Today’s choice
Previous poems
Neil Elder
High Hopes
There are blackbirds singing beautifully at dawn,
Mozart and Shakespeare existed and that’s fine,
but each morning, I pray a new miracle
will find its way into existence;
elephant birds discovered deep in Madagascar,
a cure for six awful diseases, or perhaps
some world leader gets assassinated –
any of these are fine.
This morning I found a clean shirt,
the milk at breakfast hadn’t gone off,
I got out of the house on time,
there was just a light drizzle,
my train arrived; I found a seat.
The day was full of miracles.
Neil Elder has several publications to his name, and is hoping to add another if and when his luck changes. He lives in London looking for sparkle among chaos.
Scott Lilley
I’ve seen dozens of you about the Fylde,
face all vape, fatigue, some wild sense of
beard, black hair to border it all.
Rich Yates
The bird
crept up on him, threw its voice into an empty tree
Annie Kissack
Girl Awaits the Psychic Investigators They’re late. The table is laid with a clean cloth, all normal and neat. Our visitors, city men, may find it hard to navigate the path but we can wait. They hope to gather evidence of a haunting; whether he’ll...
Jim Murdoch
We don’t decide who we love.
Who we hate, yes,
who we’re jealous of,
but never who we end up loving.
Alex Stolis
It’s 16 below zero. Actual temp. We’re sole owners of the shore, windchill pushes it down to minus 36.
Ashia Mirza
Someone is taking a photo
at a wedding
of their baby
at a celebration.
Phil Vernon
These hills that look towards both weald and waves
hold – in their homesteads, fenced and open land,
trackways and contours – all that’s happened here
Sandra Noel
I’m sorry for the screeching and swearing we winter swimmers do.
Mike Duggan
A decapitated road sign
Spears the yellow verge,
Meaningless as a symbol
Of progress. A vain strut.