Today’s choice
Previous poems
Nick McGaughey
Slow Worm
And here you are slid from the rain
under my door, “s” -ing along the cool
checks in the hallway. I’ve had slugs
silvering the skirting, a hissing squirrel
cornered by the stove, even a mouse
that made his den next to the cat food…
but never any beast with such elan:
Cleopatra’s necklace, a serpent,
burnished from the Nile, slinks
across the mosaic of my day.
Nick McGaughey lives in Wales. He has new work in Poetry Wales/The London Magazine/And Other Poems and Stand. He performed two sets at “Poetry and Words” at the Glastonbury Festival in June.
Britta Giersche
a wooden door slams shut in my brain
a man perishes in a space the size of his grave from malnutrition eighty years ago
Abby Crawford
When I was born
the house was full
of stones, an old blacksmiths shed.
Rachael Clyne
And if a land loses its people and they
are exiled will a land feel their absence
Tom Nutting
They have been burying us,
not realising
we were seeds
of revolution.
Emily A. Taylor
I move my hand long
so yours will follow, and though
this moment tastes of tequila soda
paracetamol pillowed on a fizzing tongue
amnesia… pull me in anyway.
Steph Morris
No way would they let him keep that tag. They saw
a boy they must rename, must mark
from them, a boy whose limbs folded far too gently,
Eryn McDonald
It is here that the day breaks apart
Like ice on frustrated frozen pond
Here in the grounds of Ashton Court
I wish to bury myself amongst the green
Gordan Struić
Outside,
the city slides by,
blurred lines
of glass and rain.
Stephen Keeler
The days were huge and kind
and sometimes after school
we’d buy a bag of broken biscuits
for the long walk home
across the heavy heat of afternoon
on lucky days she wouldn’t take
the pennies offered up in supplication