Sarah O

@palimpsest22

Mainly poetry in independent presses, art, glass, theatre & people playing. Allotment life. York with Glasgow links. UK. Not every act of kindness is part of a plan. Website :www.sarahowriter.com

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Bluesky

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Sarah O@palimpsest22· 5d

@thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk #PoemsAbout #Thriftstore Like @jenthorne.bsky.social I'm going with charity shop/jumble sale theme too for this:

Vintage

I used to keep tanners
in a crochet purse
my Nana snapped up
at the jumble in ‘63.

The very same day Kennedy was shot.
She swore.

With every night bus missed
we strode towards dawn.
Crises? What crises?
Tabloids were so much chip paper.

Now we are too old to make mistakes.
Lipstick kisses blot on Kleenex,
butterfly wings of Sherbet Vice
or Almost Nude.

We replay our youth in curated sound
headphone solace required as we fuck the truth
that the planet is stuffed
with bargains we struck long ago.

Sarah O’Grady

Sarah O@palimpsest22· 7d

First rainbow in months. Doubt much penetration into the dust bowl but reassuring sight.

A rainbow over trees. Low sunlight shines on a huge sycamore and silver birch . Steel grey sky.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· 8d

Goodnight from a dew pond safely above the parched streams where the staybelows are crawling out in search of a home.

A dew pond above the #Yorkshire Wolds. Not too far from Wetwang.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· 10d

'clues to something... forgotten'. Might wait for flying ant day to settle down with this gem.

Hookland Fragments Volume One wrapped in pink tissue paper from Treadwell's Bookshop.

Front cover of Hookland Fragments by David Southwell. Bone Bear linocut by Maaria Strutz.. a black and whiteinocut of a bear juggling bones in the night sky.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· 24d

Inclined to think the ancient oak pew carvings stretch their wings in those silent afternoons.

A carving in wood of an angel attched to a church pew.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Jul 11

@thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAbout #Powercuts One for this week whilst I'm away, waiting for the storms over water.

Storm Pending

There is a block of light on the landing
solid as Mother,
lux spread thick over lino
constant as her hum
in the yard below,
all chores done.

Static sweeps electric, birds breathe
to a count of three…
then spill.
Dust richochets full stops
against her white sail sheets
then the power cuts.

Sarah O’ Grady

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Jun 22

@emteepoetry.bsky.social #PromptCombo #Beach Here is one first published in similar form in Dreich Zoo Collection.

Stranded Seal

Sea foam
candy floss high
whipped into the penny arcade,
sand- caked spines shivered
twisted in the roughness of towels
before tumble driers
made us soft.

The boy,
storm blown skittish,
ran nut brown on shale
gulling his way
from suck to pebble pull,
the relics of our sunny afternoon
were all his world.

Then we saw grace pole-axed
by warm flanks
heaving a last breath,
but we could not hear his sobbing
for the offshore wind.

Sarah O’ Grady

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Jun 22

Cheers. Spent the weekend at a wedding in a crumbly medieval castle... bliss.

A wooden door. Oak. Gothic style window.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Jun 22

Today is my birthday. Mainly spending it in a hammock with Heaney, Piper and a glass of wine. Might pop out to see if anything important* has occurred.

Tabby Cat and person in a striped hammock.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Jun 5

@zoomburst.substack.com #Odd #OpportunityKnocks In the spirit of alternative #PoemsAbout while @alanparrywriter.co.uk takes a break today..here's a very early one, first appeared in Dreich Love Anthology. Be back after a day walking in the Yorkshire Wolds....

Forsaken

First there were lemons on a sill
orbiting zest.
On a train heading North
I cursed the chill waste
of summers exchanged
for transgressions confessed.

Now I abandon
the colour of walls,
Liberty prints scavenged
for a double quilt,
tillaged lawn sown in shade,
tulips still underground.

But as I walk away
past the Lebanese store,
Mr Hashem hands me lemons
for my years of custom
and a goodbye kiss.

Sarah O’Grady

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Jun 4

Extraordinary writing. Off to find Volumes 2 through 5.

Book cover. On Calculation of Volume 1 by Solveg Balle. Mustard Yellow border with blurred photo of a woman leaving through a door.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Jun 1

Back with Mr Caradoc, a home for this quirky little poem. June issue #TheCandyman'sTrumpet. Full poem in alt.

How The Poets Tried to Save Twitter

On embered strand
snuffed bonfires glowed

we ignored the wreck
spat on our palms

grasped the cooler
ends of sticks

flicked sparks, signalled
like fireflies at sharks.

Opening our sonnet throats,
we sang across maps

translated conjunctions
wrote tender odes

with the charred remains
of our sunken boats.

Sarah O’ Grady

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 30

#Caturday Piper Minnaloushe rehearsing for the role of Blofeld's white cat. Might need a costume.

Tabby cat on a pair of legs lying in a rainbow coloured hammock. She looks straight at the camera.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 29

One from the allotment plot. Too hot for weeding now. First aired by @zoomburst.substack.com in Sixty Odd. @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk #PoemsAbout #Earntheright

When it came to clearance..

first you bent from the waist,
only later the knees.

Crimson pearls of amaranth
scattered late summer
across autumn,
matched the defiant streaks
in your hair.

You knew there would be debris
clustered like fool’s gold
around the roots,
all kinds of flashy promise
beneath the leather glove.

Ironmongery raged
under the hawthorn hedge,
spiteful with rust
and inter-war postponement,
waiting for a chance to pierce
even years later.

Sarah O’ Grady

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 27

@catherineredford.bsky.social Fabulous reading @poetrypharmacy.bsky.social in #York this evening. The poems are moving, interesting and strangely (for a collection about grief) life - affirming. Off to find my post-it notes..

A collection of poetry by Catherine Redford. The Way The Water Held Me. Birds flying over a green and red landscape. Illustration by Amy Louise Evans. Published by The Emma Press.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 26

Mood. Piper Minnaloushe agrees. Writing later. #Yorkshire

A tabby cat photographed from a stripy hammock in a verdant wild garden.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 24

Night Hookland.. from the shortcut behind the harbour we wished we hadn't taken.

A statue of a figure draped in a hooded cloak standing in an abandoned garden facing a sheer stone wall. Whitby.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 22

Goodnight from the MV Creteblock (Whitby) appearing in just the right place to remind us of our mistakes.

A slab of wrecked ship made of concrete block. Built in 1919,scuttled around 1947 beneath Whitby Abbey. The ship hit the Scar and eventually had to be blown with dynamite, this was only partially successful. It rises at low tide.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 17

Goodnight Hookland from Jacob's Ladder & The Donkey Road. Strange light tonight.

A view from the base of 199 stone steps up to St Mary's Abbey Whitby. The pathway has been in existence since at least 1370. Cobbled path alongside. Blue dusk sky.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 15

@thebrokenspine.co.uk #PoemsAbout #WhatRemains Published first in Poetry Breakfast.

Mercury Rising

I rucksacked ashes
on trains.
My father, his mother,
the first man’s grandmother,
my second man, my friend.

I attract solutions,
orbit melancholy,
a heavy magnet
in the Etch-A-Sketch
of grief.

I release them
onto water, earth under roses,
air to dark, stars.
Plot the ley lines of spirits,
a secret map of adieus:

that tarn, black with reflection,
ringing with curlews.
The named bench,
loose lead tethered
to the leg.

Everywhere
so public
I have broken the rules of decency.

Today I watch a man
scissor the sky on platform ten.
He leaps for joy,
cuts the first sun of spring
from shadow.
My entire day is held
in one gentle pocket.

Sarah O’ Grady

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 15

@blackboughpoetry.bsky.social @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social #FragmentsFriday A start of something, someone.

Scan

A quality of light hums,
blueprints echo- locate,
pipistrelles pulse:
sonar sonar sonar.

Sarah O’ Grady

#FragmentsFriday

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 5

So this arrived yesterday. It contains one gut punch after another. When I got to Sarah Connor I had to stop to recover. This is an extraordinary collection. @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social

A book entitled Shored Fragments Edited by Kitty Donnelly and Matthew M. C. Smith. Picture of a cityscape at dusk reflected in the river.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 4

I don't normally post on politics but on May The Force Be With You Day this is for @defendourjuries.bsky.social and my friend in solidarity. #PoetsofBluesky

Trafalgar Square 11th April 2026

He is arrested wearing nursing scrubs
and a placard protesting slaughter:
England expects every man to do his duty.

England suspects everyman doing his duty,
he is arrested wearing scrubs. Nelson spies
justice with one eye blinded.

He is not made of granite, my friend
arrested wearing his scrubs;
all the lions are forged from melted guns.

Sarah O’ Grady

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 2

Absolutely delighted to be back on @blackboughpoetry.bsky.social WinterBough Anthology 2026 with my poem First Advent Tea... Thankyou @matthewmcsmith.bsky.social for including me. This was such a good read last year, perfect for when the light dims here.

Our lighted window with Christmas decorations around a fir tree..mushrooms, squirrel, paper star, fairy lights. Soft glowing looking in from the outside. This was made to entertain the neighbourhood children during covid restrictions when Christmas was almost cancelled in the UK.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 2

@coastalpoet.bsky.social #PoemsAloud Winter Term At The Glasgow School of Art from Unwhispered Legacy @paulwritespoems.bsky.social Raising funds for MSF. *undersook =an undercurrent flowing in the opposite direction to the surface water.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· May 1

#Beltane #MayDay #Commonweal Have a lovely Friday.

A picture by Walter Crane 1895.woman holding up a wreath festooned with banners reading 'No child toilers' 'the land for the people' 'production for use not for profit' hope in work joy in leisure '..flowers,international workers day. Campaign for the 8 hr day.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Apr 24

#PoemsAbout #Signalloss @thebrokenspine.co.uk @alanparrywriter.co.uk Thanks. Been a while. First in Rough Diamond The Body. Longwave.

L o n g w a v e

You are a valve
radio, sweeping
from Oslo to Lahti.
She tunes in,
safe cracking ear
close to the white noise
of your breath.

The scale of shadow voice,
semi-tones of stroke
so faint, still
she pins the gist,
delicate as a shared future.
Light grows warmer
in your eyes.

Sarah O’Grady

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Apr 17

Bracket fungi by the River Ouse in #York. #Fridayfungi

Brown and cream fungi on the side of a tree trunk. Background of grass.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Apr 13

The first asparagus pickings. Delicious. #allotment #Yorkshire

Asparagus stalks. Green and purple. On a chopping board waiting for the pan.

Sarah O@palimpsest22· Apr 6

The prompt says 'What's Up?'.. the asparagus already. #allotmentlife #Yorkshire