Today’s choice
Previous poems
Ash Bowden
Out again with the pitchfork churning
compost into the old green bin, stinking
and silent as an ancient earthen vat.
Here, dirt makes no distinction
between trench beds and the twirling earth.
Onion shavings conspire to life
by bringing fresh tears to our eyes.
The whole rotting heap hushes
over the tunnelling of pink worms
and it is a war kept close to the weeds;
potato skins kissing dried dandelion leaves
as if to clothe a skeleton key.
It’s best we shush. Pigeons
have occupied the neighbour’s clothesline,
and the evening’s keen to keep a lid on it
Ash Bowden is a Halifax based poet whose work has previously appeared in The Cherita and Confluence, and he is seeking more publications to work his way towards publishing a pamphlet. He can be found on Instagram @ashbowpoet, on bluesky @ashbowpoet.bsky.social and on Facebook at Ash Bowden Poet.
Rachael Hill
Those times my tongue becomes a lemon
filling my mouth with bitter pith
John Doyle
I hide a knife amongst a bush longing to burn,
days like these are plots from a heathen’s bible.
William Coniston
My second cousin twice removed arrived in May
at her old nest in the eaves of the ruined barn.
Simon Williams
A white cloak that folds like a shopping bag,
like a Pac-a-mac with pagan overtones,
much larger when unfolded than a pocket,
a TARDIS of a cloak.
Emma Page
I grow shoots, acid green;
climb the walls,
surprise myself.
Mary McQueen
It’s starts in utero, painted wood carvings thick as a
finger, gift
wrapped in nostalgia.
Alan Hardy
Made a list.
A record.
The dishes she ate.
Monuments visited.
In Paris.
Susana Arrieta
Tempting death with every cobblestoned step
his face was a collection of broken records
Peter Leight
There’s more waste than we use for the things we ordinarily use waste for, such as piling it on barges and sending them out to sea, tucking it under the surface like a layer of insulation . . .