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David Birch

@davidbirch.bsky.social

1K followers 720 following 1.1K posts

Worked in education and mostly taken up with poetry these days: you can find some of my poems at https://wildfire-words.com/?s=David+Birch and most recently in the latest @thebrokenspine.co.uk collection 'Beautiful Little Fools'.

wildfire-words.com

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

My pleasure!

David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

Pleasure!

David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

I love the image of sculling through the sky. Beautifully done

Reposted by David Birch

Emily Tee @emteepoetry.bsky.social · 2d

Ah, the #simplepleasures of watching the behaviour of the birds! One from a short while ago for @dragonslayerma.bsky.social and this week's #PromptCombo

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you, Roger!

Reposted by David Birch

Stefano Carini @cieloceano.bsky.social · 2d

Thank you, Fidel, for your kind words.
Another one on #simplepleasures
#promptcombo

Pumpkin sings of routine,
morning waves the dewy wings
for daring solar winds

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

"Crest-pose" is beautifully apt! I need to know if peewits lapwing though...

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Reposted by David Birch

Sue Ibrahim @sueimnw.bsky.social · 2d

For this week's #PromptCombo #SimplePleasures with joyous host, Fidel @dragonslayerma.bsky.social - watching birds is one of my greatest simple pleasures.

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you!

David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you, Rachel - glad this struck a chord!

Reposted by David Birch

Stefano Carini @cieloceano.bsky.social · 2d

#promptcombo #SimplePleasures
#haiku
#mysticverse

A simple one for
@dragonslayerma.bsky.social

Forgiving nothing is
but flowers drawing visions—
the skies within.

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

Never have escape rooms been so delightfully skewered: "Teamwork and claustraphobia" 👋👋

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Reposted by David Birch

Jan Peters - Solivagant Wisdom @janpsolivagant.bsky.social · 2d

🙏 @dragonslayerma.bsky.social as #PromptCombo host.
#SimplePleasures of #Solitude #daydreaming #solitaire #gitanes (I no longer smoke 😁)

#poetry / #photography: ©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025/2008

#LeGrandMeaulnes #Sologne #EscapeRoom #Philemon #Baucis #Chateau #InnerLife

Lost Estate

La Sologne,
Sand-and-clay implacability, where
Maquisards,
Oblivious to time’s march, melt into a
Marsh-and-meadow melee.
Where hedgerow-cached
Portals open onto pingo-pond,
Sylvian dominions
Pooling the nameless, numberless Consolations of
Solitude.

Readers chanced upon a clearing here in
Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes
A century ago - its enigmatic
Lost Estate the tale’s symbolic pivot.

Mystery and transience of youth,
Doomed quest for a vanished world,
Now sequestered in a nondescript Chateau:
Museum-retreat fashioning a
Charmed, homespun niche amidst the
Upheavals of interwar France.

I see them with my mind’s eye, ninety Years on: ageless, reclusive
Philemon and Baucis, in whom Bukowski’s Gods still delight.

Game of solitaire arranged on the disused Billiard table in a shower of sun-gilded Motes, overseen by a tarnished
Suit of armour out of the foxed, Mildewed pages of some chapbook.

Unfinished letter, article, story or Manifesto lodged in the
Underwood typewriter, unsent to Minotaure, Pages Folles or Le Figaro -
Ashtray studded with Gitane stubs in Unfailing attendance.

Hunting trophies consigned to the boot Room, mounted askew or littering the Workbenches like decapitated
Dollies in some child’s dark, Mad Hatter Fantasy.

I hear the Lost Estate has begun hosting
An Escape Room that harbours
Twin torments for hermit souls:
Teamwork and claustrophobia.

Millennial-Zoomer masochism – gravity Of a dystopian coworking hub warping The space-time fabric of their inner life.

Imagination now a peer-driven,
Groundhog-Day litany of
“Check In,
Action This,
Get Aligned,
Circle Back.”

I recall a more spacious age, not long ago,
When I visited this nondescript chateau in An obscure corner of
France de l’intérieur.

© Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2025

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2008

Staircase, hallway, open door, window admitting sunlight in a nondescript chateau in Central France.

©Jan Peters/Solivagant Wisdom, 2008
Beekeeping paraphernalia (?): white beekeeper's hat resting on one of two conical structures on the sill of a window admitting daylight.

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Reposted by David Birch

Francis H Powell writer and poet @fhpowellwriter.bsky.social · 2d

@dragonslayerma.bsky.social
#promptcombo #simplepleasures

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

This is beautiful! I love the simplicity of the language and the line breaks seem to heighten the sense of pleasure here

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Reposted by David Birch

Scott McConnaha @smcconnaha.bsky.social · 2d

Hello Fidel. Love this prompt. Thank you!
@dragonslayerma.bsky.social
#promptcombo #simplepleasures

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

"The joy of a supermarket toilet" is a line I never expected to read. In context, it makes absolute sense!

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Reposted by David Birch

Roger Hare @hareontherun.bsky.social · 2d

For this week's #promptcombo from @dragonslayerma.bsky.social about #simplepleasures a true story!!

All it took was a broken
toilet pedestal to take us back
to the wild, to the art of finding
a place to leave our spoor where
we hope it doesnt give us away -
the joy of a supermarket toilet,
a pub with facilities open to
non-patrons, an overnight hotel
equipped with nothing but
the clothes we stand up in.

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Reposted by David Birch

La Reine des Metaphores @metaphorqu.bsky.social · 2d

Thanks for the #promptcombo #simplepleasures #Poets

And might that fine lone tree
If it could see me
Balancing precariously

Breathe out a gentle cry
In recognition of my
Willingness to try

Paul Connolly @thepaulconnolly.bsky.social · 2d

👏👏👏

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Reposted by David Birch

Paul Brookes @thewombwellrainbow.bsky.social · 1d

Hi @dragonslayerma.bsky.socia Fidel and your glorious #promptcombo #SimplePleasures. My second is from my collection "Othernesses":

Therapy

Listen, soft crash of my waves alter your brain patterns, feel my sand exfoliate, your skin as my unevenness makes floor walk harder, works your calves and thighs. A state

of meditation lulls, slows your heart beat, deepens your breath. My blue sky and sun shoot up your bodies feel good drugs, my heat and negative ions ensure reboot.

I massage the vagus nerve in your neck, enough for all this to happen. Watch fish in rockpools provide aquariums check your stress, rejuvenate a hug and kiss.

I'm health resort, recommunion, refresher, renewer, good reunion.

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

Sounds like two to three poppadoms may be a slight underestimate....Really enjoyed this!

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Reposted by David Birch

Julian (Hool) @hool415.bsky.social · 2d

Hullo @dragonslayerma.bsky.social Thanks for hosting #promptcombo #simplepleasures

Here’s a little bite of whimsy!

Simple Pleasures

I adore a channa dhansak, mushroom bahji, garlic naan…
mango chutney, onion salad
and well…
two to three poppadoms.
There is the sacrament, the indulgence
of eating one of them
when collecting-pilgrim
in my Saturday happiest car.
I imagine breaking down
but confessing to the R.A.C.
honestly chaps,
please feel free
to take your longest ever time.

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

Love the movement and energy in this, topped off wonderfully with a note of defiance

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Reposted by David Birch

Rachel @vignettes.bsky.social · 2d

Thanks @dragonslayerma.bsky.social
What a delightful prompt to start Monday morning. My secret simple pleasure that returns me to childhood joy is flying a kite. I keep it in the boot of my car.
#promptcombo #simplepleasures

Simple Pleasures

The wind frets at the pebbles,
salt spray burns my face.
The kite jerks like a stubborn gull,
its red plastic heart flapping,
tail tangled, untamed.
Thin bamboo bones creak
as it strains for sky—
a sailboat chasing invisible tides.
I laugh, barefoot, skirt & hair whipping,
each tug of string a pulse returning—
old hands, yes,
but the girl is still flying.

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David Birch @davidbirch.bsky.social · 1d

What a gorgeous ending to a catalogue of such vivid agony. Brilliantly realised throughout!