Today’s choice
Previous poems
Kathleen Gray
Liberty
When she asked what I wanted
to be when I grew up, my mother
laughed when I said ‘free’
She’s been dead for more than
thirty years – not much freedom
in her kitchen-sink life
She settled for snatching time out,
pausing with that dreamy look,
that secret smile,
knife in one hand, half-scraped
carrot for Thursday’s soup
in the other, oblivious
to me spying from the kitchen
door, wondering where she
escaped to and if one day
she’d decide to take off
her apron, leave us free to
cook our own soup.
Kathleen Gray is Scottish by birth, French by adoption. Her poems have been published in various literary magazines, including New Feathers, Drawn to the Light, The Alchemy Spoon, London Grip, Poetry Scotland and Causeway. She lives in Paris
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.
Sue Spiers
I wrote a metaphor using eel
for blue-light reflections in water
on a flooded motorway
Oenone Thomas
Because I don’t know any other way
I replace my left hand
with a hook, my feet
with jackhammers, both
my eyes with spangled
mirror balls.