Today’s choice
Previous poems
Kay Feneley
Office Workers Against Sewage
Some days I must immerse myself in the waters
These days are more than others
Monday 09.06 – a sewage overflow has activated
Some days on the shore silence as we change
snuggle mugs, pass biscuits around
Tuesday 15.01- a sewage overflow has activated
Some days the choppiness is fun
we bounce along together
Wednesday 11:17 – a sewage overflow has activated
These days should make me buoyant
give purpose, community, bread
Thursday 17.47 – a sewage overflow has activated
Some days the mist disguises, I float
undisturbed by particulates of shit
Friday 12:52 – a sewage overflow has activated
Some days the smell lingers, stomach turns
mid-morning start to shiver
Sunday 23.59 – a sewage overflow has activated
Some days I dread going in
These days are more than others
Kay Feneley lives and writes in London, mostly as a civil servant but also poetry making sense of life as a disabled, neurodiverse woman. She was shortlisted in the Bridport Poetry Prize and publication includes Black Iris and Wildfire Words.
Revisiting Word & Image from Helen Pletts and Romit Berger on Mother’s Day
my mother is with the stars my mother is with the stars the missing buckle on Orion’s belt holding my favourite constellation in check – the Universe will be organised against its will – my Earth in chaos, still Helen Pletts (www.helenpletts.com)...
Morag Smith
Mrs McNab All of a sudden, would Mrs McNab see that the house was ready, one of the young ladies wrote…Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse. She comes as summoned, care taker with a leer, a lurch, a grinding of boots on shingle, tears cobweb veils of...
Donald Zirilli
The Night A gymnasium with crepe paper and leather soles, an iron box with only singles, rain without the drop, a clever dance where the floor taps our shoes. I cling to your scapula, your hand, like clothespins, like darkness, following the...
Mark Totterdell
Stars Emerging from the tent at 3am, you see this field of fools, that hedge, the sea, all subtly lit by an array of stars in numbers that your mind cannot compute. They’re barnacles fixed on a dark flat rock, and that faint streak of quartz marks...
Steph Ellen Feeney
New same Year January 2021 Every day, I am a mother, and I am asked to explain things I don’t really understand – like contrails or the...
Rebecca Faulkner
Half Brother (It rained, remember?) We climbed to the roof, took turns dying our bodies glistened & shook, mist from our tongues I step into your game screaming I get five lives! (but you always win) Hold your breath, count to ten cut your...
Helen Finney on International Women’s Day
The Gift A walk in the park. I see a girl sitting cross-legged on the grass, in front of her a box tied neatly with red ribbon, she stares at it, her chin resting in her palms. She doesn’t move. I watch others watching till a boy approaches, he...
Bern Butler
First Snow When snow fell at night, it was her future decided in hushed tones outside the room where she slept, so in the morning when she rose her world had been swapped, swivelled like a set in a play, permitting her (as she stepped out) to...
Live zoom readings from Malika Booker, Jill Abram and Fahad Al-Amoudi
Please join us on zoom for live readings from Malika Booker, Jill Abram and Fahad Al-Amoudi on Sunday 7th March at 4pm GMT This is part of our monthly ‘Live from the Butchery’ series, hosted by Helen Ivory and Martin Figura from their home (an old CoOp...

