the beating of Death’s black wings— there was no exit and no light, in the darkness, the children cry, ghosts in this theater of the absurd.
September 26, 2025 at 10:48 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! It's Friday and time for #PoemsAbout #SilentPlanets. Thank you as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk ! I'll be back later to read and comment. Off to get vaccines now while we still can here.
Poem: Sometime After Cerulean once shone in shimmering swirls dawning above a silver-dusted moon, no more the brilliant blue, the vivid green, the moon-tides ebb and flow-- the Travelers don’t know color spilled, clattered, clashed through azure skies and seas, and sea-sprayed prisms caught the laughs of gulls in aqua waves, broke white on rocks, danced in shoals—splashed the soothing sound of water-- laughter was woven in landskein lines between and beyond hills and valleys--tears, too, carried by bird chatter and song, rooted by trees rising tall in emerald, chartreuse, gold, and scarlet. This is now a silent place, they cannot know it was called Earth, that it glowed with the dust of stars and shimmered with the sound of being, now there are no echoes, even the ghosts are gone.
September 19, 2025 at 12:13 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! Here's my poem for #PoemsAbout #Candlelight. Thank you as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk for this opportunity. I'll be away from my computer most of the day, but I'll catch up with reading and commenting over the weekend.
Poem: Swaying at the Edge Today, whipped cream peaks top a blueberry parfait sky, it’s almost as beautiful as that cloudless blue day twenty-four years ago when we lost and mourned but didn’t learn, as we watched the falling our Munch-screams reverberating past the quizzical brows of geese heading toward true north, and turkeys turned in endless circles, clucking and yelping, “Thoughts and prayers,” into the blood-splattered dirt, of our tilted, wobbling Earth-- a bigot has become a martyr, dead children are ignored. There will be candlelight vigils—again, a moment of connection after the sharp hiss and spark of match to wick, a river of wax tears will flow. But who am I to complain-- any flicker, any flash is welcome even shadows need the light.
September 12, 2025 at 10:58 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! I have a busy day/weekend, but I thought I'd try a #Cherita again for #PoemsAbout #Facades. Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
#BelieveTheSurvivors

I'll be back later to read and comment!
He snares you with gold, a honeyflow, sticky and sweet covers the spoilage beneath, corruption that trades in your youth, beauty he covets, he spins desire, deceit, almost consumes you.
September 5, 2025 at 11:05 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! Today's #PoemsAbout #Riots was another difficult one. There's so much history, but now it just like we're waiting for it to happen at anytime now.
Thank you to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the opportunity each week.
Poem: Truths In summer mornings’ exuberant light, when chiseled clouds become a sculpted glowing frieze there is a hint of what might be— call it true, the way that horses might be blue, the possible in a pause. Call it true, the sound heard POP POP POP before you realize it’s bullets and bombs-- call it true the beauty of slivers and shards shimmering like fallen stars after CRASH SHATTER the almost musical sounds. Call it true, the ache of broken limbs and raw, red eyes from tear gas haze or smoky ash that settles like a psalm. Call it true, both dust and light, Call it true when life goes on— a puzzle with missing pieces.
August 29, 2025 at 10:20 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! I was stuck on this #PoemsAbout #Chandeliers
then this came to me. Thank you again @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk
I will be back later to read and comment.
Poem by Merril D. Smith Hidden, Not Gone The slug leaves a trail of slime, slicking gold-plated facades, any light is an illusion, soon trapped in tenebrific gloom, it is always twilight here, and even the chandeliered sky is obscured. Artificial eyes spy from above, but they are blind to the beckoning of sun and moon, to the oculus of trees, the speck-sparkles in streaming beams, the scintillation of tiny stars lingering in affirmation in the afterglow.
August 22, 2025 at 12:27 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! For #PoemsAbout #Ceasefire Photo from yesterday morning. Thank you as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk for the prompts and platform.
What if, the People “Sometime they’ll give a war and nobody will come.” --Carl Sandburg, “The People, Yes” (1936) What if there was a sudden hush, a shushing of rattled sabers, of guns peppering people and walls, more than winding down, a stop-- what if bombs quit bursting in air, and drones no longer droned, became balloons of blooms and butterflies, what if eyes in the sky focused on wisdom and beauty, located rainbows and stars for our delight, what if the dictators realized they were naked, turned red with shame and slunk away, forgotten, what if the rest of us had a dream that truths are self-evident, that all men and women are equal, what if we had murmuration instead of reverberation, echoes of birdsong instead of bullet pop, pop, pop? I toss my questions on the river’s blue surface, the silver trout do not jump, the crow preens iridescent feathers laughs his jaunty laugh, “nuh uh,” carries on. Photo by Merril D. Smith of a crow perched on a rock in the Delaware River. In the foreground framing the bottom of the photo are green wild plants with yellow flowers. There are trees and faint signs of industry at the far horizon. The pale blue river reflects the shadows of bird, plants, and clouds.
August 15, 2025 at 11:09 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! Here's my poem for #PoemsAbout #BlackSky. I started out thinking it was going to go another way, but this is where the poem wanted to go. Thank you as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Poem: Antinomies The paradox of black holes, bathed in brilliance, noctilucous sun-swallower quasar-Ing the dark heavens, whirlpooled light, worm-holed thrusting, tugging time, turning existence inside-out, like a reflection stepping from a mirror, or the appearance of a midnight ghost that makes us question what is real, how the implausible becomes possible-- quaffed light finds fault lines to seep from, never extinguished completely, endless waves, ever extant, words once uttered-- a crescent moon smile remembered, each dawn, a star recalling love, us.
August 8, 2025 at 1:40 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! Karen @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social sparked my interest in revisiting the #cherita form. I'm going to use it for my dVerse prompt on Thursday, so I thought I'd try it out today for #PoemsAbout #StarCrossed. Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Poem: I dreamt of my parents as young lovers, star-crossed their constellations crashing, fire and earth exploding, the fate of stars. Stellar fragments left flashing last-breath sightings, spirit joins spirit. From the Milky Way’s shimmery horizon a cascade of luminous laughter falls, a glissando of ghost-echoes. I look up.
August 1, 2025 at 1:32 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! Here's my poem for #PoemsAbout #Glamour
Sometimes I can't help doing a bit of history. These prompts always make me think. Thank you @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk
Poem: The Times A Changing Fred wears a top hat, his tails flutter, Ginger dances backwards in heels, her gown glimmers, her sparkly aura shimmers in a swirl of white, gods on a screen larger than life, enough glamour and romance to make us forget the blues of dust bowl and depression bread lines. (Brother, can you spare a dime?) But the red-carpeted movie palaces are gone, the stars have crashed-landed, mortal now. We don’t need glamour. We need Woody with his guitar—this land Is your land, Tear the fascists down. Song quotes: Bob Dylan, “The Times They are A Changin’” (1964) Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” (1932_ Woody Guthrie, “This Land is Your Land” (1940) and “Tear the Fascists Down” (c.1944)
July 25, 2025 at 12:30 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! I have to admit, I was perplexed at this week's #PoemsAbout prompt #WaxTears. But here's what I came up with after yesterday's protests. Thank you as always to @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk.
Poem: In the midst, but still fighting the good fight Death is a cheetah we cannot outrun, though he may romp and tease-- a cat with a toy—pouncing— we should never invite him in. But we do. And give him playthings--wars and famine, refuse to vaccinate our children, deny medicine that would help others. We re-salt the seas with lamentations, hold vigils then because spent, only the candles can cry our tears.
July 18, 2025 at 1:19 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! I wrote of a different sort of keepsake today for #PoemsAbout #Keepsakes. Thank you as always to host @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @thebrokenspine.co.uk.
Poem: Bittersweet: what we have forgotten I don’t ignore the science of Big Bangs and black holes, my mind expands as a universe, bends to the curve of stories-- once in the time before time, light-birds opened like flowers, frondescence flashing in scintillation-sparked song, and that song flowed as rivers, cast waves through dark quintessence, so, fledglings floated into the lacuna of a timeless sea, and there was one spun of gold that spiraled from the wings of our galaxy, swirling gas, bubbling energy casting particles that kissed and melded into dust and water, surrounded by light-prismed blue, life helio-shimmered, celestial confections sprinkled with scattered luminosity— we hold cosmic keepsakes in every atom, star-echoes of resplendence and song, yet we fight over gold, steel, lands and oceans, trying to capture and control when we should see the sparkle, the gleam of every molecule dancing to the glitter notes of ancient melodies.
July 11, 2025 at 11:47 AM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! Here in the US, today is Independence Day. Yesterday, the spineless Republicans passed their Big Ugly Bill. But, it's a beautiful morning. So, here's my #poem for #PoemsAbout #BurnItDown. Thank you as always to @alanparry83.bsky.social and @brokenspinearts.bsky.social
Poem: On this Fourth of July 2025 I want to write with eloquence, words of hope and inspiration-- I have a dream. But we’re burning the books in a bonfire of vanities, as the handmaids to enforcers-- crosses prominently displayed amidst cleavage-- play dress-up and cheer at the misery of our neighbors fed to alligators in this new world coliseum. Soon we’ll be dying of disease and starvation, while wildfires burn because all the money has gone to cages and into billionaires’ bank accounts. We’ve scarcely whimpered, there is no bang as the world ends we’re repeating history, given power to evil, but I remember on this day, a ragtag army united and defeated the most powerful empire on earth and its king, and when we say history repeats itself, that must mean the good parts, too, so, I have a dream flint is sparking into incandescent rage-- this revolution will be televised-- but I dream it will be followed by regeneration, as a forest reseeds and returns. I have a dream there will be a new renaissance, maybe after I’m gone, after fires and storms, our own star, will once again startle us with her splendor, rising high, giving us her light. Poem: On this Fourth of July 2025 I want to write with eloquence, words of hope and inspiration-- I have a dream. But we’re burning the books in a bonfire of vanities, as the handmaids to enforcers-- crosses prominently displayed amidst cleavage-- play dress-up and cheer at the misery of our neighbors fed to alligators in this new world coliseum. Soon we’ll be dying of disease and starvation, while wildfires burn because all the money has gone to cages and into billionaires’ bank accounts. We’ve scarcely whimpered, there is no bang as the world ends we’re repeating history, given power to evil, but I remember on this day, a ragtag army united and defeated the most powerful empire on earth and its king, and when we say history repeats itself, that must mean the good parts, too, so, I have a dream flint is sparking into incandescent rage-- this revolution will be televised-- but I dream it will be followed by regeneration, as a forest reseeds and returns. I have a dream there will be a new renaissance, maybe after I’m gone, after fires and storms, our own star, will once again startle us with her splendor, rising high, giving us her light.
July 4, 2025 at 12:49 PM
merrildsmith.bsky.social
Good morning! I had a hard time with this #PoemsAbout #ItsASin. I didn't grow up with a religious background or talk of sin. History and current events just made me write rants. But the Oracle inspired this today. Thank you, as always @alanparry83.bsky.social and @brokenspinearts.bsky.social
Poem: Breaking the Silence Ask— who is that bitter boy? That dejected girl? Shamed. What are their dreams—so small, yet seemingly unattainable. Light licks at purple shadows, again, and again— he wants, she wants, we want skin-on-skin, sky-touching, to sing not of death, but of the sun, the moon, to drink the stars and shine with luscious luster-- it’s not wrong to want to soar.
June 28, 2025 at 1:46 PM