Today’s choice

Previous poems

Sigune Schnabel tr. Simon Lèbe

 

 

 

Mother

She cut letters out of me,
which quietly and unnoticed
danced red poems.
In the autumn wind, they fell at her feet
and rustled decay.
Since then, my name wears holes.

I counted myself off on five fingers
and planted my remains in the flowerbed.
Sometimes, she sprinkles water into it,
while from her mouth the snow quietly trickles:
frozen and laid under ice,
I linger,
rootless;

all the while, she only wanted
to breathe growth into me.

 

 

 

Sigune Schnabel (b. 1981) studied literary translation in Düsseldorf, Germany. Her poetry, featured in anthologies and journals, has earned awards in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Between 2017 and 2023, she published four poetry collections.

Translator Simon Lèbe was born in London in 1961 and spent a large part of his childhood in France and Switzerland. He completed a degree in Fine Art in London in the early 1980s. Self-taught, he has worked professionally in various fields of translation.

Pat Edwards

Pat Edwards

He is in white-out, stopped in his tracks,
dying for the comfort of a fag.
He makes a chalice around the flame,
hands becoming shield so he can light up.

Pamilerin Jacob

Annette the gap-toothed,
You kissed a man & I was born. You gave him
your laughter & he built an empire,

Nathan Evans

If they ask where I am, tell them: I am
wintering. I have secreted small acorns
of sadness in crevices of gnarled limbs
and shall be savouring their bitternesses
on the back of my tongue until the days
lengthen.

Jim Ferguson

we can travel anywhere
she winks, but let’s rest here
in amongst these words
a moment can take a while

Gabrielle Meadows

I am tearing the peel from an orange gently and somewhere
Far away a tree falls in a forest and we
don’t hear it but the ground does and the birds do

Hongwei Bao

Every five minutes it does its job,
hoovers every inch of her memory,
declutters all pains and sorrows.

Gary Day

And once the father frowned
As the boy struggled to fasten
The drawbridge on his fort.
‘He’ll never be any good
With his hands’ he declared,
As if the boy wasn’t there.

Royal Rhodes

Perhaps the friends of Lazarus, who died
and slipped his shroud, on seeing him might swoon
or rush to hear the tales of that beyond
they hoped and feared to face.