Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jake Roberts
onwards
hamlet asked it to the dark night sea
where do waters end and i begin where the
moonlight shimmers on a cragged rock
to which i tie my errant being
hard against the night
solid against the wind
it still erodes but just more slowly
it cries for help but just more softly
love’s song it sings but just more sad
we couldn’t make it last
except as reverie
hamlet asked it to the voiceless sea
must i be thrust biannually
into water’s salty anti-memory
to be nothing but the fish who takes a timid bite
from the waves’ sick surface surging rolling
hard against the rock
solid against its grain
the washed-up dolt with shrunken cock
sandy naked by the wet brown groyne
is i
the winter sun
and the creaking windows of a seaside town
who sing towards the english sea
o blue i crack and break and leak
i don’t know what i want to be
Jake Roberts is a poet, critic and teacher based in London. Instagram: @jakegrxz
Gordan Struić
Still —
I kept
writing.
Sometimes
just:
“Hi.”
Margaret Poynor-Clark
Inside my bedroom I take a fresh blade
pull off my jumper, examine the ladder
in front of the mirror cut through my laces
rung by rung
Jenny Hockey
That’s when she went to ground,
after she disobeyed, painted her plastic tea set
red, hidden away in the playhouse they built
down where bindweed draped
Sue Proffitt
You and I have had many talks since you died.
Nick Cooke
If when you go to the barber today
He asks if you’d like him to ‘tidy up your ears’,
Think of all the wildest sprawling vegetation
That will never be tidied, or trimmed, by clippers or shears,
Edward Alport
High up, out of reach,
on a branch, no, more a twig,
a little wizened, shrunken face leers down.
Colin Pink
not the kind you eat with
but useful to turn the soil
root out potatoes or carrots
Linda Ford
My Father Bought a Signal Box
dismantled it piece by piece
then sold the wood, as a job lot.
Ryan O’Neill
we hug and i act cool
as the american fridge ice
shattering on kitchen tiles