Today’s choice
Previous poems
Julian Dobson
The city asleep
Street after street, ears bright to bass and tune
of two thudding feet, gradients of breathing. But rain
is brooding. Sparse headlights, ambient drone
of cars kissing tarmac, merging — but rain
twists senses, fractures distance, unzips
fences, chimneys, scaffolding. Everything but rain
rippled, colours drained: silhouetted pines,
apple trees in a park, a glowing cigarette butt. Rain
creeps in, up, around, so it never feels like drowning,
it’s sleepier. You hardly flinch from its cling. But rain’s
a key to endless life, infinities of drenching.
The first thrush knifes the dawn, its song
nothing but rain.
Julian Dobson has poems in a wide range of journals, including The Rialto, Stand, Acumen and Ink, Sweat & Tears. Julian lives in Sheffield and can be found on Bluesky at @juliandobson.bsky.social
David Belcher
How to not exist
Allow yourself to be elbowed aside
become a non-person
an avoider of lingering looks
Simon Williams
I Want to Become
a weasel, in a sleeky, twisty body,
all eyes and teeth like a deadly zip.
Zoe Davis
I joined a secret society
advertised in the back pages of a magazine.
I forget which, but I found it nestled
in 8pt font and fancy border
between time share apartments in Lanzarote
and the commemorative plates.
Callan Waldron-Hall
long weekend ← or ← perhaps ↑ summer holiday →
from the back of someone’s car boot ↑ the strange →
sweated plastic all pink and blue and folded →
Amy King
We’re drinking wine in your kitchen, months before
the hot oil of my concern begins to spit.
Jenny Robb
You notice the crepe of your neck and belly first.
This skin you bake in the sun.
Pat Edwards
Watching the ‘Strictly’ Results Show on a Sunday night
Knowing what we know about the pain of the world,
who wins and who loses might feel like a betrayal.
Rebecca Gethin
Oh walk with me up the slippery lane
when the frost has turned to ice.
Jean Atkin
Wear a coat, you’ll pass through light rain at the wood-edge
under Helmeth. Sing loudly, so the snakes can hear you.