Today’s choice

Previous poems

Jenny Robb

 

Jenny Robb has been writing poetry since retiring from a social work and NHS career in mental health and children’s services. She’s been published widely in magazines and anthologies. Her second collection is Hear the World Explode, Yaffle Press 2024.  X: @jirobb   Instagram: jenny_robb

Carl Alexandersson

      Ice aging Look sometimes I just want to lick ice cubes and eat jam straight from the jar and not even bother if the toast is too burnt we all deserve to be seen for what we could have been but this is not about us— Look I’m just saying wouldn’t it...

Tim Murphy

      The Incident The general mood was optimistic precisely because everything had been prepared to go wrong, and when the performance was unexpectedly beset by several predictable problems, the general mood became even more optimistic. The incident...

Richard Manly Heiman

      You Were And she could hear the highway breathing And she could see a nearby factory She's making sure she is not dreaming (Talking Heads, She Was) Out past the peeling smokestacks In a blurring frame of mind You healed me, in the name of A dab of...

Mandy Haggith

      Otter in shadows You can see where he is, little seeker, by the sparkle of bubbles escaping from his fur, a surface shiver fizzing among bladderwrack. When he starts rummaging in nests on the skerry, the heron flaps off, a flag signalling end of...

Danielle Todd

      Each night each night I lie in bed, spurred and splintered, to tape your breath, kiss the guinea pig that died in my keep, hair flick, to flick you alive each night I marry a replica of god’s first limb and break his fingers one by one each night...

William Bonar

      Reaping the Whirlwind headlit rain-wind detonates on tarmac stings our faces    lashes our ears batters our legs like breakers from a long Atlantic swell it souses heavy coats like tissue snatches our bellowed madness we scurry for shelter fools...

Anna-May Laugher

      Starve O’clock The sharpness of hunger shadows the downs. Kite quarters with an opportunist’s moon-pale eye. The woman threw food – sky dog, it came to her whistle. Afraid for their barbecues, next door complain. Woman desist or be afraid. Lost on...

Laura Ellyn Newberry

      All the World I come home early to the clatter of pans Loud music Kitchen smells A smile on your face The scene is so warmly lit that I’m almost taken in but Your eyes are red I say something about the pollen count and you don’t look at me as I...

Iris Anne Lewis

      That Night   Why did the swans hiss that night? He comes from the river, he comes from the lake Why did the wind howl that night? He heaves it down, he hauls it in Why did the moon glow red that night? He seeks her out, he hunts her down Why did...