Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jade Kleiner
Deeper Than
After Maggie Nelson’s Bluets
There is the green that birthed all pine trees. I had a green turtle necklace just like that once, I lost it, not in a pocket, not under my bed, not down a drain, just lost. The shell wasn’t turquoise not emerald not verdant not turtleshell and so on, just green for its own sake, the kind of green that points north, that can’t be contained in paint, a deeper green than my eyes. I can’t retrace my steps, it’s lost like I never owned it. But a green that true isn’t anyone’s to own, not mine, it’s not even free, just loose.
Jade Kleiner is rooted in New England. Her poetry, fiction, and haiku can be found in Free the Verse, Bright Flash Literary Journal, Haikuniverse, and elsewhere. She is transgender.
Norman Finkelstein
from After (John Ashbery, Worsening Situation) As one broken upon a wheel, or dropped from a great height upon jagged rocks, I have watched this murmuration, this perturbation, and have felt my limbs grow numb, however great my desire for flight. Will...
Brân Denning
they define ‘hiraeth’ as a kind of doomed longing - your childhood bedroom is someone else's now and your hometown doesn't exist - they see dandelions, a beloved film, their grandmother's hands, safe old gummy nostalgia recurrent as a mourning...
Simon Alderwick
gratitude I if I had to tell you about my friend John he’s got a daughter, same age as mine he’s listening to GoGo Penguin in his favourite chair nothing else about his day is optimal but he’s leaning forward, head in prayer there’s a lot of...
Sarah James/Leavesley
The Half-a-man The giant statue in the main square is weeping sky-blue and sun-yellow tears. Later, leaf-green, then blood-red…soon a technicolour dreamcoat’s worth of crying. Only, this is real. Overnight, the statue loses a leg, next, a finger,...
Nina Parmenter
I am Jealous of the Rain smug smug rain has millennia to finish sculpting could take six lifetimes over the angle at the brink of a whorl smirking smug smug rain invites us to see its progress feels no need to grant us insight or god forbid ask...
Jane Aldous
Carrie Silverwood They thought she looked familiar when she arrived at their door they’d met her before somewhere she mentioned friends and places they knew she had fond memories maybe they did too could she stay a week or two if they had...
Bismo Triastirtoaji
Wishes that Became Small in The Hospital There are other mosques where the prayers are thrown louder and prostrations stranded without limit There was a subtle, almost imperceptible fear about the ego that is often exchanged as well as desires...
Ruth Aylett
Cleaning the cooker Dismantling the burners, part inside part. So many meals scorched onto them as dark fat, the week’s routine teatimes. Here someone’s spilt toffee sauce, now transformed to carbonised grit, here hard grains of uncooked rice from...
Patrick Williamson
The 7.14 The 7.14, the train I always take, it arrives empty from the depot so I always get a seat, the interiors are Christian Lacroix and lights ambient lavender blue, just right for the not- morning person who looks at suburbs that roll by...