Today’s choice
Previous poems
Samarth Agarwal
Object M16- The Pillars of Creation
He who created all things, and bears up the pillars of creation, hath now become so weak, that He must be carried by a woman! – Charles Spurgeon
*
Here — in the absolute zero of space — fireworks!
Look how the crucibles of creation,
those million coloured fingers that stretch light years —
force fusion, squeeze hydrogen, become
furnaces of light birthing suns.
Yes, they birth suns — which means they are dying.
With each new star the pillars suffer:
erosion, cremation, photoevaporation.
All creation has a sacrifice.
All creation has a birth.
*
All creation has a Mother.
*
Why am I remembering now the star-empty nights?
When — having crossed the event horizon of my mind,
I would run to you.
You would take me close, lie down by my bedside,
like stars strewn across midnight’s floor,
lit only by the mosquito light’s red dwarf glow.
I would wake the next day, your only trace
the gentle warmth in my hands,
slowly cooling into the universe.
Farah Ali
Notes from nature on how to survive this:
1. Learn crypsis and mimesis be a gecko or a mossy frog
2. Method actors sway like dead-leaf mantises on branches
James Benger
We tore it all down
just to watch it burn,
standing in that alley
of forgotten refuse.
Graham Clifford
Check the cavities in you where hurt goes,
exactly the right shape to house an insult
like a power tool snug and clipped in its case.
Gill Horitz
I woke to workers with blades
along the verge, yellow-jacketed
to signify contracted rights
Anita Karla Kelly, CE Collins, Clare Painter on International Women’s Day
In the beginning of the end she bit the thing she wasn’t meant to bite.
Apple stuck in her throat, one bite taken, then swallowed whole.
Elaine Baker
To my Ovaries
My cahoonas. My muscular daisies.
Potent white olives. You make me sick.
Jan FitzGerald
What is not to love
when you draw back curtains
and taste clouds
in their newness and innocence
Helen Finney
At my feet the window sprawls a view of kneaded land,
craggy baked by the hand of the gods, dusted green
with short bit grass.
Eugene O’Hare
It hasn’t been this bright all year –
the moon’s white scalp, spot-lit,
a head turned away from a thing
the rest of us fear: unearthly dark