Today’s choice
Previous poems
L. Haiman
O is the Mother Letter
My baby is hungry. Grabs
me with both hands. I am
an apple, apparently no will. I give in
to his teeth and hate it. Him I love! I can’t say No and even when I do
I go back
On my word. It must be that consent is
Ancient.
Older even.
A code written
In our body, a binary of unspoken NO’s / misspoken YES’s,
I guess it must have started with a
( o )
Breast.
And mouths to feed: the need
to quench and satiate an Other at the great
Expense of self. Give comfort, forfeit
Feeling safe.
L. Haiman is a Romanian-born multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in Margate, UK. L. Haiman’s work explores bilingualism, cultural identity, and intergenerational trauma across concrete poetry and prose. L. Haiman’s poetry writing has appeared in West Trade Review, The William and Mary Review, and Ink Sweat & Tears and was shortlisted for the Alpine Fellowship.
Violeta Zlatareva
The neighbor is a devout woman.
She bakes bread and lights candles
Robin Vaughan-Williams
I’ve got all this money lying around.
Have you got anything you can do with it?
Rizwan Akhtar
What fell between an abrupt shower
and a sky’s attitude was your memory.
Jeff Gallagher
Colleagues munching bap and burger
thought Ramadan was that juicy winger,
his scorching pace soon snaffled up by City.
Sue Moules
Sings at the top of the bare-branched tree
an aubade to morning
welcomes the light,
early spring, season of nest-making.
Andrew Tucker Leavis
as the tanker tore
its throat against the
shallow spine, as
the village unravelled
Patricia Minson
Between the trees dust shifts,
light fractures like a prism.
A cathedral silence greens the air.
B. Anne Adriaens
The French term terrain vague enfolds
a plot of land I thought at first was vague,
undefined and malleable.
John Bartlett
mornings
I wake wary
of abundance
wondering why I’m still here
and then I recall
all the green leaves
with their hiding birds