Today’s choice
Previous poems
Kathleen Bryson
I Am the Dreaming Herpetogaster Chimera : Painting by Kathleen Bryson
I Am the Dreaming Herpetogaster Chimera
I am the dreaming herpetogaster chimera and
I am part-and-parcel of the impossible animals project.
My cherry-blossoming phallic self
obviously dubbed after some ropy denizen
of the British diaspora as Herpetogaster collinsi
who didn’t want to mention the word penis
but not Phil Collins or your average cocktail.
Don’t mention the naked molerats.
I had my ambitions 509 million years ago
and by 497 million years ago they had been extinguished.
I pick through Burgess shale with raw fingers.
I don’t. I don’t have fingers. I don’t.
There is no prehistoric mysticism to any shifts
I may have provoked though it is possible that
the sway of my marine biology
in some small chaos theory manner
influenced the now-ness of you the reader
just as much as the twist flaps of those dirty gals the Lepidoptera
Kathleen Bryson is an Alaskan-born evolutionary anthropologist, with a day job as an EU VR/AI research fellow and with previous posts at Oxford and QMUL. She has had four novels previously published and 45+ poems in publications ranging from Magma to Ghost City Review. Her website is www.kathleenbryson.com.
Bel Wallace
Interior My dear, I washed you out of my sheets. And now I sleep softly in them. My dreams are sweet and free. I opened the windows to air out your smoke. I liked it for a while, how it held the past in its wispy fingers. I emptied your cigarette...
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas we bring you Rachel Burns, Lauren Middleton, Hedy Hume
I start the day early with a cup of tea.
A new diary asks I make an affirmation,
while cleaning my teeth.
I have nothing to offer –
On the Eleventh Day of Christmas we bring you Mary Mulholland, Edward Heathman, Edward Alport
No Nordmann firs in Bethlehem.
No holly or ivy. But pomegranate,
almond, fig and olive trees to anoint
with signs of blessing and peace.
And houses don’t smell of Balsam
On the Tenth Day of Christmas we bring you Rupert Loydell, Ruth Aylett, Eithne Cullen
The village is made of darkness and wood smoke
and the hunting owls sounding from the garrigue.
On the Ninth Day of Christmas we bring you Mark Connors, Michelle Diaz, Sue Finch
Today I am in church again. I have come for silent reflection in one of my favourite seats, but it feels a little closer to the edge than usual.
On the First Day of Christmas we bring you Sarah Mnatzaganian, Rebecca Gethin, Jenni Thorne
Towards the Solstice
owls fly closer in December twilight,
call to each other across the garden.
Martin Fisher
Inside, in the half-light, the iron rot took hold.
Forgotten service–obsolete.
Salt-coin neglect.
The money flowed inland,
Moored on an hourglass choke.
No one told the sea.
Craig Dobson
Out of morning
a misted light,
glowing fire
in the air.
Steven Taylor
A very long time ago
Stephen Fry’s godfather, the
Justice, Sir Oliver Popplewell
Who chaired the inquiry
Into the Bradford City