Today’s choice
Previous poems
Mana Misaghi
Mythopolitics
we make sure to pack a deck of cards for the train, or a sunday afternoon visit to the park. the cards will give our hands something tangible to do, and that thing should be as far away from
Productive as possible, for that is the purpose.
so even though we always pack a book, because we are not perfect, we make sure to also remember the cards. we will then remind ourselves, as we take out the cards, that we shall not play card games, even though we enjoy them, and they are far away enough from being Productive. we will do well to remember that they are built upon the foundation of Competitiveness, and shall therefore be avoided.
with the cards now in front of us we read each other’s fortunes.
We refer to our phones to double check the meaning of a three of diamonds or an ace of clubs. our aunties knew these by heart, but we have been plucked away from their tree and abandoned
Here.
Mana Misaghi is a London-based Iranian poet. They hold an MA in Gender Studies from Goldsmiths and a BA in English Literature from Allameh Tabataba’i University. They have translated two YA novels into Farsi, and two of their poems will appear in The Broken Spine’s upcoming slimline anthology. Instagram: @fair.creature.of.an.hour
Dmitry Blizniuk for World Poetry Day
God in his worn, greasy jeans like a car mechanic
is lighting a new life from an old one.
Jeff Skinner
It takes ages. Tell me what it is you’re after
she says, when finally I get through.
Annabelle Markwick-Staff
I devoured the Olympics, filled my mouth
and scrapbook with sticky ephemera.
Charles G. Lauder
beneath night’s skin he unearths raw stones
serrated encrusted enigmatic cold
Arlo Kean
we are at a cafe just round
the corner from hampstead
heath & sipping berry sunrise
Paul Stephenson
Goya was an octopus that smelt of funerals on Mondays.
Sundays, the scent of getting ready.
Jessica Mookherjee for International Women’s Day
The pain comes plucked from a field
in a garland of sunlight.
Jenny Pagdin for International Women’s Day
After many moons
I am perhaps readying to speak.
Kate Noakes for International Women’s Day
Each year in March, on the eighth day,
the one we’re allowed to call ours,
slowly, Jess reads our names . . .