Today’s choice
Previous poems
Anna Brook
on accident (for Adrienne Rich)
I want to borrow gods
(as Adrienne does,
though she knew better)
their sad logic
their templates
but there’s always a tell, no?
a too close accuracy
not confidently misremembered
studied
would you be disappointed
out of habit
like a god
in quiet wrath
to know better,
but to choose otherwise
and I’m arrested and confused
by the smell of roasting potatoes,
such a fundamental warmth,
damning though
as Persephone 😉
I think that, perhaps I already wrote it
by accident
on accident he says, Americanised, young
not mine
when I wrote something about the ground
about splitting
but you would be disappointed
out of habit
in your quiet wrath
seriously though,
why do I think, in envy, of the shallow underworld
dug up in pots in the garden
by the foxes
soft earth falling away at their snouts
mounds and pointed hollows left
some brightness extracted
Anna Brook (they/she) is a writer, poet, lecturer and mother. They explore difficult-to-articulate experiences, such as the strangeness of early motherhood, grief and trauma. Anna’s full-length poetic-prose work, Motherhood: A Ghost Story, is out with Broken Sleep Books in September 2025.
Bryan Marshall
Some Crows So little happens that I tell you everything twice. The crow, I swear, followed my eye behind the door, knew to leave me something delicate and silver. Another crow, a different one, I swear, took up with its beak some chant or other,...
Gareth Writer-Davies
Purblind & Font in the odds ‘n’ ends drawer one might find what one is looking for amongst the biros and string purblind spectacles you might find anything half-remembered by the mind’s claw lemon rind what the hell was that for? there must...
Jonathan Edis
Jonathan Edis is a full-time dad, international lecturer & osteopath from Essex, living in south London. He’s in several poetry groups & is a rep for Forest Hill Stanza. This is his first published poem for ages.
Chris Kinsey
Walking the Ring Road A sprig of hawthorn brushes away gritty city miles – back to gran banishing me and may blossom from the house – Smell of death. Smell of death. I’m running back to the trees clouding the field edge, burrowing up from the...
Peter Kenny
One hundred geraniums No steampunk engine, no onyx dashboard, no timepiece whirring as the world unwinds… I ride a dry leaf to travel in time. Citrusy astringency in my palm hot-wires one hundred dead geraniums in my hippocampi, to blaze again...
Sue Finch
Clambake I had not heard of it the night its title was spelt out in tiles on the oujia board. The question lingered on the air like smoke from a blown-out candle, Is there anyone there? My thighs clenched, dreading a reply. A pause then before...
Robin Lindsay Wilson
Postcard he squealed around bends drinking until he sideswiped the Castle Douglas sign his golf umbrella was a shield between gift shops and departure but it hooked at strange faces and hurt his arthritic hand he almost bought a travel-rug and...
Lisa Oliver
Unsaid We sit in the glare of the morning sun A mug of tea in our respective hands I perch at your side all pyjamas and messy hair I am 5 years old again but you are the one propped against pillows From the bed we can see the woods we walked and I...
David Redfield
All Day Breakfast Your bad hours fizz in a squirming glass, and as cheery as they had previously seemed you require the waitress to please change these flowers, they’re fake; this head, please ... this universe ... Hope the bellowing coffee can...