Today’s choice
Previous poems
Vanessa Napolitano
A bit OCD
Floors are unvacuumed. Spices remain un-alphabetised.
I bless the spaces between the furniture to keep everyone safe. Seven.
I do not arrive exactly on time. Margins can keep their default size.
I would like you to promise me this isn’t poison. This supermarket chicken.
I do not straighten any of the objects on my desk.
I have seen the word crash on three magazine covers, which must be a sign.
I have clutter on my bookshelves and coffee rings on the little table.
I move the little tables to make the spaces right. Seven.
Reports do not say I am a perfectionist.
If I say the prayer wrong, I say the prayer again.
Gosh, that’s a dark thought, I’m sure you’d say.
If I say the prayer wrong, I say the prayer again (seven) –
If I say the prayer wrong,
I say the prayer again.
Vanessa Napolitano is a Yorkshire-based writer and was a Word Up North New Northern Poet 2025. She has published four books, including the chapbook the lives we had before with Stanchion Press in 2026. Her work can be found in And Other Poems, Interpreter’s House and Alchemy Spoon. Find her @nessanapolitano_ on instagram, and @ Moette on X.
Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal
I hear the roar of
the ocean. I hear
a series of shrieks
and long screams.
Natasha Gauthier
Nobody knows what Cicero’s gardener whistled
to his figs and olives, what the consul’s young wife
hummed to herself while slaves combed beeswax
and perfumed oils from Carthage into her hair.
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