Today’s choice

Previous poems

Rose Ramsden

 
 
 
The Last Train Home

We left the play early. It was the last day before the start of secondary school. Dad told me off for slapping the seats, wanting to see the dust rise like smoke. Floating to the ceiling, dirtying the lights. The doors hissed open and a stranger emerged. Approached with a stare that unwrapped the skin from my bones, trickled down the neckline of my shirt. He held out a hand to my dad and grinned. Gums like the flesh left on cherry pits. I gazed at the ugly pattern on my seat. The filth beneath, festering.
 
 
Rose Ramsden is a UK based poet currently studying for her Creative Writing Masters at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her work has been previously published by bathmagg, The Punch Magazine, and dubble, among others. You can find her on Instagram @RoseRamsden.

Helen Evans

Things I did then that I hadn’t done before
 
Asked the neighbours if they wanted anything in my online weekly shop and
Bought yeast, flour, long-life milk and 70-per-cent-alcohol hand sanitiser and
Cut my own hair, even the bits round the back I couldn’t see, and

Kirsty Crawford

Elizabeth is hiding in the cupboard under the sink
Small enough to fold between cream cleaner and floor polish
Too big to keep elbows away from wire wool

Katie Beswick

You wouldn’t believe how quick they grew —
Our babies were men now. Lifting bags of concrete
they rebuilt cities, slab by slab, reinforcing cracks.

HLR

I find six errors in the proofreading manual & the irony doesn’t tickle me.
I am enraged by typos, poor formatting, missing commas. This is my Big Girl Job,
the one I always wanted —

Angela Howarth Martinot

What seems to be the problem ? He asks
in that slightly condescending tone.
Seems,     I think,      Seems.
It seems, I say,
that I have a problem with my inner fish,

Bianca Pina

My Dad once dismissed a friend as a hypocrite,
which I took to be an induction to the truth.
Lately though, I think the things I love in you
I love because they’re grossly inconsistent.