Today’s choice

Previous poems

Tim Dwyer

 

 

Unexpectedly

My neighbour
opens her window
for fresh salty air

Along the lough
the first ferry in daylight
skims silently by

A strange bird
with brilliant markings
soars by my window—

I imagine a miracle
that carries illness away.

 

Tim Dwyer’s debut collection, Accepting The Call (templarpoetry.com), has won the Straid Collection Award. His Japanese form and longer poetry appears in Irish, UK and international journals and anthologies. Originally from Brooklyn, NY,  he now lives in Bangor, Northern Ireland.

Natasha Gauthier

Nobody knows what Cicero’s gardener whistled
to his figs and olives, what the consul’s young wife
hummed to herself while slaves combed beeswax
and perfumed oils from Carthage into her hair.

Jean Atkin

She creeps under the opening, then stands.
Her guide passes her the stub of a candle,
holds up his own to show the ceiling rock.

Antonia Kearton 

On my son’s desk lies
the periodic table of the elements.
I look. Amongst the arcane names
I recognise, easy as breathing,
carbon, oxygen, gold, beloved of kings.

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

A lacquer table, gloss under fingertips. A raised stage with dark linen. A young woman smiles with her hand-held harp, its nine strings glistening. The room swells with the cadence of her pearly notes. Beneath the pendant lights—a vision of serenity.