Today’s choice
Previous poems
Lesley Curwen
Ringed
Her feet snagged in a cleverly-placed net
my sister waits for him to untangle her,
to hold her head still between thick fingers,
feather ruff ticking in each rapid breath,
her eyes black and bright, body eclipsed
by the size of him, nothing she can do
to escape. He takes the measure of her,
splays wings with ruler, pliers a metal ring
shut on her thin limb, blows chest feathers
apart, testing tender fluff for fat reserves,
slots her headfirst in a film can, trembling
tail upended, to pop her on the scales.
He smooths her down for a photo, knowing
if he lets her go, she will be trapped again.
Lesley Curwen is a poet, broadcaster and sailor from Plymouth. Her pamphlet Rescue Lines is published by Hedgehog and an eco-chapbook, Sticky with Miles by Dreich. Her poems have been published by Dust, Bad Lilies, Broken Sleep, Atrium, Spelt, Black Bough and East Ridge Review.
Jenny Hope
No man can hold me.
See –
I blur the line between days . . .
Damaris West
In the circle
of its trees
the lochan shines
midnight silk.
B. Anne Adriaens
symptoms she is aggregate concrete and grit held together in a human shape lying on her side knees drawn up flesh tensing to stone and tendons in flames the weight of her body pressed into the mattress leaves a shallow hollow once she’s gone a...
Martin Potter
glimmer blades
the field’s lightly fogged
grass green
Moira McPartlin
Outside the Berber tent
the poet and I contemplate
the boundless Sahara sky.
Matthew James Friday
We totem our empires with the raptor,
weave into flags, fix on coins
but what of the victims?
How come no one ever glories the fish . . .
Ansuya Patel
Think what it must have been like for her
fasting from sunrise to moonrise, to wake up
three hours before dawn, bathe, apply sindoor
on the parting of her hair line . . .
Chris Beckett
Zerihun drove him over the dead-cow hills and Bob’s long hair stood up with shock at what he saw.
Angela France
Driving into low cloud everything fades
to a blur, all colour and definition leached