Today’s choice
Previous poems
Anne Symons
Magic Pennies
My dad was a magician.
He could make a penny disappear
with a twist of his wrist
just vanish in thin air
to pluck it later
from your ear or nose.
People laughed when dad did that.
He’d put a matchstick
in the centre of a clean white hanky,
his Sunday best
fold the hanky, break the match
get everyone to feel it
before he mended it again.
They all said Oo! When dad did that.
But the best was getting chocolate
from the level crossing
behind the house on Gwinear Road.
Dad put ha’pennies on the tracks
for trains to squash as big as pennies
for the sweetie slot machine.
He was clever like that, my dad.
Anne Symons comes from Cornwall and began writing poetry in retirement. She completed an MA in Writing Poetry at Newcastle University and the Poetry School in London. Her debut pamphlet Shifting Sands, was published by Littoral Press in 2024
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.
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.