Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jon Miller
Moving In
The upper floor of the old byre
a darkness made of owl-stare—
its blink drinks you in.
A scythe hung under the last gasp
of a rafter. An armchair sprouts
the beards of men who died in it.
The skylight a cataract woven
by funnel-spiders; a car roof-box
full of barbells and throwing knives
and scattered across creaking planks
that any moment might give—
fur balls, owl pellets, rickles of tiny bones.
As I descend the ladder each worn tread
a hand cupping my foot: take care take care
says the dust in my hair, you live here now.
Jon Miller was shortlisted for the Wigtown Poetry prize, was winner of the Neil Gunn Poetry competition and was one of the winners of the International Book and Pamphlet Competition in 2022. His latest pamphlet Past Tense Future Imperfect is published by Smith|Doorstop.
Ansuya Patel
Women scrape coins from their purse,
count pennies, one lifts up a watermelon
in mid-air like raising a newborn to light.
Pippa Little
a woman’s rage cannot raise the dead
but it may split stone like lightning
Abiodun Salako
a boy grows tired
of dying again and again.
i am building him a morgue
for Thanksgiving.
Patrick Wright
It’s as if the dream
is telling me we are still joined
somehow, despite waking
and me trudging on, even though
your voicemail is off, your locks
changed.
William Collins
We carry the shame of Paragraph 352D
folded into suitcases at foreign borders,
where love is questioned like a crime,
and disbelief stamped heavier than visas.
They tell us to run for our lives —
but only if we can do it quietly.
Oz Hardwick
The ghost of my mother knows the names of everything, but
she can’t tell me, because ghosts, whatever you have heard
to the contrary, can’t speak.
McLord Selasi
I walk the flat barefoot,
step over old dreams
still curled like cats
in the corners.
Warren Mortimer
& you’ll understand if i leave open this theatre of air
not as the invite for another loss
but to honour their world unwilling to collapse
Jena Woodhouse
Language reinvents itself,
coruscates in signs on walls;
falls silent, mute as clay and stone
on tablets that enshrine its form.