Today’s choice
Previous poems
Claire Miller
I sit on the grass and listen to the earth purring
rose is thirsty
rose senses water
rose root rummages in the earth
rose root punctures lung and frontal lobe
rose stem is a green straw sucking
rose stem sways like a tail
rose thorn is a claw in my jumper
rosebud squints in midday sun
rose flower opens to trill its song
rose stamen twitches like a whisker
rose is miracle to witness
then rose slumps against the trellis
rose breathing slows, exhale of petals
rose pales and withers
but rose whispers don’t worry
rose will be back next summer
Sylvia Banham
Pigeons have invaded the garden, two then four, then a flock.
They roost in the apple tree to nest, reconnoitre or mate
ignore my sorties to deter them and shit without stint
on patio and herb bed, foul lovely hyssop and thyme.
Daniel Naawenkangua Abukuri
What matters now is the feast of this survival.
The glory of our own light, black light.
Look at us: the deeper the root, the sweeter the juice.
Glory of the blacker berry, split wide open to the sun.
Robert Billinski
the sky met the water where the birds met the fish
the sky met the water where the fish met the birds
the sky met the birds where the water met the fish
Gordon Vells
Impotent in family life and ineffectual at work,
sometimes he would spend a full quarter-hour
just circulating the mini-roundabout on his moped,
dizzy from the power of blocking everyone else.
Patrick Wright
i protest say how when i’m gone i’d like to rest before the choice to return & go through
all this again you sigh as though that’s absurd & endings are just endings we’re mulch
& nothing but endless fucking
L. Haiman
My baby is hungry. Grabs
me with both hands. I am
an apple, apparently no will.
Francis de Lima
Oh London. U useless city. Map to
nowhere land. Tight stretch
open eye. The underground metal.
The night tube. The railway. Smog
Over coaltrip. The presence
Of machine upon machine. U
Miriam Swales
When I was 12, I knew the weight of a human head.
8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (a bit of dark comedy).
It grew from there. The curiosity. The calculations.
Alison Pritchard
By what rough science
were you given
this migraine of a name