Today’s choice
Previous poems
Tom Kelly
Save Me
At thirteen I am competing with James Joyce,
encouraging pain, at the very least discomfort.
See me fervently praying,
waiting to receive the Communion host.
My knees more than ache, then burn,
I bless the wooden pew causing this necessary pain and
believe implicitly Christ will save me.
Tom Kelly’s most recent collection Walking My Streets is the thirteenth published by Red Squirrel Press and explores Kelly’s life and changing face of his native north-east of England.
Ian Seed
Cottage I turn around to see my mother on the roof, clinging to a chimney. How did she get there? She’s shouting down instructions: which apples to pick from the orchard behind me. And then, as if waking from a dream, she looks around in...
Louise Warren reviews ‘Witness’ by Jonathan Kinsman
Witness By Jonathan Kinsman. Burning Eye Books. £9.99. In his new pamphlet ‘Witness’ , the poet Jonathan Kinsman has taken the gospel of the New Testament and drawn inspiration from the disciples and their stories, the then fiercely...
Ava Patel
Six Feather gashes cut the deepest because I can’t figure out their motives; this game of Russian roulette we play will kill me because you always load six cartridges. I think there is a wolf cub lost in this city, lost from his pack. My wrappers fall from my...
Maggie Mackay
Lady Mary Hamilton If you were to be wandering through the Kunstkamera in St Petersburg, last century, you’d likely have spotted a glass jar on a dusty shelf and inside it a head, pickle-floating in spirits. This belonged to Mary Hamilton. It was...
Ian Heffernan
The Journey in We pass a shock of roofs, a builders’ yard, A squat clocktower, cranes, wide bird-filled parks, Unkempt back lawns and windows seen through trees. Graffiti flares from walls of darkened brick And at unmeasured intervals we...
Steve Haywood
The Winter Coat My fingers flicked across the screen like a concert pianist performing a well-rehearsed and all too familiar musical score: odd numbers, one to thirteen, seventeen and twenty-seven (my lucky numbers), and a small bet on red, just...
Guy Elston
The Mishap The first barbecue of summer - the last, for Peter – had a decent turnout, uni pals and partners mostly, but the odd school hanger-on and semi-pitied colleague too. The first hour was a bit damp, naturally - politics, sport, the time...
Evan Hay
Sent from my iPhone, so please excuse brevity, spelling & punctuation Sent from my iPhone whilst dieting, so please excuse an 8-point-font Sent from my iPhone during a senior moment, so with all due respect Missy- excuse spelling &...
Grant Tarbard
The New Testament of Dog Dog, elemental creature delving in puddles, fully formed in mud, this body earth, all love without mechanism, he is the murmur that nestles into these delightful sounds of apocalypse. Enemy fire turns off the crickets...