Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jon Miller
Moving In
The upper floor of the old byre
a darkness made of owl-stare—
its blink drinks you in.
A scythe hung under the last gasp
of a rafter. An armchair sprouts
the beards of men who died in it.
The skylight a cataract woven
by funnel-spiders; a car roof-box
full of barbells and throwing knives
and scattered across creaking planks
that any moment might give—
fur balls, owl pellets, rickles of tiny bones.
As I descend the ladder each worn tread
a hand cupping my foot: take care take care
says the dust in my hair, you live here now.
Jon Miller was shortlisted for the Wigtown Poetry prize, was winner of the Neil Gunn Poetry competition and was one of the winners of the International Book and Pamphlet Competition in 2022. His latest pamphlet Past Tense Future Imperfect is published by Smith|Doorstop.
Philip Gross
Enough of scorch, scald, sore- and rawness.
Sometimes flesh longs for eclipse.
Nick Allen
she told me about the still hours
spent at the coast watching the east
Phil Vernon
Because we were four
and I only had strength to carry one
and knew no other way
I carried the one who called out loudest;
threatened us most.
Patrick Deeley
As you rummage of a morning
among dust-furred personal effects
jumbled in an old
wooden suitcase under a bed . . .
Terry Jones
The Lake District Tourist Board
has had no input into what
you are now reading, but I so
miss Cumbria in Holy Week
Mary Mulholland
Who will pick the apples now she’s gone?
Samantha Carr
She has few secrets with her translucent map skin of blue underground rivers visible to scale.
Alison Patrick
A dozen snail shells exposed on dry soil
in the archangel’s cut brown stalks.
Banded like fairground sweets and helter-skelters . . .
Julie Egdell
At the shore of impossibility
last moments come to nothing
all our plans die in the salt air
of another new day on the black sea.