Today’s choice
Previous poems
Matt Bryden
Lightly a god, if he wishes, can save a man, even from far off
Now a blanket is spread, offerings
of chutney and shin bones,
a taper held to the fire
that heats the tar beneath our boats.
A phial of bathwater discolours on a shelf,
unemptied since the day she was taken.
A pigeon in the role of catastrophist at the feast.
And Tiresias there, blindly
reading auguries of birds
from the mishmash of their sounds.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Oenone Thomas, Seán Street, David A. Lee
Every evening at the care home, I pull in
two armchairs til they’re facing. Opposites,
we never fist bump, high-five or
touch each other’s vying outstretched fingers.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Gayathiri Kamalakanthan, Paul Stephenson, Jem Henderson
How two men can become
four men can become
eight men
Play, for National Poetry Day: Elena Brake, Karen Downs-Barton, John Mole, Eleanor Holmes
Take eight each of hex bolts
washers, locks…
it’s important
to fasten these tightly.
Jade Wright
Things have been rough lately.
It seems impossible now,
as the breeze relieves us
Ruth Lexton
The new year slouches forward, unlovable,
barely acknowledged but for tired, gritty eyes
and a muffled scream into the kitchen towel.
Claire Booker
Never has there been so much interest
in the humble tongue. It peek-a-boos from my mouth
like the little man in a weather clock.
Jacob Mckibbin
my brother saw his attacker
at a petrol station
Janet Hatherley
He’s ten years older than he’d said, which makes him
twenty-eight years older, not eighteen.
Syed Anas S
We are the ones
who see big crackers
burst every day—