Today’s choice
Previous poems
Paul Stephenson
The Poem of the Sock
after Martin Stannard
The poem of the mask disguises meaning.
The poem of the diet lost seven words.
The poem of the snowman melted.
The poem of the invisible man .
The poem of the ventilator needs to breathe.
The poem of the ruler rules, okay!
The poem of the bath had no depth (full of bathos).
The poem of the mirror was a true reflection.
The poem of the plane never really took off.
The poem of the ship soon ran aground.
The poem of the sock has a hole in it.
The poem of the needle is a stich-up.
The poem of the highlighter reveals all we need to know.
The poem of the horse that fell was just getting into its stride.
Paul Stephenson’s debut collection Hard Drive Carcanet, 2023) was shortlisted for Lambda Literary Award and Polari Book Prize. He has three pamphlets including The Days That Followed Paris, written after the 2015 terrorist attacks. He co-edited the Europe (70) and recent Ownership (92) issues of Magma.
Yucheng Tao
But look here, I turned my head
and discovered the Denver Museum
waiting,
nerve, a soft-boned
species hums
Sarah Boyd
He’s a house of cards, a delicately balanced pyramid
held together by hearing aids and dusty bifocals and
wobbling dentures and ageing pacemaker and
shirt with three buttons missing in action and
Samantha Carr
You became obsessed with nucleated red blood cells when you peeked through an
aperture window at your liquid, viscous nature. You became obsessed with maps
Helen Akers
we’re trying to construct a frame for this
‘highly reactive impulsive emotion’
the nurse is looking into it
Jenny Robb
By the light of a wolf moon,
my father turns mad.
Anne whispers to a girl in the wind,
and a friend blows into my life.
Diane Webster
Squirrels dream of a cougar,
a cougar given permission
to crouch like an assassin
awaiting its prey . . .
Bill Jones
Three jackdaws walked widdershins
around the birdfeeding station.
Zumwalt
I see
how you see
us in meetings:
merchandise
to slip
off
the shelf.
Anya Reeve
Stubborn, we closed our fists
To better ward away the brume