Today’s choice

Previous poems

Andy Humphrey

 

 

 

Becoming Hedgehog

(i)

Noises are louder now: the kesh
of tyres on tarmac slicked
with leaves. Rain’s drumming thunder.

My other self pulls at me,
pricks from inside. Limbs compress, ribs
tighten around starved lungs. I furl;

I shrink, a leaf about to drop
quivering from its branch. Spine arches;
fingers, toes close in.

My needle skin hides me
in lengthening shadows: my armour
against the dogs, the melancholy owls.

(ii)

They all tell of frogs
snogged by princesses, lanky green
specimens transformed
into slender knights.

But it takes a special kiss
to break a hedgehog spell, to make
that knotted ball of me
unravel.

You have to place your x
just at the soft spot
at the tip of the nose, the point
where all taste and touch and feeling begins.

Slip, and you risk
mouthfuls of bristles, bleeding lips
and your one and only chance
to see real magic at work.

 

Andy Humphrey has published two collections of original poetry, A Long Way to Fall (Lapwing Press, 2013) and Satires (Stairwell Books, 2015). He lives in York and works as a solicitor. www.writeoutloud.net

Emily A. Taylor

I move my hand long
so yours will follow, and though
this moment tastes of tequila soda
paracetamol pillowed on a fizzing tongue
amnesia… pull me in anyway.

Steph Morris

No way would they let him keep that tag. They saw
a boy they must rename, must mark
from them, a boy whose limbs folded far too gently,

Eryn McDonald

It is here that the day breaks apart
Like ice on frustrated frozen pond
Here in the grounds of Ashton Court
I wish to bury myself amongst the green

Stephen Keeler

The days were huge and kind
and sometimes after school

we’d buy a bag of broken biscuits
for the long walk home

across the heavy heat of afternoon
on lucky days she wouldn’t take

the pennies offered up in supplication

Joseph Blythe

I swear I felt the swirly patterned paper
rip from the walls of my childhood bedroom.
It was the same stained cream shade as my skin –
pockmarked, cut and scabbed, dry and peeling…..

Denise Bundred

Shadowed boats bereft of sail
absorb the surge and slap
constrained by a blue-grey chink
of mooring chains.