Today’s choice
Previous poems
Regina Weinert
Shared Attic
A key on a short string unlocks
a metal door to an unlit stair, steep
wooden steps, a turn at the top
where you can’t see back. We’re in The Gods.
A warren on the right, murk-bound filaments
of light strike coal briquettes, a broom lurks.
On the left, a breathless empty stage,
unsettled dust, the roof’s raw underside.
We unwind our frayed washing rope.
The drying floor is warm like baking,
the rafters smell of vanilla, sweeter
where diamonds of sunlight magnify the grain.
The skylights are half-closed, the traffic hums
and drums. My mother has a far-away look.
I offer her pegs from a bowl.
There’s room up here to hang the bedding,
she straightens all the edges. I slink along
a corridor of sheets, not touching.
Regina Weinert lives in Sheffield. She has had a university career in language and linguistics. Her poems are also published by e.g. Magma, The North, Pennine Platform, Poetry Salzburg Review, Stand, Under the Radar and Wild Court.
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.
Seán Street
We lit a candle for you
that day in Sacre Coeur,
under its white-flame dome
as high as Paris could go
Marjory Woodfield
On Kinley’s Lane, quince tree, wild blackberries, branches of feijoa reaching over a fence, fallen fruit.
Ian Seed
What was the Welsh for ‘hedgehog’? That was what he wanted to know.
Sue Wallace-Shaddad
Rectangular, with corners cut off like an octagon, muddy brown shows through the cream exterior where the edges are chipped.
Cally Ann Kerr on International Transgender Day of Visibility
How many blows does it take to crack an egg?
Is a question I never expected to ask
If you don’t know, I should tell you, an egg
Is what they call the girl inside the male mask