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
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
Gita Ralleigh, Julian Matthews, Jackie Taylor on Colouring Outside the Lines
The hue of brides, appliquéd dark with henna.
Citron’s acid curl, vernal blades between teeth.
Sue Moules
I sell the postcard
of multi-coloured sheep
over and over again.
Kevin Denwood
Name called.
Not mine.
Wasn’t I
here first?
L Kiew
I leave everything on shingle,
meet surf like a sibling,
crest over playful breakers
and chase the moon’s tail.
Margaret Baldock
We launched, lovingly
into dark and silky water
unknown yet benign.
Krishh Biswal
You did not ask for knees —
They found the floor themselves.
Not from command,
But gravity.
Tamara Salih
That winter the snow kept rising,
a slow white wall climbing the windows,
each morning untouched,