Today’s choice
Previous poems
Ben Verinder
Nostalgia as Yogi Bear
Ruminates through you for something tasty,
prizes of the Jellystone mind.
Lifts a memory from the pic-a-nic basket
of your past and sniffs it excitedly.
He lies about the freshness
of the morsel. Exaggerates its taste.
Hey hey hey, he geysers,
eyes ballooned, pork pie hat
tipped back. Down the hatch!
But the bite is ordinary as air.
Ben Verinder holds an MA in Writing Poetry from The Poetry School and Newcastle University. His debut pamphlet, Botanicals, won the Frosted Fire Firsts competition in 2021. His second, We Lost The Birds, was published by Nine Pens in 2023. His third, How to Save a River, won the Michael Marks Environmental Poet of the Year 2024/5 prize.
Andy Humphrey
Noises are louder now: the kesh
of tyres on tarmac slicked
with leaves. Rain’s drumming thunder.
Chrissie Gittins
When you’ve used one handle to open the door,
use the other handle to close it.
Morgan Harlow
She hadn’t lost a child but if she had she imagined it would be like that.
Antony Owen and Martin Figura on Remembrance Day
Let fathers bind their sons
to altars, so the wind
might winnow the chaff.
Stephen C. Curro
calm river
again, his fishing line
caught on a tree
James Norcliffe
Sarsaparilla Road
travels through swamps
and reeds, over a black
water creek and a narrow bridge
David Hanlon
Not in that parking lot,
not in that residential area,
not in that blue car
splashed with mud.
Mana Misaghi
we make sure to pack a deck of cards for the train, or a sunday afternoon visit to the park. the cards will give our hands something tangible to do . . .
Taḋg Paul
An algorithm guides me through the keys
Each stanza nested in a formal loop