Today’s choice
Previous poems
Helen Akers
Window of tolerance
we’re trying to construct a frame for this
highly reactive impulsive emotion
the nurse is looking into it meanwhile
we must find something cold to hold lick it
we’re trying to expand the tolerance – think
of a moth thumping at the window imagine
a pane adjustable along the diagnosis
for excessive information’s tiny racing heart
to be processed a bullseye window pivoted
on the horizontal with cunning joints
at either end allowing it to open let it fly
it’s a lovely day if you like lovely days
Helen Akers lives in North Norfolk. She is working on a collection of poems which explore the experience of bipolar disorder from the carers’ perspective. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.
On the Ninth Day of Christmas, we bring you Adam Warne, Ken Evans, Marcelle Newbold
Nativity ‘Lullay, lullay.’ Can you hear her sing, so far from here, crouched on bloodied straw, beside the phlegmatic ox? ‘Lullay, lullay, my little child, may we know peace tonight.’ She sings, and learns, against her weary heart, the peace he...
On the Eighth Day of Christmas, we bring you Leslie Ingram, Sarah James, Ruth Aylett
Elbow Room We travel home (ignoring that we lost it years ago) in time for turkey, mistletoe, for ear-worms to re-cast the brain. We check out the reindeer hanging on the third branch up, its always spot, now single antlered and rubbed free of...
On the Seventh Day of Christmas, we bring you Laura McKee, Claire Walker, Louisa Campbell
mid-winter ice storm Lake Mendota photos of Joni Mitchell by Joel Bernstein no river but this lake and not getting carried away she tested if it would hold her across the whole iced breadth of it etched ever widening circles arms stretched out...
On the Sixth Day of Christmas, we bring you Gillian Laker, Julie Maclean, Amlanjyoti Goswami
The Twelvey Night Mummers I must have been nearly nine when the Green Man and good Saint George deranged our winter parish. A gilded Turk and terrifying horse, the doctor with his bottle and bag, coaxed something very old to curl around the...
On the Fifth Day of Christmas, we bring you Finola Scott, K.S Moore, Scott Elder
Christmas Magic The moths have got to Jesus, chewed holes in his swaddling robes. Mary as ever is trying to stay calm though Joseph is showing the strain. Children adore the cloud-soft lambs, the sparkly angels my Mum crafted. Each year there's...
On the Fourth Day of Christmas, we bring you Oliver Comins, Maggie Mackay, Bob Cooper
24th December Late Shift, Christmas Eve Twelve reindeer wander among these lean trees. Muffled light, seeping through layers of conifer, is reaching them as snowflakes, floating gently to settle on backs and over their dappled grazing. Above them,...
On the Third Day of Christmas, we bring you Carole Bromley, Janet Dean, Pat Edwards
Silver Lining after Billy Collins What a relief it is not to be boarding that Qantas plane, the hours of boredom, the cramp, the endless movies and then that sudden view of Sydney Opera House. How much better to be pounding the streets wearing a...
On the Second Day of Christmas, we bring you Sean Smith, Rose Anderson and David Van-Cauter
Christmas Tree The chainsaw, a hive of angry wasps, chewed the bark and something tall and graceful collapsed with a low groan as its needles pricked the earth. Below, the city lights were plugged into the socket of the bay as we loaded the tree...
On the First Day of Christmas, we bring you Eithar Almosibeah, Numan Awan and Casey Brennan
Christmas gatherings I've lost my manners this quarantine. My ability to keep the curtains of my mouth stretched open for a smile suffered. My social skills, a turned off faucet in those months of longing for connection. Words refused to stream...