Today’s choice
Previous poems
Dylan Foster
Sabbatical
there’s not much you can do
when the planets
are telling you to stop
and gravity, who
only wants the best from us,
says
get down to the ground, that
you are
wanted, and so
you obey, become as
asphalt or fertiliser. you press yourself
into the earth suppress your
own need. your limbs turn to
branches then learning new
ways to grow and eventually
you’re there long enough that
everything you write and
do is mirrored
by the stars again.
Dylan Foster is a poet based in Surrey, U.K. When not writing he can be found hiking or playing the marimba. He has previously been published in Cordite Poetry Review.
Carolyn Oulton
Unexpected as burned stone,
what am I supposed
to do with this memory?
José Buera
Aircon crickets through the night
outside my parents’ bedroom
since brother and I are not allowed AC
given the dangers of cold air to children.
Abraham Aondoana
We did not inherit land,
only remnants of fields they burned—
black fields scorched before we understood
Lorna Rose Gill
Maybe I remember getting brunch;
or the time the dog ate my croissant;
Adam Strickson
He couldn’t play rugby – the oval slithered away
whenever he touched it and he fell in the mud
or more often was pushed with some viciousness.
Leigh-Anne Hallowby
When we first came here two seasons ago
You were barely as high as my hip
Now you can look me right in the eye
It’s almost impossible to believe
Tadhg Carey
When our plaything ricochets
falling
who knows where
everything hinging
on the line
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
I hear the roar of
the ocean. I hear
a series of shrieks
and long screams.
Natasha Gauthier
Nobody knows what Cicero’s gardener whistled
to his figs and olives, what the consul’s young wife
hummed to herself while slaves combed beeswax
and perfumed oils from Carthage into her hair.