Today’s choice
Previous poems
Martin Fisher
Old Empress
Inside, in the half-light, the iron rot took hold.
Forgotten service–obsolete.
Salt-coin neglect.
The money flowed inland,
Moored on an hourglass choke.
No one told the sea.
Orange hull still bright,
Empress her name- cracked white letters,
leans on driftwood where the rails once were.
Salt wind gnaws old paint
one winter at a time — loyal watch keeper.
Fifty years it cut through any storm.
Now the roof sags —
a shroud to a queen.
Gulls cry, a ghost crew in the fret.
A quatrain left —
for this worn craft
tide,
sand, rust
and lament.
Martin Fisher is a debut poet, aged 65, with a working background spanning Africa and Europe. He is a professional gardener living in Sussex, where he enjoys cultivating his garden and restoring antiques, all while writing with his wife and two dogs, Eli and Juno. He can be found on X @mjfkipper and on Facebook @martin.fisher.148
Charlie Baylis
finally i’m annoyed enough to write a poem i sit & eat in the vietnamese restaurant long enough to feel annoyed a man is stroking a cat in the doorway i order the number 4 and watch katie cook the chicken on the grill finally i’m annoyed...
Jenny Pagdin
Before the market town with the Pepper Pot building and the concrete bus station and its standing water, we were Hampshire, Beirut and Freetown with neat shelves of Vimto, ivory, Milupa, of Milton, tie-dyes, pink almonds and sugarcane. I picture...
John Grey
In the Line Up It's beginning to rain. Just drizzle now but who knows what that portends. And there's no shelter. But at least we're moving, slowly to be sure, but forward. "What's this line for?" I ask the guy in front of me. Not that I'm curious...
Tom Wiggins
A Present for Cat If I could send you the perfect present it would be a box with the words DELICIOUS VICTORIA SPONGE CAKE on the front and when you open that box it would reveal another box with the words FEROCIOUS SCORPION!!! written across it...
Stephen Lightbown
Everyone Welcome I sit at the back of class, behind rows of people in padmasana. Legs crossed on their mats. I stay in my chair. I’m not everyone. I haven’t taught anyone in a chair before, says the teacher. I assume you know what you’re doing....
Marguerite Doyle
Lunchbreak She slips away from fire and steel, each dip of the paddle a balm for tension at the surface. She steers a course beyond the rocks, slow in the heavy water that still smarts with April’s chill and with the poise of someone at ease with...
Lisa Lopresti
The Ultimate Question the best answer is from Bob Mortimer and 2 Babybells he transmogrified their red wax coats with a flaming serviette, winding a wick as a beacon light with pocket cheese to sustain you during the realisation that many...
Marc Janssen
Shasta You can stand on red banks like a brilliant tree Breathe toward the summit; You can descend like an avalanche. The mountain will not reject you The mountain might eat you alive But it will not reject you The mountain might turn you over The...
Rachel Coventry
A Cell My heart, that scrappy little jail and inside it, you sitting there dejected growing more yellow and gaunt by the day. (I saw your thing on Instagram.) I would like to release you, but can’t the doors don’t work that way. If there is a key,...