Today’s choice
Previous poems
Eve Chancellor
Kafkaesque
Imagine waking up one day and discovering
that you are a horse. At first, you might not
believe it and think you are dreaming. Gradually,
you would come to realise and go, hahaha!
Oh my god! A horse? You would look down
at this body that was not the body you went
to sleep in. All this new hair and nobody
has taught you how to shave it. Suddenly
you have difficulty getting out of bed. You try
to explain to your parents, but they won’t
put up with your whinnying. Instead, you must
get used to taking all your meals outside,
in the stables, with all the other mares who dreamt
that maybe, one day, they too could be different.
Eve Chancellor is an English Teacher in Manchester. Her poetry is featured online and in multiple anthologies, including: ‘Atrium,’ ‘Dust,’ ‘The Dawntreader’ and Ink Sweat & Tears.
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.
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.