Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jena Woodhouse
The Kelpie
Around midnight, the hour when pain
reasserts its dominance, a voice
behind the curtain screening
my bed from the next patient’s:
an intonation penetrating abstract thoughts
of distance, time-lapse; tempered by the Haar,
the briny sea-mist from the Firth of Forth;
the violet breath of highlands, heather
cushioning their callused flanks:
a Scots accent, pitched low and sweet,
and I’m at Hawthornden once more;
or visiting the Isle of Skye, awe-
struck by the vertiginous,
where ancient rock aspires to soar,
hang-gliders channel dragonflies—
I call out to the Scottish nurse—
blonde, ethereal, blue-eyed—
just to hear that voice, that accent,
and we reminisce awhile.
She leaves me with reflections
on the Kelpie— legendary beast—
the fierce flesh-eating water-horse,
shape-shifting, beguiling, sly,
luring victims with its beauty,
its compelling, ruthless eye;
dragging them into its lair,
never to breathe air again.
Only the owner of a Kelpie’s bridle
can resist the creature’s wiles,
their grisly consequence.
She leaves. I’ve brought her close to tears
with talk of those ensorcelled waters.
As for me, time-travelling, I’ve left
the confines of my bed, sloughed
my immobility, to walk the glen
at Hawthornden, along the Esk
below the keep; stroll to villages
and farms: a bygone crisis of survival,
carefree as I convalesced; never sensing
that the kelpie, known generically as pain,
a predator immune to time,
would lie in wait somewhere ahead:
shape-shifting, beguiling, sly—
to ambush me again—
Jena Woodhouse has seven published poetry titles. Her unpublished collection, Tidings from
the Pelagos: A Polyphony was a finalist in the Greek-based Eyelands International Book
awards 2024. She has been a finalist three times in the Montreal International Poetry Prize.
Nwuguru Chidiebere Sullivan
The Anatomy of Boys Boys are cold birds Boys are carrying broken wings Boys are burning oceans Boys are drizzling ashes Boys are not the thorny rose Boys are petals of hibiscus Boys are rainbow Boys are not cloaks for a deluge Boys are glass...
Sue Wallace-Shaddad
Walled In After Banksy: Rats, My Wife Hates It When I Work From Home Rats are on the loose climbing up the walls, their agility well-known, ingenuity to the fore. They’re hardly noticeable as you peer into the mirror asking yourself what exists...
K. S. Moore
Folly A jagged edge of sunset gold cuts the hillside. Was it folly to build this land a tower, that it might fold its heavenly green over and over, peer through a monocle of window to meet the curious and fanciful? Remember the night we tested its...
Rebecca Sandeman
Summer Holiday Belgrade is a // ‘kaleidoscopic cityscape’ // it is also // burning, it is // burning // and I only just understood what that meant // Stay indoors // don’t eat sushi // there are tanks on...
Chris Hardy
Number One She wore a flowered dress and the Autumn sun came through the glass so light chalk dust was a mist between me, the window and the path to the churchyard where in a flint wall coins were left for me to find. Was it the first day? We...
DS Maolalai
Your body is small as a folded receipt in a pocket and he clings to it like drowning in a downy nightgown. he believes he is wrapping you in silk so smooth you can forget his rutting crotch like a hog come to water. you are impassive; you look at...
Clair Chilvers
Sea Triptych Caught at the cusp just as the tide starts to ebb fingers of dark rock, orthogonal to the waterline reach out towards the setting sun. The sun, covered by thin cloud, casts silver light right up to where the sea’s foam hits the darker...
Stephen Claughton
Winter Road I after Georgia O’Keeffe It’s not exactly a road, more the idea of one and maybe not even that, a symbol, a cedilla, this mirror-written C that sweeps across the canvas, kinking at the top, where Route 84 mounts the crest of a rise,...
Nick Browne
Mother to daughter Rejection tastes like stale beer, stinks like old carpets, cup- a soup. Other people’s grime greases the corners of a rented flat, floating, unmoored in some Midlands town where the rain is unrelenting. The cream immobile phone...