Today’s choice
Previous poems
Paul Stephenson
Attraction
Like one of those horses
on the carousel
going round and round in circles
sliding up and down a pole
for three minutes
then stopping a while
then starting again
for three minutes
sliding up and down a pole
in circles going round and round
on the carousel
like one of those horses
going round and round in circles
sliding up and down a pole
for three minutes
then stopping a while
then starting again
for three minutes
sliding up and down a pole
in circles going round and round
on the carousel
like one of those horses
Paul Stephenson’s debut collection is Hard Drive (Carcanet, 2023), shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award and Polari Book Prize. His last pamphlet was Selfie with Waterlilies (Paper Swans Press, 2017). He recently co-edited the ‘Ownership’ (92) issue of Magma Poetry and helps programme Poetry in Aldeburgh. Website: paulstep.com
Matthew F. Amati
Hands said to Head
look what you’ve made me do
it’s not me, Head said, talk to
Heart, that guy’s sick
Mariam Saidan
‘Female singing constitutes a ‘forbidden act’ (ḥarām),
punishable under Article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code.’
Meg Pokrass
This is what happens when she sits alone in her dining room, eating smoked trout and canned sardines.
Chen-ou Liu
this fresh morning
so much like the others …
yet starlings shape-shift
Jim Paterson
A Tuesday morning in November
out on the street taking in the bins.
As a flight of crows flashed past
the street lights went out.
Andy Humphrey
Noises are louder now: the kesh
of tyres on tarmac slicked
with leaves. Rain’s drumming thunder.
Chrissie Gittins
When you’ve used one handle to open the door,
use the other handle to close it.
Morgan Harlow
She hadn’t lost a child but if she had she imagined it would be like that.
Antony Owen and Martin Figura on Remembrance Day
Let fathers bind their sons
to altars, so the wind
might winnow the chaff.