Today’s choice
Previous poems
Andy Humphrey
Cine Reels
On screen, Dad was
the radical –
the introverted
pen-and-notepad kind,
donkey jacket, beard,
betrayed.
Another time
he played a photographer
eyeballing Liverpool –
statutes, pigeons, couples
out to lunch. Thieves
snapped in the act.
Our hometown Hollywood
never had
content warnings.
Murder
came in piano discords,
a hymn swelling to chorus;
death was a one-word
manifesto
crumpled, windblown.
Fin.
On screen,
they killed Dad.
We watched him die
over and over.
Andy Humphrey has published two collections of original poetry, A Long Way to Fall (Lapwing Press, ISBN 978-1-909252-40-0, 2013) and Satires (Stairwell Books, ISBN 978-1-939269-16-4, 2015). He lives in York and works as a solicitor. https://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/andyhumphrey.
Day One of ‘Wonder’ for NPD: Philippa Greasley, Cindy Botha and Niklas Pettersson
Halfway to the island, the engine falters
and every cup trembles in its ring.
Emma Dandy
I’ve been staring at the blank page of this notebook for an hour. I close my eyes and breathe in for four, hold for four and out for eight, then repeat three times.
Ken Cockburn
We slept as best we could on the night train.
Leaving the station we walked empty streets
aimlessly until turning a corner
there it was, silent and vast as the moon.
Tim Dwyer
On the pitch of the roof
a jackdaw holds a twig
longer than its wingspan—
do corvids feel pride?
Genna Gardini
go back, small cell, atom
slit by light. It takes up
space, an ocean, a planet, a
Fran Hayden
a friend messaged me:
“every time I see sunflowers,
I think of you”
Betty Doyle
Both cast out to sea, I wonder –
did your ashes ever meet?
It was under the same sun setting,
although years and miles apart.
Mark Rutter
when the people are gone
and the wooden house
has been burned down
to recover its nails
Gráinne Daly
Not for me the tomb of Irish soil.
Put me on a plane
and let me make one last journey
before my final departure.