Today’s choice
Previous poems
Col Fleetwood
Muckle Flugga
Unmoored on an ocean of heather
no wind to pluck the strings
of the aeolian harp
Policed by the unsettling glare
of nesting great skuas
we tread the narrow path
The boardwalk rises and falls
under a sky empty
and scoured of song
To the lighthouse
in search of the solan goose
we press on
Until all land ends
pearl-studded cliffs rear up
to arrest us
And the pitch of the sea
snares the unquiet silence
of our voices
Col Fleetwood lives and writes in the wild and beautiful borderlands between Scotland and England.
Iris Anne Lewis
The track leads through thickets, threaded with eyes.
Elusive scraps of dreams, they gleam, flicker out.
Antonia Kearton
On my son’s desk lies
the periodic table of the elements.
I look. Amongst the arcane names
I recognise, easy as breathing,
carbon, oxygen, gold, beloved of kings.
Elizabeth Loudon
The first three days of war
have a surprising holiday feel.
No deadlines, just the giddy gasp of shock.
Ordinary life continues.
Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
A lacquer table, gloss under fingertips. A raised stage with dark linen. A young woman smiles with her hand-held harp, its nine strings glistening. The room swells with the cadence of her pearly notes. Beneath the pendant lights—a vision of serenity.
Pratibha Castle
Conscience
as taught her by the nuns was a bridle
on a young girl’s tongue
K. S. Moore
Teenage years
everything begins
it never ends
Jim Murdoch
I didn’t know what to do with all my dad’s love
so, I minded it for him fully intending to give it back one day.
Finola Scott
Such a knife, a real Et Tu Brute number. Bone handled, incisive. Decades of marriage
had whetted the blade to feather lean. Anniversaries marked in metal.
Sarah James/Leavesley
My mother’s knife made the first cuts –
she removed my fertile light bulbs,
then stuffed my womb with shredded tissues.