Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jason Ryberg
The Conversations of Ghosts
Sometimes I’d swear that
the ancient box fan I’ve hauled
around with me for
years is a receiver for
the conversations of ghosts
not unlike the way
hats I’ve bought at vintage shops
still hold trace elements
of the residual thoughts
of their previous owners.
Jason Ryberg is the author of eighteen books of poetry, and six screenplays.He is currently an artist-in-residence at both The Prospero Institute of Disquieted P/o/e/t/i/c/s and the Osage Arts Community, and is an editor and designer at Spartan Books. His latest collection of poems is Fence Post Blues (River Dog Press, 2023).He lives part-time in Kansas City, MO and part-time somewhere in the Ozarks.
Sim Pereira-Madder
Tom Giles once asked me if I had tools and at that
time I didn’t because I was fifteen maybe sixteen
Molly Knox
I count:
four cows in the meadows. Made
friends with them this Spring.
Pascal Vine and – – – ajae – – – for our Invisible and Visible Disabilities Feature
Chronic fuck slug
Chronic floor sleeping
Chronic fist seething
Chronic food swallowing
Chronic feuding skin
Chronic foreseen surrender
Chronic failure synonym
Chronic sel(f)-inlictednes(s)
Chronic found inner-piece(s)
Chronic forcibly sending love (&) (kisse(s))
Chronic we (f)ucking mi(s)s you
– Pascal Vine
breaking through the battering lashings of exhaustion and overwhelm,
a quiet, passionate voice buds within you.
it exasperatingly sprouts and presses and pouts, saying:
“we’re forever dogged!
it’s forever dusk!
our soul’s been over-tillaged!
you’re becoming but a husk!
we need a rest
we need a break please!
our brittle bones are steeped in ache.”
– – – ajae – – –
Ellie Spirrett and Erin Coppin for our invisible and visible disabilities feature
This is the first time you have been out in three weeks.
Today sits like a joker between diamonds. Your punctured
skin sags over your bones, and you have dragged it
dangerously down the tarmac to mine this charity
shop for new parts.
– Ellie Spirrett
the riding of bikes
the rhythm of legs
the wind-driven tears
the wobbling turns
the handlebarred bags
the motion, the motion
-Erin Coppin
Will Snelling
The garden shudders, brushed with ice,
its edges slightly blurred away
by cloud unfolding over the grass.
Jonathan Croose
The gravel drive seems longer now,
the knock feels like a split of skin
and out on the fen road, by now there are chalk marks,
diagrams and calculations, cones and contraflows,
plastic zips and silent spinning lights.
No more need for sirens there,
but here, here on the doorstep, every alarm must ring.
Gordon Scapens
Hid some between hearing
and interpretation,
made a new alphabet.
Hid some between wit
and pedantic speeches
to fool anyone listening.
Gary Jude
The mandibles look like the tusks
of some gigantic bull elephant bagged
by hunters posing for a photograph
in pith helmets next to a tent
and a wind up phonograph.
David Keyworth
Aldgate had its usual smell of dirty metal and coffee. I jumped from platform to carriage. I squeezed beside a Tate Britain poster, clutched the grab-handle. When I chanced a glance, I saw I was the only one standing. Everyone else was wearing spacesuits.