Today’s choice

Previous poems

Paul Short

 

 

 

Midnight Swingball

Sleep.
Elusive as lucid dreams.

Closed eyes teem wotsit-orange,
spiderweb scarlet &
thatch-brown

body      jerks                  like      a
swingball.

Conscience and subconscious
flailing paddles

back forward|forward back

body       jerks                 like       a
swing
ball.

Mind                   simmers            with                   breathless                         envy
at          the
creak-scratch

of

snoutswoons.

forward back | back forward

I try to surrender to exhaustion

body       jerks                 like       a
s
w
i
n
g
b
a
l
l.

 

Paul Short is a Pushcart and BOTN nominated poet from Newcastle upon Tyne. Paul’s work has appeared on BBC Upload, A Thousand Shades of Green Podcast and in Full House Literary, Broken Spine, Black Bough, Dust Poetry and more.

Mara Adamitz Scrupe

on that new broke land           I don’t anymore

recall               there may have been a tree line or a hedgerow

a grove named & a bird’s sternum

Bill Greenwell

Before the first turn of the key, before
adjusting the mirror, before releasing the handbrake even,
Dad said: there are two things you need to know.

Gabriel Moreno

It’s hard to say what he did, my father.
His shoulders portaged crates,
he captained boats in the night,
chocolate eggs would appear
which smelt of ChefChaouen.