Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jane Spray
I’m just an ordinary dryad
After Anna Saunders
not like fancy Eurydice with her sun god father
keep things simple I say I don’t have her dilemmas
full moon in new
dark rising to light
skin and bark together
woodbine up hazel shoots
in loving arms under the boughs
I lie all night in this secluded wood
ok I do a bit of foraging now and then wild garlic mostly
but I’m rooted here will never leave these woods
Jane Spray lives in the Forest of Dean. She attempts to live harmlessly, if not in complete harmony with her surroundings, including her family. Her recent cave and nature themed collection is Cave Whale (Alba Publishing). www.janespray.net/writing
Jean Atkin
She creeps under the opening, then stands.
Her guide passes her the stub of a candle,
holds up his own to show the ceiling rock.
Iris Anne Lewis
The track leads through thickets, threaded with eyes.
Elusive scraps of dreams, they gleam, flicker out.
Antonia Kearton
On my son’s desk lies
the periodic table of the elements.
I look. Amongst the arcane names
I recognise, easy as breathing,
carbon, oxygen, gold, beloved of kings.
Elizabeth Loudon
The first three days of war
have a surprising holiday feel.
No deadlines, just the giddy gasp of shock.
Ordinary life continues.
Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad
A lacquer table, gloss under fingertips. A raised stage with dark linen. A young woman smiles with her hand-held harp, its nine strings glistening. The room swells with the cadence of her pearly notes. Beneath the pendant lights—a vision of serenity.
Pratibha Castle
Conscience
as taught her by the nuns was a bridle
on a young girl’s tongue
K. S. Moore
Teenage years
everything begins
it never ends
Jim Murdoch
I didn’t know what to do with all my dad’s love
so, I minded it for him fully intending to give it back one day.
Finola Scott
Such a knife, a real Et Tu Brute number. Bone handled, incisive. Decades of marriage
had whetted the blade to feather lean. Anniversaries marked in metal.