Today’s choice

Previous poems

Nairn Kennedy

 

 

 

Portrait

You notice the nose: webbed veins spritzed
with little flicks of red, purple blotches
daubed with a palette-knife, broken ends
where blood-vessels gave up the ghost.

You see the waistcoat bristling
Harris Tweed, the label peeking out just so
we know, and, picked out in gold, a tiny
little compasses-and-square combo

glints in his lapel. You don’t see
the earthy animal smell of the jacket,
the whiff of stale whisky on the breath
where he’s tried to overtake

the Dylan Thomas record. You can’t see
his wife’s face, worn like an overused
tyre, or his children’s eyes blanking
out when his voice is raised.

You only catch a little of the scenes
where he rolls up in the early hours,
hammers on the door with a balled-up
fist, demands a final drink as a nightcap.

He always drives himself home, festering
in a bath of booze;  the picture doesn’t show
his kneeling wife, praying for a swerve, a skid,
the sudden emancipation of a brick wall.

 

Nairn Kennedy’s work has appeared in The London Magazine, Stand, The North, Poetry News and Under the Radar, plus several anthologies. He’s been longlisted in the National, variously commended, and runner-up in the Stanza competition.  Website: nairnkennedypoet.co.uk

Natasha Gauthier

Nobody knows what Cicero’s gardener whistled
to his figs and olives, what the consul’s young wife
hummed to herself while slaves combed beeswax
and perfumed oils from Carthage into her hair.

Jean Atkin

She creeps under the opening, then stands.
Her guide passes her the stub of a candle,
holds up his own to show the ceiling rock.

Antonia Kearton 

On my son’s desk lies
the periodic table of the elements.
I look. Amongst the arcane names
I recognise, easy as breathing,
carbon, oxygen, gold, beloved of kings.

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad

A lacquer table, gloss under fingertips. A raised stage with dark linen. A young woman smiles with her hand-held harp, its nine strings glistening. The room swells with the cadence of her pearly notes. Beneath the pendant lights—a vision of serenity.