Today’s choice
Previous poems
Margaret Baldock
Hurst Reservoir
In the sharpness of a January wind
we stepped down,
feeling with neoprened feet
for the safety of the edge.
Bags and clothes huddled
on a plastic picnic sheet.
We launched, lovingly
into dark and silky water
unknown yet benign.
Bodies at awkward angles.
Heads raised high against
the tiny vicious waves.
Crazy women some might say
but we laughed
with the joy of it, almost cried,
elation our reward for saying:
No! to fear of cold.
No! to fear at all.
Margaret Baldock is a retired NHS project manager whose poetry aims to express spirituality in the concrete everydayness of life. She lives in Derbyshire and practices as a spiritual director.
Ilse Pedler
She offered up her linen bag to me, said
pick a shell my lady and I’ll tell your fortune
Sue Butler
Squirrels have beheaded all my parrot tulips
and the supermarket is out of chilli, also tabasco sauce.
Cormac Culkeen
the sun is a
white coin
lifted
from the sea
Maurice Devitt
Yes, you gave us your elegant hands
and capricious smile, but as I make my way
to the chiropodist this morning,
it’s your feet I’m thinking of . . .
Martin Ferguson
Pursue the facsimile
of the attendance sign;
here you must join the line.
Peter Branson
Emerge, from way beyond the pale, one day,
clenched feet an amulet about your wrist
Alice Huntley
carved from the tusk of my grandmother
I am learning how to remember
Bel Wallace
My dad is thinking geometrically,
eyes closed; he waves his arms
Sarah Crowe
they gave me the cold
cap to stop my chemo
hair falling out