Today’s choice
Previous poems
John Coburn
An Eight Year Old’s May Altar
Inside May’s warm beauty
I think of God and of the Virgin Mary.
I’ve always loved Mary.
The time is now —
I’ll make a May altar.
And I’ll look for my rosary beads.
For my Holy Mary
I’ll grab the plastic one from the car
and set up the altar
on my chest of drawers.
It’ll be a nice place to pray.
But I can’t find my rosary beads.
I’ll get some bluebells and primroses.
Broken lilac is easy to come by
maybe some daisies as well.
It will be fine for a week or so —
though not much white or blue for Mary.
And I’ve lost my rosary beads
A jam jar with some water.
For the faded blue Mary to stand on
the crocheted cloth
from my parents dresser —
I hope they don’t notice.
Now I have to buy rosary beads
‘Hail Mary’ that’s my favourite
so I’ll say that again and again
praying together with my angel —
my Guardian Angel.
So, I’ll feel safe and good.
And I’ve got new rosary beads
And so I pray each night
before I go to bed.
I’m a good boy but not a good son,
none of us are.
The family isn’t right — it is falling
I’m quiet — there is no talk.
I can’t finish my rosary.
My brother’s angel didn’t protect him
but let him die before my eyes.
Without prayers the altar flowers are fading.
So, I will now my wash my face
in the May dew like the heathens.
God can have my rosary.
John Coburn is an Anglo-Irish poet living in London. He has been published in A New Ulster, Black Nore Review, Sunday Independent and the Poet’s Yearbook Autumn Anthology. He has also read on Irish radio.
Chrissy Banks
Birthday after Dorothea Tanning I can hardly believe you are real, come in the night with a present; here, at my door, in a snow-dappled coat, your hair illumined, your eyes small violets. I have doors beyond doors, canvasses propped against every...
Lorraine Carey
Sundays at Grandma’s Gran’s best friend Susan came every, single Sunday. Whippet thin, I often thought she’d disappear into the vacuum of her own cheekbones, she sucked so hard on those fags. Each week we sat through the drag of Sunday Mass, the...
Julie Mullen
Mother’s Day Wrapped in her silks the blue and the dim and the dark, mists of scent, eyes closed against the half-light. Together we walk squares and shades, beneath spires like washed bone. We walk together faded streets hand in hand, we mime....
Bethan Manley
Melyn (Yellow) I still thank you for making the daffodils grow outside my mother’s house every spring scared she’ll forget you without reminders painted yellow spilling onto the block paved driveway the yellow trails into the house sits in a...
Meg Ross
Mud I’m a little girl wearing a floral dress and I jump straight into the muddy puddle I see before me. I am not even wearing wellington boots. I am unprepared for the dirt but I am sick of being ready for things. I want to talk my way out of the...
Rachael Clyne
Lighting Candles Odessa’s cemetery is a forest of granite, each grave with etched portraits. A football star rests by a famous burglar. We’re led to a few drab stones carved in Hebrew, rescued from the Jewish cemetery that was bulldozed for a...
Chika Jones
Beautiful Nubia sings And I remember my father dancing, A 2 step shuffle, Hips swinging, Palms face down, Elbow to waist, Lopsided smile. Seven mountains, Seven streams, And I remember my mother smirking, Face slightly raised, Back resting lightly...
Jen Feroze
Maternal Audiology Jen Feroze lives by the sea in Essex. Her work is featured or forthcoming in The Madrigal, Ekphrastic Review, Chestnut Review and Atrium, among others. Her first collection, The Colour of Hope, was published...
Laurie Eaves
pulling leicester from a plastic tube in a southbank market the marketwoman with tie dye hair flogs musty paper maps. spreads your hometown before us, slightly crinkled. in the crowsfoot creases your fingertips tease the contours, unfurl the...