Today’s choice
Previous poems
Elizabeth Barton
On Diamond Hill
I didn’t
think of you once
as I climbed
past stunted willows
straggles of gorse
there was
no burning bush
but when
light poured through
each stone step
glittered
and I heard
crystals of song
spilling
from pipits’ throats
it wasn’t
until I got back
that I sensed
I’d met you
half-way up
where the ghost grass
quivered
and I recognised
your voice
in the chanting
of wind
on the moor
and my tears
welled up
like bog water
Elizabeth Barton is Stanza rep for Mole Valley Poets and facilitate creative writing workshops, such as a forthcoming one entitled, Portals into the Psyche: how fairy tales can enrich our writing. Her debut poetry pamphlet, If Grief were a Bird, was published in 2022 by Agenda Editions. Glimpses of Wilderness, a collaborative book of tanka poetry, art and natural history, was launched just before Christmas.
Susan Jane Sims on Mothering Sunday
Matter cannot be created and it cannot be destroyed.
I think of this as I pour the almost white ash from
the green plastic container that came in the post
into the vibrant red metal urn I have ready.
Daniel Sluman
just as the night sky shifts
beyond the minds
of the animals outside
the ceilings
we are pressed beneath change
in aspect & colour
Farah Ali
Notes from nature on how to survive this:
1. Learn crypsis and mimesis be a gecko or a mossy frog
2. Method actors sway like dead-leaf mantises on branches
James Benger
We tore it all down
just to watch it burn,
standing in that alley
of forgotten refuse.
Graham Clifford
Check the cavities in you where hurt goes,
exactly the right shape to house an insult
like a power tool snug and clipped in its case.
Gill Horitz
I woke to workers with blades
along the verge, yellow-jacketed
to signify contracted rights
Anita Karla Kelly, CE Collins, Clare Painter on International Women’s Day
In the beginning of the end she bit the thing she wasn’t meant to bite.
Apple stuck in her throat, one bite taken, then swallowed whole.
Elaine Baker
To my Ovaries
My cahoonas. My muscular daisies.
Potent white olives. You make me sick.
Jan FitzGerald
What is not to love
when you draw back curtains
and taste clouds
in their newness and innocence