Today’s choice
Previous poems
Gita Ralleigh, Julian Matthews, Jackie Taylor on Colouring Outside the Lines
Summoning
“Pink is the navy blue of India.”
Diana Vreeland
The hue of brides, appliquéd dark with henna.
Citron’s acid curl, vernal blades between teeth.
Beneath a virginal sky, weren’t we confections?
Pistachio and rosewater, saffron and cardamom,
greyed to drab by conker, navy and wine-bottle.
What we called home was only tarmac, ashes, dim
with tea stains, ink flecked. Candy-stripe days lost
under jalebi light. Slatted blinds slid shut against
Time, always stalking us. Her cape of night, lined
in clouds. When did colour seep from our blood?
Gita Ralleigh is a poet, writer and ex-doctor born to Indian immigrant parents in London. Her books are A Terrible Thing (Bad Betty Press)Siren (Broken Sleep Books) and Empirical (The Braag) She teaches creative writing at Imperial College.
LINES
Colour inside the lines. Line up. Underline. Straight line. Come online. Pickup line. Cross the line. Go offline. Decline. Keep in line. Don’t park on the yellow line. Sign on the dotted line. Meet your bottom line. Bee line. Snort a line. Shots in a line. Line dance. Deadlines. Front line. Firing line. Hook, line and sinker. Toe the line. Tread the fine line. Walk the line. Run lines. Poetic lines. Line breaks. Remember your lines. Fluffed your lines. One-liners. Setup and punchline. Deliver your lines. Fall in line. Crooked lines. Feed them some line. Line their pockets. Hotline. Throw them a line. Ass on the line. Hold the line. Blur the line. Clear the lines. End of the line. There are no lines…
Julian Matthews is a Malaysian poet published in 60 literary journals, anthologies and websites in 17 countries. http://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
paper chromatography
we shared a pipette
as part of the experiment
leaning into electron shudder
shoulder touching shoulder
observing the stutter-steps
of pigment
on white
paper : molecular
array of desire
paths
unstoppable
bleed
Jackie Taylor is a Cornwall-based writer of poetry and short fiction. Her short story collection, Strange Waters, was published by Arachne Press, and she holds an MLitt in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow.
Janet Hatherley
He’s ten years older than he’d said, which makes him
twenty-eight years older, not eighteen.
Syed Anas S
We are the ones
who see big crackers
burst every day—
Dharmavadana
She barely glances at you when you chink
your spare coins in her upturned cap, but still
spreads a spell among the pavement footfalls,
Tim Dwyer
Shedding Annamakerrig It begins high up the chestnut tree with leaves on the twigs on the tips of branches where sap has slowed. Turning amber carried by the breeze they touch the earth, rest on the grass where autumn begins Tim...
Gopal Lahiri
From this far-side apartment
you watch jarul leaves darkening with the seasons
Adam Kelly
Determined, you smash against the window
I have to admire you in your striped suit
Sandra Noel
The sea happens to me today
not because I’m the woman in the bakers
brusque turned rude
or the peaches still hard in the bowl
Grace Lynn
Sunlight saunters in long, thin wires through the fallow field
of my bedroom. You approach, a migrating heron
in a runny yolk collar and suntanned shorts, a white-light emissary
of hope. . .
Miriam Swales
I’m waiting for news I don’t want to talk about
and scrolling through old photos to escape.
After some swipes, I see you walking away.