Today’s choice
Previous poems
Peter Leight
Instead of Dying I’m Taking a Trip
to Kansas
where the light appears
as if walking through a gate
in the air
opening the gate
and walking in
together with eleven
varieties of sunflowers
including the common one
you don’t need
to sprinkle the seed
in Kansas
domestic animals
outnumber the rest
the meadowlark has a dark V
on its yellow breast
for victory
or victim
it’s a mistake to assume
that everything is independent
I’m closing my mouth
to keep out the air
not even taking the ribbon
out of my hair
in Kansas
there’s a grinder
for everything
that needs to be ground
when relationships end
there’s nothing to replace them
in Kansas you go
to the stars with difficulties
relationships end
when there’s nothing
to continue
right now
I’m turning off the ringer
on my phone
it’s not a refuge
if I’m not gone
nobody minds
if I stay a little longer
Peter Leight has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Beloit Poetry Review, Raritan, Matter, and other magazines.
Jemma Walsh
Siberian Larkspur Jemma Walsh is an Irish poet based in London. She is currently doing an MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College. Her work has been published in The Irish Times, Moth Magazine, HOWL Magazine, Crossways...
Cormac Culkeen
Stay silent
under eyes of stars
quietly watching,
Rebecca Gethin
I won’t forget her on the beach – fur the colours of sand.
We wouldn’t have spotted her were it not for the jiggle
of her gait, the turn of her head with ears pricked,
the spine’s taut bow and torque of her hocks.
Sarah Hulme
you
stoop
& shell
your self
touch
in gustgasp
Sue Proffitt
You stopped the car in the lane just before our driveway.
I didn’t ask why. Chestnut trees leaned in on either side,
the damp air breathed. You sat there, looking straight ahead
and said there’s nothing worse than being queer.
Arun Jeetoo
This is how it starts.
Champion of every round,
Finlay Worrallo
one for hurting / for loveless / for rinsing yourself off afterwards
and meeting your eye in the bathroom mirror and saying firmly
you have not made a mistake / for a mistake
Sarah Greenwood
Shabby chic my body is a shipwreck blooming with coral I open my legs and out pour gold doubloons it is impossible to slam a door underwater there is an opening here fathoms deep I have made a mast of myself washed up on a beach somewhere once a...
Fiona Sanderson Cartwright
Marianne North transports the tropics to Kew She packs the globe in a wooden box, ships it to London, shrinking each place she visits to the space between her hands then draws them apart like a conjuror nectaring sunbirds out of sable hair, butterfly...