Today’s choice
Previous poems
Colin Dardis
Mausoleum
A house is a machine for living in.- Le Corbusier
I have never climbed a tree,
never broken a bone
and will never walk on water.
I open my little window
and worry about possibilities:
imprudent intruders
of bird or cat, the wind, the cold.
The sky often tells me
when it’s time to close up again.
Some days, the house
is where you do your dying.
The true living waits outside.
Colin Dardis is a writer and editor from Northern Ireland. He edits the Poem Alone blog, and is co-host of Purely Poetry, an open mic night in Belfast. His recent collections are My Life Is A Film I Haven’t Yet Watched (Buttonhook Press, 2025), and with the lakes (above/ground press, 2024). www.colindardispoet.co.uk
Cherry Doyle
/ on the days / blood rushes at the corner of a nail / you cannot keep your jumper off the door handle / table tackles leg / expect the bruise in two days’ time / pansies nodding in speckles of rain /
Jennie E. Owen
and in that last moment
the dead shrug, shake
off their boots, shuffle off
jackets and shirts,
Martin Figura for Mental Health Awareness Week
Children in care do not have much of a voice, they often accept whatever is given and do not dare to speak up.
Julie Stevens for Mental Health Awareness Week
Are these the words you want me to say
about how my day became a raging river
crashing through my bones?
Fianna Russell Dodwell for Mental Health Awareness Week
I’ll tell you a bedtime story . . .
William Manning for Mental Health Awareness Week
My room is infested with bedbugs
I’m covered in bites, not love bites
Anna Brook
I want to borrow gods
(as Adrienne does,
though she knew better)
their sad logic
their templates
Nigel King
Turn the mud. Bo Peep’s head tumbles out,
wide-eyed, mouth a little open.
Mohsen Hosseinkhani translated by Tahereh Forsat Safai
Men are the color of soil
Women are sitting on the ashes