Today’s choice
Previous poems
Eithne Longstaff
Ulster Museum (26th July 2025)
After ‘The Supper at Emmaus’ by Caravaggio
On the road to Belfast today, I failed
to recognise my father. I saw a flamingo
by the Tamnnamore turn off, but paid
little regard as it took off, legs stretched
out behind like a hyphen; clearly knowing
each turn and knoll of the M1, how to cut across
Malone, where to park under the horse chestnuts.
In Botanic Gardens we stalked the roses
and forget-me-nots, sat a while under the pergola.
I did all the talking. We strolled to the gallery
to see the painting. The bowl of fruit
precarious, poultry with bare bone legs,
the hand of a shell-hearted pilgrim
reaching out to us, Christ’s halo a shadow,
his holiness bright, the moment of truth.
We sat longer than we should have,
enjoying this Resurrection on the fourth floor
of the Ulster Museum. The flamingo
reclined, eyes half-closed, yet taking it all in,
words inadequate at a time like this
and all the questions answered, eventually,
by the knowledge that arrives in silence.
Eithne Longstaff was born and brought up in Co. Tyrone, and now lives in England. A former engineer, she is relishing her second career as a poet. Her work has been published in Dreich, Rattle, One Art and is forthcoming in Magma.
Lesley Curwen
Her feet snagged in a cleverly-placed net
my sister waits for him to untangle her,
to hold her head still between thick fingers . . .
From the Archives: In Memory of Jean Cardy
Denizens Mice live in the London Tube. A train leaves and small pieces of sooty black detach themselves from the sooty black walls and forage for crumbs in the rubbish under the rails that are death to man. You can’t see their feet move. They...
Tina Cole
Mr. Pig modelling his best Sunday suit of farmyard smells,
flees from the cook’s cleaver to find himself a sow.
Ellora Sutton
My heart is breaking, so I’m setting up my new Wonder Oven.
The waft of toxicity as I run it on empty for ten minutes
is a welcome distraction.
Erin Poppy Koronis
Naked feet rush
over cold pebbles,
phone-torches light
our pathway to the sea.
Bob King
The first wristwatch was first worn
in 1810, despite what old turn-it-up
Flintstones episodes might have you
believe.
Brandon Arnold
Alone, I drive along the midnight, winter road. My left hand at the 12 o’clock position of the steering wheel. And I coast. I let out the day’s long breath, which started out today as a sigh.
Steph Ellen Feeney
My mother is here, and might not have been,
so I hold things tighter:
the small-getting-smaller of her
running with my daughter down the beach . . .
Anna Fernandes
My stubby maroon glove spent a chill night
on the velvet ridge of Clent Hills
tangled in summer-dried grasses