Today’s choice
Previous poems
Ivan McGuinness
Bourn Identity
Begins
in a bubble
strained by chalk.
Where the brim-full hill cries,
weeping tracks merge
into an idea of brook:
Letcombe,
until merging with Ock.
Earth accommodates to accumulate,
hollows between course, force and resistance.
Pool falls over rock
riffles
into deeper ways,
cress-beds, crayfish, sticklebacks and bullheads.
Wet footed playground,
skirts tucked up
socks rolled on the bank,
ripple and eddy round skinny white legs,
soft silt cushions tender toes,
nets, jam-jars,
magnified beauties of the deep.
In town, domesticated by brick and stone, after grills and races,
a turning wheel catches life out of the stream, grinds free flow
into value.oMill-tailoooowateroooorelaxesooooafteroooowork.
Ivan McGuinness lives in Oxford, his poetry has appeared in several magazines including Seaside Gothic, The Alchemy Spoon and Dream Catcher.
Erica Hesketh
Placenta in the beginning spiral arteries unwound a river thundered to the site where the capsule was buried, flesh into flesh, bathing the villi in blood: our first exchange within days a structure sprang up along the outermost wall, a trading...
Hannah Welfare
Firstborn My hands Are bird wings Against the soft percussion Of his heartbeat A caesarean scar Cradles my pelvis Beneath my sexless breasts Each new day Paints his vision His hand curls towards A glove A book made of rags A spoon carved from bone...
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, we bring you Elle Dillion-Reams, Nu Dawn and My Hairy Vag
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On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, we bring you Kathryn Alderman, Joanne Key, Fiona Larkin
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On the Tenth Day of Christmas, we bring you Sue Burge, Marie-Louise Eyres, Sue Finch
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On the Ninth Day of Christmas, we bring you Adam Warne, Ken Evans, Marcelle Newbold
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On the Eighth Day of Christmas, we bring you Leslie Ingram, Sarah James, Ruth Aylett
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On the Seventh Day of Christmas, we bring you Laura McKee, Claire Walker, Louisa Campbell
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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...