Today’s choice
Previous poems
J.S. Dorothy
Greylags
Find yourself by the lake,
its icy membrane split by the long
arrow of a skein, reflected
flurry of wings, cries
bawling. Knit yourself into
a parcel against its shriek, the force
shaping your bones,
steering you somewhere off course,
way beyond the city walls.
It’s as if you never belonged.
Count on one hand the things for which you longed;
watch them each take flight.
J.S. Dorothy is a queer and neurodivergent poet who writes in an (optimistic) attempt to make sense of things. Their work has appeared in numerous publications, including Pennine Platform, The Frogmore Papers, and Poetry Wales. They live in York.
David Keyworth
Aldgate had its usual smell of dirty metal and coffee. I jumped from platform to carriage. I squeezed beside a Tate Britain poster, clutched the grab-handle. When I chanced a glance, I saw I was the only one standing. Everyone else was wearing spacesuits.
Winifred Mok, Sandra Noel, Özge Lena and Alannah Taylor for Earth Day
we groan as the mercury hikes
climbing with the ball of fire
the Hot Weather Warning surrenders its flag
feels like 40 and it’s only May Day
-Winifred Mok
where geese balance on one leg
sleeping inside themselves
until they wake for hours of sun
and swimming
-Sandra Noel
You are walking in a half empty street. Carrying a rifle, you are hunting for canned food. Sultry evening falls like an electrified blanket, leaving you breathless. The world you know is long gone. The world has already surrendered to the heat waves followed by water wars, hunger wars. And hunger is a crazy carnivore in your belly. You turn a corner to see two rifles. Pointed at you. You shoot the air calmly.
-Özge Lena
I might eat more slowly, breathe more deeply the fragrance of nettle steep, be more mindful of
the miracle of vegetables of promising colour glinting in the oil of a pan, I might grind my molars
with the thought close that their substance, too, is borrowed from the minerals of the ground
-Alannah Taylor
Cal O’Reilly
I feel the sun, its love and anger,
a baked red brick rubbed
on the back of my calves.
Hiking in a binder was a shit idea,
My lungs reach to surface, come short.
Lucy Dixcart
It Starts Before Birth
Your tadpole-self, displayed to strangers for a thumbs-up.
Then childhood illnesses, faithfully documented.
Anna Mindel Crawford
We have our eyes on the chairs, ready
for when the music stops. Nobody wants
to be in the space where a seat had been
Sue Proffitt
Sue Proffitt lives by the coast in South Devon, UK. She has an M.A. in Creative Writing and has been published in a number of magazines, anthologies and competitions. She has two poetry collections published: Open After Dark (Oversteps, 2017) and The Lock-Picker...
Daniel Rye
When did the slowness
of this afternoon
merge with the chugging
boat engine in the harbour?
Anna Ruddock
Let it be okay that it took me a while to get here
If not better then equally fine to be
the goldfinch . . .
Laura Fyfe
How do we pull ourselves back
when we’ve nothing to hold on to?
Find a way clear
or stay? Wait.