Today’s choice
Previous poems
Mike Duggan
The Stirrups Of Genghis Khan
A decapitated road sign
Spears the yellow verge,
Meaningless as a symbol
Of progress. A vain strut.
The bus driver’s hands are folded
As the stop approaches.
From the fields,
An algorithm of hooves enters the ears
Of yawning school children.
More is known than ever before.
The day doubles over, winded
And as language must
Death moves
A little off, as if uncertain.
Mike Duggan is a fifty year old poet from London. His work has appeared over time in The Rialto, Magma, Tears In The Fence and Perverse. He has a new poem forthcoming in The Rialto 104 and his pamphlet Masquerade was recently shortlisted by the Dithering Chaps press.
Clara-Læïla Laudette
I’m six days late
and this is known as a
delinquent period.
Jan Swann
You seem very far from home
and who would after all choose a grit pocked
pavement to languish on
Gwen Sayers
Clouds spit on the coffin,
wring oily rags, splash
a woman, her violin
cased in sunken purple.
Dave Wynne-Jones
And did she break your heart?
A woman asks, perhaps imagining
A fallen chalice . . .
Simon Maddrell
Four years in Knockaloe was a living
inspiration for inventor Joseph Pilates.
Tom Kelly
At thirteen I am competing with James Joyce,
encouraging pain, at the very least discomfort.
Nick McGaughey
And here you are slid from the rain
under my door, “s” -ing along the cool
checks in the hallway.
Poetry from UEA MA Scholars 2024/2025: Grace Phillips and On Zi Rui
You bought peppermint and bubbles,
monologued in the corner.
You barely looked at me twice.
– Grace Phillips
I looked at the neon lights
Gazing, I asked myself :
“What am I sourcing for now that I am without you ?”
– On Zi Rui
Jade Prince
What is here for us but these walls and the
pearls of sweet yearning behind them