Today’s choice
Previous poems
Thea Smiley
The Only Time I See My Father Swim
There’s a hiss as he eases himself in
to the green pool, steam in his smoky hair.
Fish flicker around his feet, his legs lift,
quiver like flames in the mountain river.
Water spills over the plank dam to trickle
across the rocks below, while a hot wind
funnels through the gorge, pushes ripples
against his skin as he rests in the shallows.
Sun glances off his chest and shoulders,
his eyes alight to find himself immersed,
weightless, the fiery core of endless bursts
that radiate like fireworks, shimmer
as he moves, the river a hissing fuse
lit by the sight of him swimming.
Thea Smiley won second prize in the 2025 Yaffle’s Nest competition, and was highly commended in the Ver Poets and Write Out Loud competitions. Her work has been published in magazines, and in anthologies from Renard Press and Arachne Press.
Hélène Demetriades
Grace Trailing the outer path of Regent’s Park like a half-lit ghost grieving the foetus I’ve shed I crawl under the skirts of a pink rhododendron. I enter a womb of writhing branches, humming blooms, pink filtering light. A bee homes in on my...
Andrew Shields
The Bus Pulls Up The bus pulls up at the curb beside the half-smoked cigarettes, a single rain-soaked woolen glove, and two face masks, one with peacocks, the other with Pikachu. Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His...
Michael Bloor
WITNESS STATEMENT Case No. 1991/203 Witness – Full Name: Ianthe Jane Frobisher-Forbes Address: 1 Priory Lane, Old Basing, Basingstoke I first met Jason on Johnny Antrobus's yacht at St. Tropez in July, 1990. I didn't know at first that he was from the Alpha Centauri...
Christopher Jackson
Skate Music Everything went wintry. You skated out hunched and tentative – your fading skill recognising limits. Each scrape of fate came smaller, and we watched you skirl until you were out of reach of sight or ear, free and final as a...
Hanne Larsson
When this is all over... We will hug. There’re two types. A proper one starts off gentle, a soft caress as two people’s arms find a way through each other’s limbs, as chests start to touch, as each pulls the other tighter to them, as you inhale deeply....
John Rogers
Please accept our apologies as we stand with a basket of light, brighter than its weight in gold. Cherry-picked too. The old lady pledged that it could withstand quite the storm. Perhaps she was right, but the painted sign says in bold: Sadly, The...
Mariam Saidan
Lies From my window I watch leaves flutter. Seagulls stamping their feet, I play with my loneliness. I write stories, I tell lies like: “My heart leaps at the thought of love.” Mariam Saidan is Iranian/British and has worked in the...
Lucy Dixcart
Mushroom Picker Mushrooms grow well in chicken manure, but there’s a rumour the farm is experimenting with faeces from the local zoo. We traipse into the shed: a corrugated half-cylinder. I wrangle a ladder that’s taller than me, stuff blue...
Lynn Woollacott reviews ‘FOREST moor or less’ by Dawn Bauling and Ronnie Goodyer
A joint collection from two widely published poets opens with, ‘Crescent Moon Over Cookworthy Forest’ which introduces their personal love story – hidden for most of their lives – like the forest and the flora and fauna that inhabits the woodland. The...