Today’s choice
Previous poems
Karina Jutzi
Lot’s Wife
I think today of the boy in choir class
who closed his eyes when we sang
about Jesus. Who swayed, as if the Lord
himself was in the room.
I sat in the back row and braided
my girlfriend’s hair. Men are allowed
to worship each other. To bow down
at the feet of fellow men. But not to touch them.
They stand shoulder to shoulder,
eyes forward, staring at the same thing.
Women, on the other hand,
must also save their worship for men,
but their touches can go wherever they
damn well want to put their fingers.
The boy told me the story of
Lot’s nameless wife.
Who turned into a pillar of salt,
because she was disobedient.
Why not Ketchup, I said
Why not butter?
But I was missing the point,
which was: These are the rules of men,
follow them.
Karina Jutzi is a multi-genre writer whose work meets at the intersection of art and spirituality. Her poetry, plays, essays, and comedy writing have been featured in various literary magazines and publications. The main themes in her work are death, birth, and anything that peers into the void. She currently lives on a small farm in Vermont with her husband and young children.
Rachael Clyne
And if a land loses its people and they
are exiled will a land feel their absence
Tom Nutting
They have been burying us,
not realising
we were seeds
of revolution.
Emily A. Taylor
I move my hand long
so yours will follow, and though
this moment tastes of tequila soda
paracetamol pillowed on a fizzing tongue
amnesia… pull me in anyway.
Steph Morris
No way would they let him keep that tag. They saw
a boy they must rename, must mark
from them, a boy whose limbs folded far too gently,
Eryn McDonald
It is here that the day breaks apart
Like ice on frustrated frozen pond
Here in the grounds of Ashton Court
I wish to bury myself amongst the green
Gordan Struić
Outside,
the city slides by,
blurred lines
of glass and rain.
Stephen Keeler
The days were huge and kind
and sometimes after school
we’d buy a bag of broken biscuits
for the long walk home
across the heavy heat of afternoon
on lucky days she wouldn’t take
the pennies offered up in supplication
Joseph Blythe
I swear I felt the swirly patterned paper
rip from the walls of my childhood bedroom.
It was the same stained cream shade as my skin –
pockmarked, cut and scabbed, dry and peeling…..
Denise Bundred
Shadowed boats bereft of sail
absorb the surge and slap
constrained by a blue-grey chink
of mooring chains.