Today’s choice
Previous poems
Elizabeth Barton
On Diamond Hill
I didn’t
think of you once
as I climbed
past stunted willows
straggles of gorse
there was
no burning bush
but when
light poured through
each stone step
glittered
and I heard
crystals of song
spilling
from pipits’ throats
it wasn’t
until I got back
that I sensed
I’d met you
half-way up
where the ghost grass
quivered
and I recognised
your voice
in the chanting
of wind
on the moor
and my tears
welled up
like bog water
Elizabeth Barton is Stanza rep for Mole Valley Poets and facilitate creative writing workshops, such as a forthcoming one entitled, Portals into the Psyche: how fairy tales can enrich our writing. Her debut poetry pamphlet, If Grief were a Bird, was published in 2022 by Agenda Editions. Glimpses of Wilderness, a collaborative book of tanka poetry, art and natural history, was launched just before Christmas.
Ruth Lexton
The new year slouches forward, unlovable,
barely acknowledged but for tired, gritty eyes
and a muffled scream into the kitchen towel.
Claire Booker
Never has there been so much interest
in the humble tongue. It peek-a-boos from my mouth
like the little man in a weather clock.
Jacob Mckibbin
my brother saw his attacker
at a petrol station
Janet Hatherley
He’s ten years older than he’d said, which makes him
twenty-eight years older, not eighteen.
Syed Anas S
We are the ones
who see big crackers
burst every day—
Dharmavadana
She barely glances at you when you chink
your spare coins in her upturned cap, but still
spreads a spell among the pavement footfalls,
Tim Dwyer
Shedding Annamakerrig It begins high up the chestnut tree with leaves on the twigs on the tips of branches where sap has slowed. Turning amber carried by the breeze they touch the earth, rest on the grass where autumn begins Tim...
Gopal Lahiri
From this far-side apartment
you watch jarul leaves darkening with the seasons
Adam Kelly
Determined, you smash against the window
I have to admire you in your striped suit