Hullo @TomSnarsky and the ever welcome #smallpoemsunday #poetry Thank you Tom.

Hullo #fragmentsfriday @blackboughpoems Thanks to @MatthewMCSmith for being the inventor of this poetic gizmo!

This week’s #FragmentsFriday 🌊 Thank you very much to @blackboughpoems and @MatthewMCSmith for hosting 🙏

'His dirty hands conduct the paint as it finds #language, until its story breathes...' #vss365 #poetry #poetrycommunity #poetrylovers

For top tweet this week - LOVE autumn 🍂 It had to be conkers @TopTweetTuesday

Inna did not think that writing a poem in English would be possible, but she enjoyed it very much. She would love to have it read.

@TopTweetTuesday Thanks to @helen_laycock for her work and inspiring me to have a go at this. I'm not terrific at "concise"! Look. Hard. The glass shows us who we really are; Shards of who we used to be - Flung asunder In this un-funhouse, A cruel distortion of democracy.

Peace never comes through weakness. Today, representatives of the U.S. Congress were in Kyiv – a bipartisan delegation – and I am grateful to them for visiting Ukraine at such a difficult time. They asked: what is needed to end the war? The answer must be strong. There must be sanctions under the Lindsey Graham bill, there must be support for Ukraine in protecting lives, and there must be pressure on Russia for its war. And today, there was a conversation between the leaders of America and Russia. A conversation that leads to something different. Recently, there was a European decision to lift sanctions on Russian oligarchs. Since then, Russian strikes and the torment of people have only increased. This past week alone, there was a brutal Russian missile strike on a residential building in Pryluky, aerial bombs were dropped on Kramatorsk – on ordinary city buses – and there have been constant attacks on Kyiv’s energy infrastructure and on the life-sustaining infrastructure in Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odesa, and our other cities. Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds wounded. The Russians are compensating for their inability to achieve their objectives on the battlefield with this kind of terror. This year, Russia is weaker on the battlefield than at any other point in the war. That is why Putin is relying on terror. That is why he is relying on attempts to strike backroom deals to secure some form of pressure relief for Russia, in order to buy more time and more opportunities for war. Any easing of sanctions against Russia without a clear and lasting de-escalation agreement with Russia is an obvious weakness. It plays into Russia’s hands – allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world. Ukraine is ready to take symmetrical de-escalatory steps, and the American team knows our position. Our strikes on Russian oil refineries and other oil facilities are a response to Russia’s years-long campaign of terror against Ukraine’s energy sector. Ukraine will not set Russian oil refineries on fire if Russia does not destroy our energy infrastructure. This is the kind of agreement we are proposing to America, and we believe the United States has enough power to achieve such a compromise. Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilized world. Russia will “repay” the diesel with further terror and perfidy. Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged. What is needed is real de-escalation with Russia on a reciprocal basis. We count on America’s fair support for our defense of life, for our defense of people in Ukraine – and on the United States having a correspondingly strong conversation with Russia. A strong one, not a weak one.

I was astounded to see this post this morning. So grateful to @MatthewMCSmith for his careful reading of so many pieces. 🙏 I didn’t write this with winning in mind; it was fuelled by the emotion of watching a friend being subjected to the physical and mental toll of cancer. 🎀