Tomorrow, Sat Nov 22, we meet in Siren RG1 on Friar street #rdguk to discuss all things poetry.
Focus this week is inspiration
Pic is Erato #muse of #poetry and music from wikimedia

Please Join us for #free
#PoetryWriting #amwritingpoetry

On Sat Nov 22 we meet in Siren RG1 at 13:00 on Friar street #RdgUK to discuss all things poetry over a drink and food (food optional) with a focus on the #writing process.
We will discuss co-operation between #writers
Please Join us
#creative #community #amwritingpoetry

Our look back at the Global Café days has #poet Ian Mckeenze in front of the Elk, and a concrete #poem “Nib”
Ian has recently published sopme of his #poetry in a book “Going To Montana In My Mind: Poems from a coffee shop' - Available online from lulu.com”
#amwritingpoetry

“un-lotused”

I’ve never been one to meditate on regrets
of paths not taken, universes unexplored,
for my regrets are few –

when I want something, I show up for it,
I find a way to it or I make one
and the primrose path to success builds upon itself

I would far rather meditate on failures,
iterations where everything when wrong
and then I made something beautiful from the
ashes, lotus petals unraveling, daring to ask if he
loves me or he loves me or loves me not,
than the zest of life left unnoticed

-Allēna 11/2/2025

#amwritingpoetry #poetry

Hi, everyone. My name is Peri.

I wrote this today:

I'm the result of two generations of fire, at least 
my grandfather saw horrors he likes to laugh 
about and won't talk about directly, but 
he replicates them compulsively when 
he's stressed out or bored 
my mother does the same thing and laughs 
about it too, but watches me for 
the same signs, the same crazy, like a ticking 
time bomb although often she is the cause 
of the insanity she fears so deeply at her core. 

I want to say that the shows I like 
hit too close to home, but they 
play out like my life did for twenty four years. 
pyromania burned through my mother's 
line, held my grandfather prisoner. 
my mother had her own compulsions, 
not just fire. her hands, cold as death, were 
always busy, always searching, always 
grasping for another handhold, another tool, 
another soul, another project. her hazel eyes
knew every entrance and exit, how to find
and get leverage, and she was plagued by 
the nightmares, too. under the constant 
stress of a dying husband and warring children, 
her mind held her hostage for eighteen years, 
forcing her to build fortress after fortress, 
light fire after fire, see threat after threat,
run and run. 

and she saw me as a blackened mirror 
of herself, a shell burned through. 
she followed me like a firewatcher, 
as though I was a bomb primed to explode. 
my compulsions are not hers, but the terror 
is the same. the mechanism is the same 
or is similar enough to be indistinguishable. 
but I am here to quench the fire and the thirst
and I might be crazy but I'm here to do things 
differently, so watch me if you must 
but be prepared for me to
douse 
your 
flame

-Peri 9/25/2025

#amwritingpoetry #milwaukeepoet #poetry

I just wrote this. It’s called “hurricane lazarus”, and it’s inspired by a conversation I had with a very powerful soul I met yesterday.

I was born in an otherwise normal middle of june at the tail end of tornado alley. I’m a gemini, scorpio moon, half air, half water, all storm and
tremendous force. say what you want about astrology, scorpios, or geminis, I’ll tell you what I know. I learned as a young child why they name storms after people.

perhaps some seal or some levee broke in an unseen place upon my birth, because death would dog my every step
and I swear on my father’s grave that hell
followed after that.

nine months after I was born, I got sick twice,
one week apart. the first virus took out my
immune system, the second took out my heart.
but I was a fighter. they hooked me up to a
machine that would breathe for me. one dose
of the meds they gave me would knock
my full grown, linebacker sized father out for
ten hours because I refused to go quietly,
like a category five hurricane slamming into
a coastline during the worst season on record.
I ripped through death and pain so goddamned
hard that death had a near me experience.

then came a sepsis scare. then a stroke. then
near starvation. each time I wailed a hurricane,
hundred fifty seven mile an hour straight line winds.
death learned to hate to see me coming.
all before I was three.

I learned to watch the storms that mirrored my
soul, learned to love the wind and the water,
find peace in the howling and the sickly blue green sky. in 2000, two tornadoes tore through
my city, devouring chunks of the skyline. there
are still signs and monuments there if you know
where to look.

nobody thought I’d live to see eighteen, twenty one, twenty three. they bet against me, calling me
crazy, plotting against me, betraying me when I needed them most. I learned to become inevitable, to channel my force into words, into song, into low pressure systems of my own.
so their plans didn’t hold.
their levees didn’t hold. they cracked under their
own weight and were washed away in the storm
surge when the people didn’t evacuate in time.

when I was twenty five, a boyfriend called me
what I was, a barely contained hurricane.
I lived with a lover when I first moved to
milwaukee who worked on emergency alert
machines. I learned the names of my surroundings when storms
rolled in with the same passion in which I
learned about her, the same way I studied the
storms when I was younger.
and I wonder if someday
someone will name a hurricane after me.

-Allēna 9/22/2025

#amWritingPoetry #hurricanes #meteorology #milwaukeepoet

I made this last night.

It’s based off of my poem “the light spinner”.

“the light spinner” is available in full here.

-Allēna

#2025books #2025reads #2slgbtqi #abstract #abstractart #actuallyADHD #actuallyAuDHD #ActuallyAutistic #agender #alchemy #AlphabetMafia #amWriting #amWritingPoetry #artists #ArtistsOnMastodon #ArtTherapy #associations #AssociativeMemory #bespokebullshit #booklovers #booksofmastodon #bookstadon #BookstoRead #ChaoticQueer #colorfulart #DigitalArt #DigitalArtHere #DigitalPainting #digitalartist #digitalcreator #digitalpainting #dissociativeidentitydisorder #eccentric #EmotionalJourney #emotions #enneagram8 #latenight #neon #poet #poetry #queerArtist #queerAuthor #Romantic #zines

I wrote this at the jazz open mic last night.

I see, I hear, I learn, I
bend myself in pretzel knots and
unfold my mind longhand

I traded the fire and brandy autumn leaves
for you and instead we squeeze every drop
of juice we can from this town with gusto and
verve.

I might die tomorrow as my hand cramps and
my heart races in time with the drums in the
gallery, but in this moment, I couldn’t be
happier.

I grew up with these sounds, asking myself if
silence was indeed the question, peering through
twelve bars and howling over blizzards
(January 21st, 2016 comes to mind)

I became louder than choirs,
louder than bombs, louder than
death itself

but with you, I learned to cherish the silence
cherish the vulnerable, unfiltered
drop my volume, drop my sword, my armor,
my fire
and here, in this town, with you in this gallery,
I see,
I hear,
I learn.

-Allēna 8/29/2025

#amWriting #amWritingPoetry #LGBTWriter #poetry #queerPoet

I didn’t mean to get overthrown…

-Allēna

#amwritingpoetry #chapbook #darkacademia #lgbtqwriter #poetry #queer #zine #zinester

I will follow this shimmering thread to the end…for you, I will…

-Allēna

#amWriting #amWritingPoetry #DigitalArt #PoetsOfMastodon #QueerArt #queerPoetry

Some #poems work better written, some as #spokenwordpoem
And a few have visual effect.

What style do you prefer?

Either as #poet or audience (including reader.

#amwritingpoetry #writenword #spokenword

Here’s a poetry performance from the other day.

This is “bite”, performed at Linneman’s Riverwest Inn in Milwaukee.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNiokNDtPwi/?igsh=a3F3MzM1ZTA0bTRv

“bite” was originally published in our third collection of poetry, Singing Molten Gold to the Morning.

-Allēna

#amWriting #amWritingPoetry #poetry #queerPoet

want to be in being involved in the local #poetry scene
on Sat 26th at 14:00 is #bards in a Bar
The bar @sirenrg1 on Friar Street #inrdg
the Bards and any #poertylover will discuss #poetry and #workshop #poems
#amwritingpoetry #rdguk #berkshire

The UK national #poetry #competition (2025) is currently open

See the poetry Society web page
https://poetrysociety.org.uk/competitions/national-poetry-competition/

#poetrychallenge #amwritingpoetry

This weekend the #poetry in #rdgUK is #poetscafe in art South Street #arts on Friday evening, giving us at Dreading slam a weekend off from the organisation

#spokenword #amwritingpoetry

#Poetry next weekend with @reading_poets_cafe in @southstreetarts on Friday 14th (8pm) and the #poetrysocial of #Parkpoets on Saturday15th (11:am) at @tutusethiopiantables in Palmer park

#rdguk #amwritingpoetry

An afternoon of editing. Working on two short stories and a poem. One story and the poem have intended submission destinations, the second short story will be filed for another day.

#AmWriting #SpeculativeFiction #AmWritingSpeculativeFiction #AmWritingPoetry #Poetry #WritingCommunity

This one is called “resurrection.” -Allēna

***

#writingcommunity #amwriting #amwritingpoetry #punk #cripplepunk #disabilities #survivor #cptsd #spilledink #spilledwords #trans #poetsofmastodon #gay #queer #queerwriter #rebirth #healing #rest #NEISvoid

#amWriting #amwritingpoetry #cptsd #CripplePunk #disabilities #gay #healing #NEISvoid #poetsofmastodon #Punk #queer #queerwriter #rebirth #rest #spilledink #spilledwords #survivor #trans #writingcommunity

Doing a little writing this morning.

This piece is called “pound of flesh”. I wrote it using this tool I also made: https://opensorceryy.itch.io/infinite-poems-almost-infinite-combinations. -Allēna #poetry #queerpoet #transpoet #books #amwriting #amwritingpoetry #writingcommunity #readerswanted #writerswanted

#amWriting #amwritingpoetry #books #poetry #queerpoet #readerswanted #transpoet #writerswanted #writingcommunity

This is “20 January 2025”. I must be in my glow cloud era artistically, I guess 🤣 -Allēna

#poetry #transpoet #writingcommunity #transartist #digitalart #amwriting #amwritingpoetry #readingcommunity #poetryloverswanted #fucktrump #protestpoetry #fuckmusk #protestart #transmasc

#amWriting #amwritingpoetry #digitalart #fuckmusk #fucktrump #poetry #poetryloverswanted #ProtestArt #protestpoetry #ReadingCommunity #transartist #transmasc #transpoet #writingcommunity