Today’s choice
Previous poems
Miguel Cullen
In Remembrance of Stars Past
The pelican is so dovey, with her funny crème anglaise feathers with pink and her split-ended crest and mouth.
I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and see Pavarotti
singing Lacrimozart by Salieri.
In the park you had a dandelion flower under your chin
there was an ill pigeon that Jake caught in his hands
a nostalgia that day I just wanted to be free like a spore or see a planet which died 103 years ago
and think, jealous, that you are better
feeling things more, I guess I want proof that I’ve lived.
Miguel Cullen is a British-Argentine poet and journalist. He lives in London with his wife and daughter. Cullen grew up travelling from Buenos Aires, the vast expanse of the Pampas, to south-west London and back again. He has published three collections of poetry, most recently In Dreams of Diminished Responsibility. Miguel’s work has been published in, among other places, Magma, Dreich, and Stand. His books have been named “Book of the Year” in The Times Literary Supplement, and The London Standard.
Matt Jones
Mamgu In the coal-dark kitchen of Mamgu’s house above the fireplace scratched with coal-dust, brief sunlight reflects in the miner’s lamp. Every morning Mamgu would polish it with Brasso and a red cotton cloth. Her thin hands handled...
Shannon Cuthbert
Deco In the elevator with your mother The first floor an apparition Your awareness expands with a pang in your diaphragm. She clothes you in the stall The lipsticked attendants buzz and hiss Spit purple refractions Of waists sliced in halves many...
Matt Kirkham
Farmer’s Piano Shop Plate Glass Window, Luton, 20th July 1919 I will tell you that after the jet of water lifted me and before it threw me through the plate glass window, I had time to notice a number of things, namely: that the window looked...
Jay Whittaker
In the first days of lockdown At the edge of the tilled field two hares draw an arc towards the riverbank where long luxurious tongues of wild garlic are coated with thick frost. I can’t smell or taste a thing. I pledge myself to this field to the...
Paul Connolly
Field Mouse He’d crouched and scragged loose aubrieta strands and flower-less leaves off the pond's low wall. Pause precedes recoil: for the thing is small and pretty, sleek as a conker. He jags back from it, stands. Some force lofts the spade...
Billy Fenton
Clock At Carnac, lines of ancient stones stretch across fields, reach for the sun. I can almost hear them tick as they count the days to winter. I can almost hear them tock as they count the nights to summer. We take selfies among the stones....
Claire Sexton
The new doctor With every new doctor, I start again. Trying to explain my condition to him, or her. Trying to explain my level of cognition; the drugs I’ve had; the therapists I’ve listened patiently to; the vocabulary acquired and absorbed, like...
Chaucer Cameron
Cellar Stories: Ash & Elder Sunday afternoon there’s always roast dinner. Then mum and dad go to church. The twins stay and wash dishes. Elder-twin picks up a plastic bag with unused Brussels sprouts inside. The cellar door is open. Elder-twin...
George Szirtes and Julia Webb, zoom reading . . .
Join us for a live zoom reading from Julia Webb and George Szirtes with support from UEA poetry students Tristan Coleshaw ( 2020 recipient of the Ink, Sweat and Tears Poetry Writing Scholarship) and Eve Esfandiari Denney (the Birch Family Scholar for...