Today’s choice
Previous poems
Kate Hendry
Burning the Years
Lay down the worst ones –
raze them like swathes
of heather on the moor.
So what if there’s a dead patch.
Remember the havoc
unfettered fire makes –
flames twirl along the ridge,
tumble down the gorge.
Unbreathable heat and ash.
So burn those years
till there’s a dead plot of earth
and disaster’s spurned.
Behind you – safe beds of moss.
Ahead – untouched mounds
of rush like stepping stones.
Spin in the steam and smoke,
jump on the blackened years
sprung like a dance hall floor.
Kate Hendry‘s poems have been widely published in magazines, including PN Review, The Rialto and Poetry Wales. Her first pamphlet, The Lost Original, was published by Happenstance Press. Her second, MX SIMP (Mariscat Press) was shortlisted for the 2023 Michael Marks Awards.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Oenone Thomas, Seán Street, David A. Lee
Every evening at the care home, I pull in
two armchairs til they’re facing. Opposites,
we never fist bump, high-five or
touch each other’s vying outstretched fingers.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Gayathiri Kamalakanthan, Paul Stephenson, Jem Henderson
How two men can become
four men can become
eight men
Play, for National Poetry Day: Elena Brake, Karen Downs-Barton, John Mole, Eleanor Holmes
Take eight each of hex bolts
washers, locks…
it’s important
to fasten these tightly.
Jade Wright
Things have been rough lately.
It seems impossible now,
as the breeze relieves us
Ruth Lexton
The new year slouches forward, unlovable,
barely acknowledged but for tired, gritty eyes
and a muffled scream into the kitchen towel.
Claire Booker
Never has there been so much interest
in the humble tongue. It peek-a-boos from my mouth
like the little man in a weather clock.
Jacob Mckibbin
my brother saw his attacker
at a petrol station
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—