Today’s choice

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Maggie Mackay

 

 

 

Dad

You reach the end of the garden path and open the gate. I wait at the door. You reach the vestibule with its mosaic tiled floor with a big hug for me. Daddy’s girl, always. Tea done, you fetch Glen’s lead and we climb the hill to the spread of The Links. We talk. It’s as if we have met in a previous life, the click – you, a pipe smoking fan of Bertrand Russell, always think, think, and think the eternal puzzles of existence. Our walks are adventures in language, in invention, a form of The Great Egg Race without eggs.

You reach the end of your life. The world is guilty of a sick joke. You tell me all I need you to tell. You tell the truth. You keep promises. I can’t comprehend my heart. We bring your stuff home in a black bag. You stay behind. You stay with me like an ancient philosopher offering solace in oratory. I hear the soft Glasgow voice, and then lose your voice. I hear your words, the kindness of Bronowski in each one. It is as if you’d done your work with me. You are my golden one, flawed and devoted.

 

 

 

Maggie Mackay’s poem How to Distil a Guid Scotch Malt is in the Poetry Archive’s WordView permanent collection. Poetry Archive Now Wordview 2020: How to Distill a Guid Scotch Malt – Poetry Archive Her collection The Babel of Human Travel (Impspired.com ) was published in 2022.She reviews poetry collections at https://thefridaypoem.com.

Mike Wilson

My reptilian brain calculates the minimum I’ll do to escape
the weight of obligation …

but before I finish the math, we regress into college kids
rushing the street Julia barricades with furniture
to keep out the law by breaking the law.

Emily Veal

      boudicca you’re a brewery down the road i drank a bottle of your finest on the train back from bury st edmunds the red queen (no one will call you ginger) i see you everywhere realised you were also the wetherspoons round the corner the one with...

Lesley Burt

tongue it various      from burr to babel      swish to swirl
rushes between buttresses      plaits threads of currents
where swans lord-and-lady-it along the centre
trips over own flow      with
fish-out-of-water flash      salmon’s silver high-jump

Sam Szanto

This love was. Slowly it becomes formless,
drifting, softening, snakeskin-empty,
the part it has played in who I am now
secreted in a pocket of a coat

Bel  Wallace

      Trespasses Forgive me The E flat on your baby grand (not quite in tune). This same finger in the crack that goes clean through the bungalow’s supporting wall. Then flicking dust from the fringed edge of your floral lampshade. Noticing that they...

Arlette Manasseh

You were the pine, softening the dirt I grew up in: the one I climbed in the breeze. Wanting to describe you, I had called you Paulie. That is not your name.