Philippa Bowe
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philippabowe.bsky.social
Philippa Bowe
@philippabowe.bsky.social
1.1K followers 800 following 930 posts
Flash fiction, poetry, translation, in English/en français. Published online and in print (Ghost City Press, NFFR, Reflex Fiction, Bath Flash Fiction, Spark2Flame, Neither Fish Nor Foul, The Hooghley Review). Pushcart Prize nom. Dance, LFC, la belle vie.
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philippabowe.bsky.social
Short and sweet for this week's #PoemsAbout prompt, #Desire. Thought I'd try and get away from the obvious but didn't happen...😆Looking forward to reading others over the weekend.
Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk
Purple box with black letters of a poem: desires my desire plays hide and seek on your body there it nestles in your belly button now flattening itself against the violoncello dips in your back trying to espouse the skin – it flitters it calms it sighs in gravelly relief at the spark in fiercely loved familiarity and giggles playing tag with your desire
November 14, 2025 at 5:55 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Slipping a piece in late in the day for the #PoemsAbout prompt #LockedDoors (after a day being poorly), will return tomorrow to read the others. Thanks as every week to @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk 💜🙏
Orange box with black shading and black letters of a poem: Monsters Over and over / I test the lock / timidly / then exerting my furious force / to no avail / my battering ram splintering / matchsticks useless for even lock-picking / so I turn my back to the door / maybe I hope the monsters enclosed will batter or slip or seep through to me / maybe I think if I glance side-eyed I will glimpse the monster shapes bulging the wood, sending the metal groaning / until until until / I let the questions butterfly-wing to the floor I sweep them into the ocean / where the past sinks murk-deep and light-less / and I splash in waves above where sun and shadows shout and tag / and leave the door / in peace
November 7, 2025 at 8:46 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Also very happy to have a piece of flash fiction shortlisted for the wonderful @bridportprize.bsky.social! 🙏💜
White box with black/coloured writing: BRIDPORT PRIZE International Creative Writing Competition Bridport Prize shotlists and novel long list 2025
November 4, 2025 at 7:55 AM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Early morning piece for the #PoemsAbout #Blood prompt. A never-confirmed rumour about my great-grandfather was the starting point. Look forward to reading lots of other wonders this evening after work! Happy Friday poets. ❤️🎃
Thank you @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk
Red box with black and highlighted nuances overlaid with the words of a poem: in our veins we are imprisoned by it – blood so bad it was chased out of Ireland and took the boat to Liverpool a hundred years ago but could be yesterday in our inherited veins will I let out that fury? asks my brother tumbled in fear and I am tempted to hand him a file to saw through the bars of our blood
October 31, 2025 at 7:13 AM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Tokay's #LiftToTheSky goes to The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem - such a rich and compelling exploration of the form and the breadth of prose poems is breath-taking! 💜
@thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk
Photo of a book cover, The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem, featuring part of a building wall with part of a window with blocks of white crossed by black, yellow and blue lines evoking modern art.
October 27, 2025 at 7:51 AM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Quite a late one for this week's #PoemsAbout prompt, #BurnForTheCamera, it went pretty weird. Will read and comment tomorrow. Thanks as ever to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk Happy Friday night poets! 💜
grey box with white flashes like bursts of light with the words of a poem superimposed: down below moving through the world slipping through dirt - dark holes - dead trees a face lips eyes hair – angelic / demonic (Lucifer the most beautiful of them all?) splendour – melting human eyes iris camera shot scorched or bleeding black – how we cannot contemplate this perfection shrinking us into our mere humanness yearning for the wild
October 24, 2025 at 6:57 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
My offering from this week's #PoemsAbout prompt, #BreaktheMould.
Thanks as ever to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk and @karenpgonzalez.bsky.social for stepping in! 💜
Photo of blue sky with sunrise turning it orange over the sea and a glimpse of a rocky coast. The words of poem superimposed: happy residue my mould has broken lies shattered on the floor leaving behind it shifting figures tattooed beneath my skin – here is one the shape of the Eiffel Tower there another round and whole and burning as the southern sun
October 17, 2025 at 1:40 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Today's #LiftToTheSky goes to @holliemcnish.bsky.social and her book Slug, one of my current reads. To borrow the words of Kate Kellaway in The Guardian: 'it frisks, rages and rejoices.' All excellent things! 😀✨
@thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk
Orange book cover ith purple and white writing: Slug by Hollie McNish
October 13, 2025 at 9:05 AM
philippabowe.bsky.social
I was planning to write something centring on my total inability to be on time for anything for this week's #PoemsAbout prompt, #ImperfectMe - but it took my in a very different direction! Weekly big fat thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk. Happy Friday poets! 💜
White heart-shaped cloud against a blue sky background overlaid with the words of a poem: You My Love I give you the biggest bouquet of roses Yellow as sun, white as clouds You sneeze and sneeze until your nose splatters blood Next time I’ll buy you scarlet blooms I give you a puppy Furry grey-and-white blur of happy motion You tell me you can’t stand dogs, didn’t I know? I chuckle and say, everyone loves dogs I give you soft drapings The loveliest dresses in jewel colours, emerald ruby sapphire You try them on over your jeans and stay silent, eyes shuttered I tell you, you have no idea how beautiful you are You hand me back roses and puppy and clothes You tell me, this is no good, is over, this is me leaving And I look at you with eyes of loud ardour And what I hear is, I love you forever and forever and forever
October 10, 2025 at 11:24 AM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Got my piece in to the @bathflashaward.bsky.social with a whole two hours to spare!! 😆✨
pink circle with red writing saying BFFA and a green outer circle with white writing saying Bath Flash Fiction Oct 2025 Last Minute Club
October 5, 2025 at 8:12 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Last minute piece for #PoemsAbout and the #Mannequin prompt - will read and comment on others tomorrow! Big thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk
Poem on a purple and orange background: The mannequin in the shop window spoke to me this morning as I walked past, help me! she said so I stopped and looked into her eyes that aren’t eyes and thought, without eyes can we have a soul? And asked her, how? but she said nothing, perfect head tilted, perfect body streamlined, long elegant fingers reaching for two baby mannequins, a perfect family in a perfectly accessorised world, and I felt the fat on my arms tug, body hair wild to escape, belly roll reaching heartily for trouser waistband, sweat rolling faster and faster in glee from my armpits, I shifted on my feet and my mind bounced away and home, my messy crowded full of snarling teens and dirty dishes home, my human heart-filled home stained with love and laughter, and I was washed in sadness for her and before I turned away I think I saw a tear glint on the mannequin’s flawless cheek.
October 3, 2025 at 8:19 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Very hard to respond to this week's #PoemsAbout prompt, #NeverAgain. Very hard to put words to the horror. Thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk for pushing us week in week out with so many challenging prompts. 🙏💜
Image of a dust cloud in a desert ovelaid with the words of a poem: Never Again You admire the dragonfly zigzagging with grace In a sky of feathery grey clouds But then you see The dragonfly is a helicopter Clouds the billowing of bomb drops You wave to the flock of birds winging Racing from setting sun to rising sun But then you remember The birds are fighter planes Streaking closer to twilight battlefields You warm to those two words The pact promise guarantee of lessons learned But now you realise They are no more than empty vessels contents spilled Vanished soaked into desert dust like old blood
September 26, 2025 at 8:53 AM
philippabowe.bsky.social
This is what Friday's are like now - @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk you are a poetry fireworks catalyst! 🙏✨
golden fireworks exploding in a black sky
September 20, 2025 at 3:33 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
My offering for this week's #PoemsAbout prompt, #SilentPlanets. A fun one. Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk 🧡
a poem: beyond words she lost her words bit by bit stones dropping into other mouths swallowing them his words were torn from him, trampled into dust thick as hate she tries to remember her words but only nets a few – kitten ouch bed dark touch no he tries to tuck away some of his words from the clawing fingers – eyes – teeth but nowhere is deep enough she feels the last words sieve through her and away he pulls the sides of himself in and around the craters left behind and now they sit together out on the edge of a ruby blazing horizon round with sorrow companionable silent as planets
September 19, 2025 at 5:06 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Sad to leave Brussels after the @saloneurope.bsky.social - a whole weekend in a lovely city with a big gang of amazing writers for inspiration, talk, sharing and howls of laughter - what could be better? Bravo to @deborahzafer.bsky.social and the management team! 🙌🏽🎉✨💜
September 14, 2025 at 4:01 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
My response to this week's #PoemsAbout prompt #Candelight turned out to be unusually brief - started as a haiku then expanded a little, but not much! Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk Happy weekend poets! 💜
Picture of a tealight candle with the text of a poem: candlelight – as cloying honey as vexatious gold cloth as wan sunlight slanting – wavering hope
September 12, 2025 at 9:44 AM
philippabowe.bsky.social
For today's #LiftToTheSky I'm celebrating a book: A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year, a gift I snubbed for a while, finding the poems too 'trad' for my tastes. I'm now trying a new approach, reading them aloud, and hugely enjoying the daily beauty!
@thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk
Photo of a book called A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year, edited by Jane McMorland Hunter.
September 8, 2025 at 11:29 AM
philippabowe.bsky.social
This week's #PoemsAbout prompt is as inspiring as ever: #Facades. Thanks, also as ever, to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk. Happy Friday poets! 💜
beautiful façade the skin on her face / she cements / thick-layered smooth blank white / she knows that just beneath / coiling nests of black spiders / ready to invade / must be contained her eyelids / she weights / deep dark blue heavy as waves / keep her eyes from rolling back / in her head / seeing the blinding light of the world / without protection her lips / she slashes / black as a snarling panther / no fruit that colour / nothing to pluck here / a shade to keep her mouth to herself / always
September 5, 2025 at 7:31 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
My offering for today's #PoemsAbout #Riots prompt. Look forward to reading people's responses - they're always so varied! - over the weekend. Thanks merci gracias to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk 🔥❤️
August 29, 2025 at 8:58 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Nothing was coming to me for this week's #PoemsAbout prompt, #Chandeliers - until it did (this morning)! Dancing in chains 'n all that... Thanks @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk and happy Friday, all you poets! 💜
August 22, 2025 at 1:06 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
August 21, 2025 at 2:55 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
This Friday's #PoemsAbout prompt is #Ceasefire. So hard to address. I've tried, poorly, to express my thoughts on the use of words as well as bombs and bullets as weapons to justify the unjustifiable... @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk
August 15, 2025 at 7:41 AM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Loved this week's #PoemsABout prompt, #BlackSky. And was musing on what a precious thing this poetry community it, so much inspiration and support - the positive face of our virtual world! And all thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk! 🙏💜
August 8, 2025 at 10:43 AM
philippabowe.bsky.social
Love the way the #PoemsAbout prompts from @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk turn Friday into play day! This week's prompt, #Starcrossed, took me into the sky on the tail of a star... 😅✨Happy Friday poets! 💜
August 1, 2025 at 2:40 PM
philippabowe.bsky.social
This is where today's #PoemsAbout #Glamour prompt took me: an ode to those kickarse women of my teen years. Big fat thanks to @thebrokenspine.co.uk and @alanparrywriter.co.uk and happy poetry Friday to all! 💜
July 25, 2025 at 7:57 AM