Today’s choice
Previous poems
Mana Misaghi
Mythopolitics
we make sure to pack a deck of cards for the train, or a sunday afternoon visit to the park. the cards will give our hands something tangible to do, and that thing should be as far away from
Productive as possible, for that is the purpose.
so even though we always pack a book, because we are not perfect, we make sure to also remember the cards. we will then remind ourselves, as we take out the cards, that we shall not play card games, even though we enjoy them, and they are far away enough from being Productive. we will do well to remember that they are built upon the foundation of Competitiveness, and shall therefore be avoided.
with the cards now in front of us we read each other’s fortunes.
We refer to our phones to double check the meaning of a three of diamonds or an ace of clubs. our aunties knew these by heart, but we have been plucked away from their tree and abandoned
Here.
Mana Misaghi is a London-based Iranian poet. They hold an MA in Gender Studies from Goldsmiths and a BA in English Literature from Allameh Tabataba’i University. They have translated two YA novels into Farsi, and two of their poems will appear in The Broken Spine’s upcoming slimline anthology. Instagram: @fair.creature.of.an.hour
Nigel King
Turn the mud. Bo Peep’s head tumbles out,
wide-eyed, mouth a little open.
Mohsen Hosseinkhani translated by Tahereh Forsat Safai
Men are the color of soil
Women are sitting on the ashes
Stephen Komarnyckyj
you are the shadow slipping through the mirror
Jo Farrant
We’re stuck on a scene, frozen, like the ice cubes I begged Mum to get with the little flowers in them. Like taking a test in the school gym but your knees are so big they’re banging into the desk.
Douglas K Currier
Afternoon hangs in the air, and the birds leave.
Frogs begin to talk to each other, and the heat congeals.
Stephen Chappell
If you could call that friend,
the special one,
the one you always love and know loves you
Marius Grose
Until the dead, sucked from leaf mould graves
are rising in forest sap, to make connections
inside strange green brains
Andrew Keyman
a day later you’re in l.a. picking out cars with the magic
only money can buy
Chrissy Banks
So many times I walked
head down half asleep
along that ordinary road to school