Today’s choice
Previous poems
Paul Stephenson
The Poem of the Sock
after Martin Stannard
The poem of the mask disguises meaning.
The poem of the diet lost seven words.
The poem of the snowman melted.
The poem of the invisible man .
The poem of the ventilator needs to breathe.
The poem of the ruler rules, okay!
The poem of the bath had no depth (full of bathos).
The poem of the mirror was a true reflection.
The poem of the plane never really took off.
The poem of the ship soon ran aground.
The poem of the sock has a hole in it.
The poem of the needle is a stich-up.
The poem of the highlighter reveals all we need to know.
The poem of the horse that fell was just getting into its stride.
Paul Stephenson’s debut collection Hard Drive Carcanet, 2023) was shortlisted for Lambda Literary Award and Polari Book Prize. He has three pamphlets including The Days That Followed Paris, written after the 2015 terrorist attacks. He co-edited the Europe (70) and recent Ownership (92) issues of Magma.
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.
Krishh Biswal
You did not ask for knees —
They found the floor themselves.
Not from command,
But gravity.
Tamara Salih
That winter the snow kept rising,
a slow white wall climbing the windows,
each morning untouched,
Alicia Byrne Keane
I’ve been reading about ghost apples.
They are a real phenomenon, like how
everyone we can see on the wide street
outside this building is still living,
Gareth Culshaw
I tried to work from a van. Sitting in the passenger
seat listening to a guy whistle. His frown, a cloud
he lost when his mother died. Each wrinkle
Jennie Howitt
Those full udders will slowly burst
spitting milk onto the grass strands.
Matt Bryden
at the cider farm, eight minutes
before handover, we strike on
feeding the donkeys –
Colin Pink
to embrace you is like clasping
a fist full of briars