Today’s choice
Previous poems
J.P. Lancaster
Ivy’s deference and not
Ivy thrives
despite dependency.
It hangs on, has its other day.
Ivy does not press its case.
Its patient face is no surprise.
It does not draw attention to itself.
Its business is in secretive delight.
It’s second violin to any other instrument.
It clings with tendril anchor feet establishing a base.
As if from nothing, when the time is right
its berries burst like fronds of aubergine-dark rain,
September elder, glossy, orderly and plump,
its umbel firework pulses bursting to be seen.
It later desiccates, but not
from tiredness, resolved maturity
frayed hemp strands on the vine.
Ivy’s complexity is fabulous.
Self-effacement underlining paradox,
write-in evergreen of posts,
single oaks with one bare fractured branch
in need of first response,
shipwrecked in a roadside hedge,
whitewashed walls
which failed to wash behind their ears,
and then turned flaky sour
anything upstanding marginal.
Ivy’s deference,
harm-free cohabiting,
which burgeons bright, as self-defence.
J.P. Lancaster was born in Cardiff and brought up in Barry, Vale of Glamorgan. He was educated at St John’s College, Oxford, which came as a shock. He has taught in various countries.
Leigh-Anne Hallowby
When we first came here two seasons ago
You were barely as high as my hip
Now you can look me right in the eye
It’s almost impossible to believe
Tadhg Carey
When our plaything ricochets
falling
who knows where
everything hinging
on the line
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
I hear the roar of
the ocean. I hear
a series of shrieks
and long screams.
Natasha Gauthier
Nobody knows what Cicero’s gardener whistled
to his figs and olives, what the consul’s young wife
hummed to herself while slaves combed beeswax
and perfumed oils from Carthage into her hair.
Jean Atkin
She creeps under the opening, then stands.
Her guide passes her the stub of a candle,
holds up his own to show the ceiling rock.
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.