Today’s choice
Previous poems
Peter Leight
Instead of Dying I’m Taking a Trip
to Kansas
where the light appears
as if walking through a gate
in the air
opening the gate
and walking in
together with eleven
varieties of sunflowers
including the common one
you don’t need
to sprinkle the seed
in Kansas
domestic animals
outnumber the rest
the meadowlark has a dark V
on its yellow breast
for victory
or victim
it’s a mistake to assume
that everything is independent
I’m closing my mouth
to keep out the air
not even taking the ribbon
out of my hair
in Kansas
there’s a grinder
for everything
that needs to be ground
when relationships end
there’s nothing to replace them
in Kansas you go
to the stars with difficulties
relationships end
when there’s nothing
to continue
right now
I’m turning off the ringer
on my phone
it’s not a refuge
if I’m not gone
nobody minds
if I stay a little longer
Peter Leight has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Beloit Poetry Review, Raritan, Matter, and other magazines.
Daniel Cartwright-Chaouki
Its timber frame held together by the waste
of its own decay
The rot a kind of glue undisturbed
Cracked panes of glass hold their fractures
Rosie Jackson
I Am Trying to Love Frank O’Hara More
I really am! I am trying not to see his exclamation marks as cheap melodrama and his endless conjunctions as some kind of separation anxiety or fear of mortality for what do full stops signify except dying
Charlotte Holm, Jennifer A McGowan
A leaky drainpipe drips
creating damp patches on uneven paving,
slime green algae blossoms
forming viridescent ripples
James McDermott
if samsara’s concrete please don’t come back
as black jackal for I live in Norwich
nor spineless worm as I don’t have a lawn
Cheryl Snell, Alice Gregorio, Peter Lilly
I grew up on a farm so I should know all about expensive cows and free milk. You’re taking being a debutante much too literally. We only meant to give permission for you to make a good match, not flit among the suitable boys…
Jade Kleiner
There is the green that birthed all pine trees.
Tom Blake
We were the housing and the housed,
meaning nothing except that
we were always occupied,
or to put it simply never out.
Kate Bonfield
Coming home to days of heat
trapped beyond the door, to time skewed
by time away, the house bigger and
smaller than before.
Precious Ejim
I don’t know why I look to my mother
for her shadow never stays.