Today’s choice
Previous poems
Helen Smith
safety in numbers
lunchtime, in the maths department
arranging pencils by colour
two friends, carefully sorting
into clear plastic tubs
a temporary stand
against the inevitable entropy
of fourteen-year-olds
this, and each september brightened
by a new pencil case
pencils sharpened
foldable ruler replaced
ink cartridges and fountain pen erasers
tip-ex mouse
a selection of gel pens
destined to dry up, and one
that smells like peach
neat handwriting on the first
snow-crisp page
date underlined with a steady hand
promise of a new start
a new chance
boys writing ‘5318008’ on their calculators
while I calculate the cosine
and rearrange to find x
soothed by the logic
of the textbook problem page
already a week ahead
one afternoon James filled my bag
with scissors, liberated
from the chemistry classroom drawer
a practical joke
revenge for my higher score
in a progress test
strange
how it made me feel like I belonged
new stationery
has turned to art supplies
gesso, sash brushes
golden acrylics and glue sticks
the joy of a black sharpie
and inktense pencils
on the waiting page
but sometimes
alone with my paints
and a canvas of impossible opportunity
I long for the sharp logic of x
and perfect protractor angles
the comfort of i
resting in the Riemann hypothesis
and lunchtime
in the maths department
sorting pencils
Helen Smith is an autistic poet and librarian from Dundee. She is co-editor of the new poetry broadside barbara, and has been published in various anthologies and magazines, including Clarion and Corvid Queen. Website: helensmithwrites.com / barbara.pub
Sophie Fenella
Conversation with the Doctor You hold my breath before me, pickled in a jar, it looks like veins when held up to the light; this could be life, this could be the future of reproduction. You bring me back, back in the room, back to tweezers, and...
Matthew Friday
The Stork A huge white question mark stalks a field outside Bassersdorf. Black mourning tips folded back, a softly red bill probes the earth. The legendary bringer of babies, your blessed image hangs above those more fortunate doors. Ours creaked...
Kenneth Pobo
At the State Fair I wander. Caloric food stops me. Sometimes there’s good music. This year a man in a black shirt plays a country guitar in front of a shining ferris wheel. He sings about love, it’s endless, which I guess makes it real. Even the...
Matt Pitt
Signs My dad when driving liked to read out road signs, shop signs or the shouty, foot-high letters on advertising boards. ASHBOCKING. THREE MILES. GOLF SALE. THE BEST A MAN CAN GET. Recently I’ve started doing this myself. My children find it...
Emma Neale
Found At the end of a sunny parquet corridor: the shock of mud dumped on the pristine, polished floor. Closer in, vision adjusts; the lump seems like a salt-rasp sob that clots the building’s throat. Dread-dense as a sea mine, heavy as a bell cut...
Hélène Demetriades
Grace Trailing the outer path of Regent’s Park like a half-lit ghost grieving the foetus I’ve shed I crawl under the skirts of a pink rhododendron. I enter a womb of writhing branches, humming blooms, pink filtering light. A bee homes in on my...
Andrew Shields
The Bus Pulls Up The bus pulls up at the curb beside the half-smoked cigarettes, a single rain-soaked woolen glove, and two face masks, one with peacocks, the other with Pikachu. Andrew Shields lives in Basel, Switzerland. His...
Michael Bloor
WITNESS STATEMENT Case No. 1991/203 Witness – Full Name: Ianthe Jane Frobisher-Forbes Address: 1 Priory Lane, Old Basing, Basingstoke I first met Jason on Johnny Antrobus's yacht at St. Tropez in July, 1990. I didn't know at first that he was from the Alpha Centauri...
Christopher Jackson
Skate Music Everything went wintry. You skated out hunched and tentative – your fading skill recognising limits. Each scrape of fate came smaller, and we watched you skirl until you were out of reach of sight or ear, free and final as a...