Today’s choice
Previous poems
James Benger
Out of the Ash
We tore it all down
just to watch it burn,
standing in that alley
of forgotten refuse.
No one wanted it,
no one needed it,
so boombox and cigarettes,
bottles and pipes,
we ran riot with the fire,
unrestrained screams and smoke
rising higher than
our collective ambition.
And it was a forgotten place,
so the only light
came from us,
and we lit up the world
as though we were saving it
instead of destroying that little chunk.
But maybe in our wanton annihilation,
we were creating something new,
something intangible,
something infinite.
Flames burned down,
and we exhaustedly flopped
onto moldy abandoned couches,
recounting the glory that was us,
and never once to our own ears
did any of it sound hollow.
James Benger is the author of several books of poetry and prose. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Writers Place, and on the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems in 365 Days online workshop. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.
Julian Dobson
You too I guess
have studied the surviving starlings
as they swoop and whistle
by the snack trailer at Moorfoot
Mark Czanik
I loved the tales Luke told me of starving writers,
and the sacrifices they made following their hearts.
Philip K Dick eating dog food. Bukowski’s candy bars.
Nigel King
My compass – its needle set with a sliver of blue stone – spins and spins. Breath mists my snow
goggles. I wipe them endlessly. Even in these thick seal-skin mitts my hands are frozen. I have been
no place as still as this.
Clare Bryden
seek justice
and you hold
a seashell to your ear
hear
Gail Webb
He cuts. I lie still, teach myself
to dream of St David’s Bay,
seaweed strewn on incoming tides,
surfers slice big waves in half.
Kim Cullen
I pull a dress over my head
calm foggy blue linen
sleeved in lavender,
press frizzed hair
Mark G. Pennington
Vigo in Autumn is still a furnace
the nightjars
roost on ram-tarmacked roads
and hot guapas carrying fish baskets
Ivan McGuinness
Begins
in a bubble
strained by chalk.
Where the brim-full hill cries,
weeping tracks merge
Elizabeth Wilson Davies
There are places in Wales I don’t go: reservoirs that are the subconscious of a people – R S Thomas
Cofiwch Dryweryn, that two-word protest,
white on blood-red background, landscaped in green,