Contributions of the group Birmingham UK

Already Dark

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 21:36:01 +0000

You showed me the sunset
On a day you said
Would never end.
I walked across an
Ocean of snow
Barefoot.
I made it to
The edge.
But it was already dark
Before the sunrise
Before the morning star
Obscured the view
Of days already done
Long ago.

Wintering

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 11:56:55 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

Leave us in peace, the trees cry out. Kill us not.
The vandal wind has already tried.
When the people arrived, there was
Lamentation, of sorts, for a while,
But most just walked by,
Treading on our bones.
The dead leaves fall,
And keep falling.
Take some to
Write on if you
Will, before
The thunder
Storm
Comes
Once
More.

Barely alive, kept almost
Freezing, we remain.

1903

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Sat, 10 Jan 2026 09:27:25 +0000

tarboat has posted:

Abandoned light industrial premises dated 1903 in terracotta on Ludgate Hill in the Jewellery Quarter of Birmingham.

Merry Christmas

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 22:33:11 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

It was Christmas Eve, babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, "Won't see another one"
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you.

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen-to-one
I've got a feeling
This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you, baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true...

From Fairytale of New York
Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan

Winter Morning

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 21:22:10 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

Holding a ladder
She sang
And you saw.
Then, climbing
Right past
With a swag bag,
Your ghost made
No footprints
In the frost,
As she watched
The frozen sunset
Slip behind
The brightest day.

Christmas

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 21:35:33 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

Buried behind concrete
Hope lies dead
In tiny rooms
Where the lost
Seek their souls,
Waiting for night
To arrive
Once more. Soon
Brutalist ghosts will
Rise into the air
To watch over their
Shiny, reflective offspring
Keeping together
What is falling apart.

Positive Interlude

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:17:18 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

There may be more...

Telephone Building

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 05:45:20 +0000

tarboat has posted:

The Bell-Edison Telephone Building on Newhall Street in Birmingham is a terracotta delight. It was completed in 1896 to the design of architect Frederick Martin of the firm Martin & Chamberlain. Whilst fairly plain at ground level, the upper storeys feature a rich variety of terracotta ornamentation

Spring Fever

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Sun, 30 Mar 2025 21:27:22 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

Walking through the quiet city
Buildings out of place
Loom large.
Structures we once knew.

I peruse the ruins from below
While surveyors scan the horizon
From the tops of creaking monuments.
Smiling past destruction
With only a vague feeling
Of emperor's doubt.

Winter

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 22:47:43 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

Winter took its time
Spawning in April
On the lawn
Of a chiaroscuro day.
Breathing in silence
For nine months,
Before swaddling catastrophe
In new fears
To replace the old,
Which numbness never
Fully pained away.

Angel

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 22:16:35 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

Lifeless beauty
In the mist.
Stone angel.
The stranger to what
Was once known.

Displaced

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 21:44:55 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

From constant thought,
To constant thought.
From point to point,
In front and behind,
Above and below,
The horizon runs

Far away,
Your memory hidden
Behind the line.

Although it was expected,
Your departure
Still surprised.
Like mist
On a summer's ay.

Escape

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 20:50:06 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

I wait for a tomorrow
Filled with summer.
I feed my thoughts
But this is no sad interim.
My eyes are impatient
For the fog to fade.
The blunt force allayed.
When the sharpness
Of the sunbeam shrinks,
The fullness of winter,
Renews daily, until
The view becomes clear, and
Dullness reminds me
That I escaped.

(Inspired by Sonnet 56)

Trees in Sepia

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 19:22:57 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

When will the disregarded blossom come?
When will the sun dazzle anew?
When will the sky fill with power blue?

The Park

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 19:15:19 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

Past the bandstand,
The bird house
And bowls players,
My mother sits
On a sunny day.
Everything is
Pink, white and yellow.
I watch from my pram.
A few years later
She tells me
To be careful
As I swing as
High as I can.

By the time you
Join me on the path
The dusk has settled,
Evening has already
Fallen,
And we take solace
In the fairground
Until the night
Begins.

Bell-Edison

nobody@ipernity.com (tarboat) — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 06:31:21 +0000

tarboat has posted:

The Grade I listed Bell-Edison Telephone Building at 17-19 Newhall St, Birmingham was completed in 1896 to the design of architect Frederick Martin of the firm Martin & Chamberlain. Whilst fairly plain at ground level, the upper storeys feature a rich variety of terracotta ornamentation. It was constructed to house the new Central Telephone Exchange and offices for the National Telephone Company (NTC). Birmingham's central exchange had 5,000 subscribers and was the largest of its type in the country.

Gravity

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 22:40:47 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

I wait
Without cover
Whilst the cold sharpens in.
Death pulling to the floor.
Is it possible to revive
The mists of eternity?
The frost smothers
Einstein white,
And gravity pins me
To this place.
I dare not look up.
Hope would crush me.

Ozzy Man

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Sat, 07 Dec 2024 21:19:52 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

I met a traveller from Sutton Coldfield
Who said, "A massive artisan bull
Stands in New Street Station,
And near it, about to cut some tape,
A half-sunk visage waits,
Whose wrinkled lip and Gary Oldman glasses
Look up towards the lifeless thing,
With a half-mocking hand, ready to declare,
'My name is Ozzy, man, King of Birmingham
Look on my works ye mighty and despair!'
All gathered closer to the colossal wreck
Whose nose did steam and eyes did glare.
'Sorry I cor stay long', the man did say
'There's a sunbed waiting for me in Tampa Bay!'"

Eyes Wide Open

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 18:42:42 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

Show me the beauty of that snowy-scene.
This is how I want to remember things.
Beneath the lamplight in my street;
Bright and alive.
Tonight I am wide-eyed
Tracing tracks along the road.
Let me watch the people stroll,
Hand in hand.
Hope shines for a moment.
And I will dream.

Rust

nobody@ipernity.com (Rachel J Bowler) — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 18:11:57 +0000

Rachel J Bowler has posted:

Not tidied from the day before
Your tools rest in the dust sprinkled light
Among shavings
That have been hammered through the years.
Slithers of work unseen.
Things I never quite knew.

Nothing fits together.
The uneven shapes of pungent metal
And wood cracked dry
Sprawl around
Among the guesses made,

And ancient contraptions
Of unfathomable use
Sit neglected
Beside old hanging baskets
And watering cans
Prematurely dry.

Tomorrow you will continue
Like before, filing away
Behind the sun-darkened door
Before stepping out into the glaring light
And locking the door firmly shut,
Hanging the rusty key
Out of reach.

But this is a mystery
I am determined to solve
And I will find a way
To polish deeply
Until the copper shines bright.