Today’s choice
Previous poems
Sue Spiers
Compline
A woodpigeon calls
his five-note matins.
Petals ratchet wide
as the sun rises.
A butterfly’s haphazard wing beat.
Reverberation of a gong,
sandalled feet on tiles.
Golden leaves in the gutter,
the downpipe’s digestion of rainfall.
Petals grind shut at dusk.
An echo of monkish vespers.
An owl brings mice
to hungry young.
Sue Spiers was born in Cyprus and returns when she can. She adores Kleftico, Baklava and olives. Sue helps out with the Winchester Poetry Festival, Open University Poetry Society and spoken word evenings with Winchester Muse. Twitter: @spiropoetry Website: https://www.spiropoetry.com
Sandra Noel
The tide unpleats from her godet,
zig-zags in running stitch
round the base of the côtil.
Matthew Caley
supposedly: if I am to render
‘a man’ then
this ‘man’ must I guess resemble me‹›
Jenny Robb
The nun in charge of the children is thin, her back straight as punishment.
Ken Evans
You try doing star-jumps, steps,
or squats, in knee-high wellies.
Joe Williams
I was born in a town of shadows.
Anne Symons
She was only a little woman
five feet nothing in nylon stockings.
‘If I stood sideways they’d mark me absent.’
Ben
When she said ‘could’, it was clearly in italics
and when she said ‘one day’, the creak of glaciers
shuddered around its edges.
Dragana Lazici
the days are long but the years are short.
seconds are tiny kitchen knives in my back.
i stopped reading Dickinson, her voice is a sad parrot.
Abigail Ottley
Faces, unless they come swimming up close. are a blur of piggy-pink and ice-
cream. In the street, she doesn’t know, cannot be certain when to smile, when to
look away