Today’s choice
Previous poems
Susana Arrieta
Picnic
Tempting death with every cobblestoned step
his face was a collection of broken records — I was
devouring a cheese baguette with grape jelly —
Alas, my desires are always replaced by hunger /
now we avoid each other at the King Streetcar
— Quite often.
Susana Arrieta is a Venezuelan poet and visual artist who lives in Toronto, Canada. @susanamakesart (Insta and bsky)
Lalah-Simone Springer
Apex Black woman, apex Thighs and mind of thunder Grounded, solid Catches me in her stratospheric eyeline in the future sight of higher love. The mountainous everything of her So bright I can barely behold. I hide in the shade of her lashes...
Jamal Hassan
Martin Luther King Jr's on tour in the UK to repeat the same speech, you've heard but never remembered word for word. And why should you? I have a dream is painted onto enough t-shirts and baseball caps for you to get the gist. School timetables...
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...