Today’s choice
Previous poems
Marie Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig
Grief shows me just another sunset
Dusk is dancing & all the visual technologies at hand feel
overwhelmed: mobile eye, pit pastels, graphic card.
It’s down to language, then, imagine.
Above parade pearlescent clouds
looking more permanent than us.
Behind you, incandescent gloaming
rips through time, retina, skin.
This clarity, it blinds the soul, its old familiar.
Listen
how it sings
setting every edge on fire.
Watch
how it streams,
extends, pinks up.
Maybe now you share my sense
of consolation:
that those who went before us,
& who loved us,
those whom we love,
still,
lived
to see this light.
Marie Isabel Matthews-Schlinzig is a translator, editor, and author. Her poetry publications include the pamphlet kinscapes and the anthology The Joy of Living (both with Dreich). Her work has appeared in various publications, including Poetry Scotland, Dust Poetry, and Neologism.
Kate Vanhinsbergh
We Should Probably Get Up Now
but, outside, the world has paused:
the wind has put down its loneliness
Bel Wallace
Interior My dear, I washed you out of my sheets. And now I sleep softly in them. My dreams are sweet and free. I opened the windows to air out your smoke. I liked it for a while, how it held the past in its wispy fingers. I emptied your cigarette...
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas we bring you Rachel Burns, Lauren Middleton, Hedy Hume
I start the day early with a cup of tea.
A new diary asks I make an affirmation,
while cleaning my teeth.
I have nothing to offer –
On the Eleventh Day of Christmas we bring you Mary Mulholland, Edward Heathman, Edward Alport
No Nordmann firs in Bethlehem.
No holly or ivy. But pomegranate,
almond, fig and olive trees to anoint
with signs of blessing and peace.
And houses don’t smell of Balsam
On the Tenth Day of Christmas we bring you Rupert Loydell, Ruth Aylett, Eithne Cullen
The village is made of darkness and wood smoke
and the hunting owls sounding from the garrigue.
On the Ninth Day of Christmas we bring you Mark Connors, Michelle Diaz, Sue Finch
Today I am in church again. I have come for silent reflection in one of my favourite seats, but it feels a little closer to the edge than usual.
On the First Day of Christmas we bring you Sarah Mnatzaganian, Rebecca Gethin, Jenni Thorne
Towards the Solstice
owls fly closer in December twilight,
call to each other across the garden.
Martin Fisher
Inside, in the half-light, the iron rot took hold.
Forgotten service–obsolete.
Salt-coin neglect.
The money flowed inland,
Moored on an hourglass choke.
No one told the sea.
Craig Dobson
Out of morning
a misted light,
glowing fire
in the air.