Today’s choice
Previous poems
Tina Cole
What Mr. Pig Did
After Paula Rego Prince Pig and his First Bride 2006
Mr. Pig modelling his best Sunday suit of farmyard smells,
flees from the cook’s cleaver to find himself a sow.
This snorty, stinky, porker seeks a succulent female
but finds a golden version of that wonderland Alice
losing herself to the canopy of stars expanding above,
eyes wide, mouth shut. She is clever, passes off her repulsion
as the chill she always feels inside and out, knowing
his simple brain will believe her. His loathsome heaviness
begins a performance of sucking and licking, filthy trotters
kicking hard as a Channel swimmer. He fumbles over the hump
and bowl of her, fearful tusks moving closer to steal ludicrous kisses
that snouty lips can hardly manage. And then that little kettle squeal
like cats fighting in the garden late at night is almost more
than she can bear. They will stay tangled like this until it’s over
or until Alice draws a butcher’s knife from beneath her galaxy
of foaming petticoats waits for blood to cool, clot, coagulate.
Tina Cole has three published pamphlets, I Almost Knew You, (2018), Forged/ Yaffle Press, (2021) and What it Was/ Mark Time Books (2023). Her published poems have appeared in many U.K. magazines, one in The Guardian newspaper and in several poetry collections. She is also a past winner of a number of national poetry competitions 2010 – 2023. She completed an M.A. in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2024.
Jemilea Wisdom-Baako
It didn’t make me a woman darkened school skirt pleats the pungent smell of loss this initiation a twelve year olds guide to becoming ashamed it didn’t make me weak they...
Zelda Cahill-Patten
Street-preacher She looks at me with that fearsome oil-sheen in her eyes, the weighty conviction of milk-heavy gaze and breasts, telling me (the spittle-flecked words like Words made flesh) of her Father, how he is unseen, felt unstirring in the...
Maeve McKenna
Dream State Covers tight as clingfilm. Tell them you fell headfirst, steadied yourself, sucked out what was left in your throat, coughed that creamy polyethylene onto the pillow. Eyeballs infused with miniature blue irises plunge into the well....
Abigail Elizabeth Ottley
Widows Walk Evenings she puts on her second-best hat skewered with a tortoise shell pin, buttons up her heart in a mauve mohair coat sallies forth to pick a bone with the moon. On the red-leaded step she scans the stars imagines them white sparks...
Guy Elston
You Call This Summer More like a chicken bone tossed to a pigeon. More like a half-portion of peanut butter slicked in the jar we never throw out. I pedal through birds in Tommy Thompson, all strong enough to fly south soon – if I check the water...
Yuanbing Zhang translates Hongri Yuan
My Heaven is Inside My Body My heaven is inside my body, my heaven is a great many, like stars in the night sky, with silver towers, huge edifices that look like sapphires, golden palaces, gardens of crystal. My body is bigger than the universe,...
Day Seven of ‘Choice’ for NPD: ibizo lami, Stephen Walrond and Saleha
Play Partner It is never easy, spotting the red flags, amidst the intense joy, and very high highs of exploring a new partner. A mind is filled with thoughts. Like a seesaw, it tips Left, right, left, right Stay, go, stay, go. Go. You know what...
Day Six of ‘Choice’ for NPD: Adam Horovitz, Sibyl Ruth, Sue Finch, Amlanjyoti Goswami
Wile E. Coyote Pauses for Thought All these unthinking technocratic years shooting myself from giant rubber bands and pawing vitamins –the kind that build your limbs into flexible hillsides– down my ravenous throat and here I still am, a blurring...
Day Five of ‘Choice’ for NPD: Anne Symons, Alwyn Marriage, Vinita Agrawal, Carole Bromley
Invitation The flamingoes are waiting, poised pink rippling across the water. Bubbles rise around my feet disturbing frogs and fish. I balance on one leg to show that I am good enough to be a bird. Hands on hips, I flex my elbows, lower my shoulders,...