Today’s choice
Previous poems
Ash Bowden
Out again with the pitchfork churning
compost into the old green bin, stinking
and silent as an ancient earthen vat.
Here, dirt makes no distinction
between trench beds and the twirling earth.
Onion shavings conspire to life
by bringing fresh tears to our eyes.
The whole rotting heap hushes
over the tunnelling of pink worms
and it is a war kept close to the weeds;
potato skins kissing dried dandelion leaves
as if to clothe a skeleton key.
It’s best we shush. Pigeons
have occupied the neighbour’s clothesline,
and the evening’s keen to keep a lid on it
Ash Bowden is a Halifax based poet whose work has previously appeared in The Cherita and Confluence, and he is seeking more publications to work his way towards publishing a pamphlet. He can be found on Instagram @ashbowpoet, on bluesky @ashbowpoet.bsky.social and on Facebook at Ash Bowden Poet.
Emily A. Taylor
I move my hand long
so yours will follow, and though
this moment tastes of tequila soda
paracetamol pillowed on a fizzing tongue
amnesia… pull me in anyway.
Steph Morris
No way would they let him keep that tag. They saw
a boy they must rename, must mark
from them, a boy whose limbs folded far too gently,
Eryn McDonald
It is here that the day breaks apart
Like ice on frustrated frozen pond
Here in the grounds of Ashton Court
I wish to bury myself amongst the green
Gordan Struić
Outside,
the city slides by,
blurred lines
of glass and rain.
Stephen Keeler
The days were huge and kind
and sometimes after school
we’d buy a bag of broken biscuits
for the long walk home
across the heavy heat of afternoon
on lucky days she wouldn’t take
the pennies offered up in supplication
Joseph Blythe
I swear I felt the swirly patterned paper
rip from the walls of my childhood bedroom.
It was the same stained cream shade as my skin –
pockmarked, cut and scabbed, dry and peeling…..
Denise Bundred
Shadowed boats bereft of sail
absorb the surge and slap
constrained by a blue-grey chink
of mooring chains.
Rahma O. Jimoh
A bird skirts across the fence
& I rush to the window
to behold its flapping wings—
It’s been ages
since I last saw a bird.
Samuel A. Adeyemi
I can already hear the chorus of my tribe.
They want the ancient blade,
the guillotine that hovered
above my head like a halo of death.