Today’s choice
Previous poems
Maryam Alsaeid
A Prayer for Rima
With echoes of the Arabic lullaby ‘yalla tnam’
Maybe after your bath—
you will sit for a moment,
the towel will hold you close
like a quiet prayer—
يا رب، نامت الطفلة، يا رب خلّيها تنام
Ya Rab, the child sleeps, oh Lord, help her sleep.
Your hair still sings with water—
the evening folds around you,
a linen of mercy and cradling—
you are small again.
Your breath curls into itself,
as if rocked by unseen hands.
Everyone needs a night like this—
the freedom to forget noise,
to feel a droplet slip down the shoulder,
to feel as precious as a close whisper
يا عصفورة، يا وردة، نامي بسلام
Little bird, little flower, sleep in peace.
Outside, cars sigh along the road—
washing the city clean. Inside
your chest loosens, a psalm
in the language of skin.
The tears that come—
do not accuse you
they anoint.
May this be your Sunday—
your soft rebirth. May time
dissolve like salt in water,
and the world begin again
inside you.
يلا تنام، يلا تنام
Yalla tnam, yalla tnam
The night will rock you—
like a mother who hums
long after you’ve slept.
Maryam Alsaeid is a Manchester-based poet and pharmacist, she explores healing and female empowerment. She studied at MMU with Carol Ann Duffy, was mentored by Julia Webb, and leads well being-focused writing workshops.
Sue Proffitt
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If when you go to the barber today
He asks if you’d like him to ‘tidy up your ears’,
Think of all the wildest sprawling vegetation
That will never be tidied, or trimmed, by clippers or shears,
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High up, out of reach,
on a branch, no, more a twig,
a little wizened, shrunken face leers down.
Colin Pink
not the kind you eat with
but useful to turn the soil
root out potatoes or carrots
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My Father Bought a Signal Box
dismantled it piece by piece
then sold the wood, as a job lot.
Ryan O’Neill
we hug and i act cool
as the american fridge ice
shattering on kitchen tiles
David Thompson
Scrolling through my inbox I hold down
the shift key, select all and mass delete
briefly feel the repose of the therapist’s couch.
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