Today’s choice
Previous poems
Julian Dobson
The small press publisher
You too I guess
have studied the surviving starlings
as they swoop and whistle
by the snack trailer at Moorfoot
glinting for crumbs of flaky pastry
like a glimpsed field of dandelions
and everything turns holy – you
shouldering your bag
of printer-fresh smooth pages
halting the gutterwebbed streets
with round words, delicate
as dust-jackets. See
how those walked syllables
arc into hollow air
in tattily furnished function rooms
or slip through letterboxes,
little pearly grenades.
Julian Dobson’s work has appeared in numerous print and online journals, including Stand, The Rialto, and Tears in the Fence. Julian lives in Sheffield but hasn’t yet learned to love mushy peas.
John Bartlett
mornings
I wake wary
of abundance
wondering why I’m still here
and then I recall
all the green leaves
with their hiding birds
Maya Little
I’m trying to stop thinking about what I want to not // be. Sometimes I have looked into my heart and found that // everything’s packed up.
Liz Byrne
I want to be two-tongued again
To go back to the time when I slipped
from one language to another with ease,
Matthew Thorpe-Coles
You retreat back to your bedroom,
your headset cooler than any
sunlight . . .
S Reeson
only now is it apparent how
dishonouring a body is a crime
Paul Connolly
At Aber Falls
he felt nothing
water sheeted
past grottoes
snakes of tributary
lazed along
Cindy Botha
I notice her because she doesn’t have a dog
in an afternoon of dog-walkers
Alex Josephy
the goddess of the library
extends in cloth-bound curves
along a lettered shelf
Ben Banyard
There were hundreds of them, all in period costume,
each generation explained who they were,
queued like at a wedding reception to greet us.