Today’s choice
Previous poems
Helen Akers
Window of tolerance
we’re trying to construct a frame for this
highly reactive impulsive emotion
the nurse is looking into it meanwhile
we must find something cold to hold lick it
we’re trying to expand the tolerance – think
of a moth thumping at the window imagine
a pane adjustable along the diagnosis
for excessive information’s tiny racing heart
to be processed a bullseye window pivoted
on the horizontal with cunning joints
at either end allowing it to open let it fly
it’s a lovely day if you like lovely days
Helen Akers lives in North Norfolk. She is working on a collection of poems which explore the experience of bipolar disorder from the carers’ perspective. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.
Marcelle Newbold
Hope lies like the edge of a teaspoon, upward facing, a thickness
perhaps enough solidness to knife
through a banana or other soft fruit
Britta Giersche
a wooden door slams shut in my brain
a man perishes in a space the size of his grave from malnutrition eighty years ago
Abby Crawford
When I was born
the house was full
of stones, an old blacksmiths shed.
Rachael Clyne
And if a land loses its people and they
are exiled will a land feel their absence
Tom Nutting
They have been burying us,
not realising
we were seeds
of revolution.
Emily A. Taylor
I move my hand long
so yours will follow, and though
this moment tastes of tequila soda
paracetamol pillowed on a fizzing tongue
amnesia… pull me in anyway.
Steph Morris
No way would they let him keep that tag. They saw
a boy they must rename, must mark
from them, a boy whose limbs folded far too gently,
Eryn McDonald
It is here that the day breaks apart
Like ice on frustrated frozen pond
Here in the grounds of Ashton Court
I wish to bury myself amongst the green
Gordan Struić
Outside,
the city slides by,
blurred lines
of glass and rain.