Today’s choice

Previous poems

Craig Dobson

by | Feb 24, 2025 | ,

 

Funeral
 
Slowly, ordinarily, the unimaginable happens,
lowering the past into the dark,
covering it.
You’ll live to receive the haunts of jagged occasion
blunting to dust and dream
in the sift of going on.
Till then, though, this keeps you. The bleak clothes
turn away to leave, while – stood
between the living’s
parked cars and the ranked stones of the dead,
with all the propriety of funeral
directors’ men –
whatever’s left of the future hides its boredom
and bows its head.

 

Craig Dobson has had poetry, short fiction and drama published in several magazines and is working towards his first collection of poetry.

HLR

by | May 7, 2024 | ,

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

by | May 6, 2024 | ,

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

by | May 5, 2024 | ,

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.

Pascal Vine and – – – ajae – – – for our Invisible and Visible Disabilities Feature

by | Apr 29, 2024 | , ,

Chronic fuck slug
Chronic floor sleeping
Chronic fist seething
Chronic food swallowing
Chronic feuding skin
Chronic foreseen surrender
Chronic failure synonym
Chronic sel(f)-inlictednes(s)
Chronic found inner-piece(s)
Chronic forcibly sending love (&) (kisse(s))
Chronic we (f)ucking mi(s)s you

– Pascal Vine

breaking through the battering lashings of exhaustion and overwhelm,
a quiet, passionate voice buds within you.
it exasperatingly sprouts and presses and pouts, saying:
“we’re forever dogged!
it’s forever dusk!
our soul’s been over-tillaged!
you’re becoming but a husk!
we need a rest
we need a break please!
our brittle bones are steeped in ache.”

– – – ajae – – –

Ellie Spirrett and Erin Coppin for our invisible and visible disabilities feature

by | Apr 28, 2024 | ,

This is the first time you have been out in three weeks.
Today sits like a joker between diamonds. Your punctured
skin sags over your bones, and you have dragged it
dangerously down the tarmac to mine this charity
shop for new parts.

– Ellie Spirrett

the riding of bikes
the rhythm of legs
the wind-driven tears
the wobbling turns
the handlebarred bags
the motion, the motion

-Erin Coppin