Today’s choice
Previous poems
Sue Norton
Summer’s End
Today I tipped the packet of coffee
into the cafetiere instead of the tin.
Caught myself in time, didn’t pour water in.
I’ve started to write notes to myself:
Shut bathroom window. Lock back door.
Yesterday at the bank I couldn’t remember
mini statement but I can recognise
this orange blur, this hover of wings
above abelia grandiflora, a hummingbird
hawk moth exploring the tube-flowers
with its long tongue. I sip my coffee.
Old age comes tapping up my garden path
on unsteady feet, but I’m content to watch
a flycatcher flitting up and back, up
and back to its perch on the fence post,
the hawk moth probing
trumpet by trumpet as it siphons
nectar’s last drops,
the flycatcher fluttering up to snatch
one more feed at summer’s end,
preparing for migration.
Sue Norton has had poems published in various magazines and anthologies.
Marjory Woodfield
On Kinley’s Lane, quince tree, wild blackberries, branches of feijoa reaching over a fence, fallen fruit.
Ian Seed
What was the Welsh for ‘hedgehog’? That was what he wanted to know.
Sue Wallace-Shaddad
Rectangular, with corners cut off like an octagon, muddy brown shows through the cream exterior where the edges are chipped.
Cally Ann Kerr on International Transgender Day of Visibility
How many blows does it take to crack an egg?
Is a question I never expected to ask
If you don’t know, I should tell you, an egg
Is what they call the girl inside the male mask
Gita Ralleigh, Julian Matthews, Jackie Taylor on Colouring Outside the Lines
The hue of brides, appliquéd dark with henna.
Citron’s acid curl, vernal blades between teeth.
Sue Moules
I sell the postcard
of multi-coloured sheep
over and over again.
Kevin Denwood
Name called.
Not mine.
Wasn’t I
here first?
L Kiew
I leave everything on shingle,
meet surf like a sibling,
crest over playful breakers
and chase the moon’s tail.
Margaret Baldock
We launched, lovingly
into dark and silky water
unknown yet benign.