Today’s choice
Previous poems
Ben Banyard
Day of the Dead
Granny introduced us to her parents,
her uncle who moved to South Africa in 1912,
the grandfather I never knew and his family.
There were hundreds of them, all in period costume,
each generation explained who they were,
queued like at a wedding reception to greet us.
We had facial features in common, noses and eyes,
high foreheads and dimples on chins.
Some laughed, some liked to drink, some danced,
the Quakers and Methodists found a quiet corner.
They were from Birmingham, Stratford-upon-Avon,
rural parts of Ireland, Devon and Cornwall, Wales,
some didn’t speak English and might have been Flemish.
One by one they waved goodbye and exchanged hugs
until only the living were left in the hall.
We agreed it was worth doing, to put faces to names.
Ben Banyard lives in Portishead, on the North Somerset coast. His three collections to date are Hi-Viz (Yaffle Press, 2021), We Are All Lucky (Indigo Dreams, 2018) and Communing (Indigo Dreams, 2016). Ben edits Black Nore Review . Website:benbanyard.wordpress.com
Neil Fulwood
Today’s operative on the ohrwurm shift
has hacked the WiFi password
in the ear canal and now I’m looping back
endlessly to a misheard lyric . . .
Ira Lightman
Laid down, his upraised face is
White – offputting – on a plumped pillow.
Dave Wynne-Jones
“The all-consuming passion
is rarely found
more than a recipe
for misery,”
you read
Pat Edwards
He appears like a paper bag blown onto the feeder,
punching his beak time and again into the peanuts.
Kate Noakes
If you follow faerie lights
that wisp where boardwalk
becomes trackway, make sure
you’re stocked with milk,
or bread and salt.
Gopal Lahiri
My father stitched an evening with current ripples
spill over rocks and shadows gather at the corner,
Paul Loney
i was standing
very still
my mind
Mai Ishikawa
Taxi I took shelter under a tree, where you also sheltered. You looked at me awkwardly, as if to say Excuse me before shaking your feathers – a tiny droplet landed on my cheek. Suspended, we held each other responsible for the silence. We listened to the...
Lue Mac
Sad how things expire before you work out
what they mean. Like earlier I was noticing
the rose petals on the path, all damp and slick,