Today’s choice
Previous poems
mulika ojikutu-harnett
Monocle
remember when we lived
in the shrubs? stewed in a shared
room. its stench. our own
ripeness torturing lungs
scored elastic.
remember as well
as thieving, together we hauled
the laundry of our bodies
pretty-with-dumb into
a service kitchen
unable to see further
than a bus length
to trouble beverley
cooking. noses grifting
for food. left over.
crumbs from our parents
unfinished plates. your glasses,
trodden in haste, worn monocular
milk-bottle lens
held to eye as quizzing glass.
and remember too
we sinned in the maelstrom.
knowing nothing of aging. how
easy bone breaks by some
-thing as simple as coughing
mulika ojikutu-harnett (lowercase) is a Nigerian-Brit producer, coach, and analytic psychotherapist published in PERVERSE, Clarion, Agbowó, Tentacular, Under the Radar. Her poem ‘Bruisewort’ was awarded in the international Kent & Sussex Poetry Society Open Competition judged by Kit Fan (2025)
Christtie Jay
My Lord, let the record show
she remembered everyone else
before this. If you must, take her
in teaspoons
May Grier
I wasn’t to know
that it was a three-tusked
beast; that there was not one,
not two, but three
that grew the seed of me.
Daniel Hill
On her first day home, she took
to plucking the sky with tweezers—
latched on to clouds and waited
Sheila Saunders
Which is the subject?
Limp-leaved yucca
reluctantly dying,
the foreground figure
in its stony pot?
Trelawney
What is holding you back from building your wormery?
You can’t say there isn’t the time. Everyone has the time
when it comes to a wormery. Born with the right tools to hand.
David Van-Cauter
…4am and the birdsong begins, a wet January in a new city and I’m alone watching a man in Minnesota, murdered for protecting a woman from a fascist hit squad. . .
Tim Dwyer
Unexpectedly
My neighbour
opens her window
for fresh salty air
Paul Moclair
Their shore leave over,
. . . the spirits of the dead are bid farewell
until that time next year, when ritual
grants them reprieve again.
Susan Elizabeth Hale
Sometimes words are the only thing
that get you through,
But not the words you think,
not a word like love or hope
those are imprecise.