Today’s choice
Previous poems
J.S. Dorothy
Greylags
Find yourself by the lake,
its icy membrane split by the long
arrow of a skein, reflected
flurry of wings, cries
bawling. Knit yourself into
a parcel against its shriek, the force
shaping your bones,
steering you somewhere off course,
way beyond the city walls.
It’s as if you never belonged.
Count on one hand the things for which you longed;
watch them each take flight.
J.S. Dorothy is a queer and neurodivergent poet who writes in an (optimistic) attempt to make sense of things. Their work has appeared in numerous publications, including Pennine Platform, The Frogmore Papers, and Poetry Wales. They live in York.
Claire Smith
Fish-Tale She gorged on forests, gluttonous for the town, craved torchlit streets every time she went back to normality. She swapped her tail for a man washed up on the shore along with the shingle, salt-seaweed, and crab-carapace. She burns...
Jay Délise
The Love Poems I finally took the trash out, sent that email, and had enough clean dishes to eat a meal at the table but there was no time to write the poem Before you woke up this morning I slipped into the cool autumn air in search of the...
Gwen Sayers
Simulacra I was six when I shifted a curtain in a dark room at the waxwork museum and peered through glass at a woman I remember hooks and chains her tattered skirts pale lips crimson stains I thought of her first time I lifted black tarpaulin...
John Bowen
The Upminster Train We met on the District Line from Wimbledon to Upminster. Chatted all through Southfields. Hands held by Putney Bridge. Our first kiss at a sudden lurch near Parson’s Green. In love as we pulled in at Fulham Broadway. It was all...
Dennis Tomlinson
The Lea at Hertford Around me everything is peaceful. The river flows, willows trail in it and children walk by. Nothing of her suicide abides. Dennis Tomlinson lives in London. His poems have been published recently in Shot...
Barbara Cumbers
Because you’ve never seen one, you ask me about stag beetles What can I tell you now that they’re so rare? Every childhood May or June they came at dawn and dusk, mostly in ones and twos, sometimes formation clouds buzzing, black belly-drop, fuzzy...
Christopher Barnes
ALMANACS 21. Your optics’ fuzz is merciful. Value speckles on mirrors. Above par days have routed. Profess want of upset - Grizzled hairs invade, marauding. 24. Festoon pine 'til glitzy. Shroud bounty in vivid overlays. Letterbox cards will roll....
L Kiew
L Kiew is a Chinese-Malaysian based in London, and works as a charity sector leader and accountant. Her debut pamphlet The Unquiet was published by Offord Road Books (2019). She was a 2019/2020 London Library Emerging...
Jinny Fisher
Containment I drive your lemon yellow Smart ForTwo six hundred miles home from your flat— stuffed to the roof, my suitcase crammed on top, your miniature car swells to welcome a pile of your leavings, rescued from Junk-It Ltd. house clearance:...