Today’s choice

Previous poems

mulika ojikutu-harnett 

 

 

 

Monocle

remember when we lived
in the shrubs? stewed in a shared
room. its stench. our own
ripeness torturing lungs
scored elastic.

remember as well
as thieving, together we hauled
the laundry of our bodies
pretty-with-dumb into
a service kitchen

unable to see further
than a bus length
to trouble beverley
cooking. noses grifting
for food. left over.

crumbs from our parents
unfinished plates. your glasses,
trodden in haste, worn monocular
milk-bottle lens
held to eye as quizzing glass.

and remember too
we sinned in the maelstrom.
knowing nothing of aging. how
easy bone breaks by some
-thing as simple as coughing

 

 

mulika ojikutu-harnett (lowercase) is a Nigerian-Brit producer, coach, and analytic psychotherapist published in PERVERSE, Clarion, Agbowó, Tentacular, Under the Radar. Her poem ‘Bruisewort’ was awarded in the international Kent & Sussex Poetry Society Open Competition judged by Kit Fan (2025)

Rhian Thomas

On my phone a newsreel shows a car boot lifting
just above the flood. Tail lights like eyes 

caught in a comic gasp, while its body, like the carriageway,
lies under sixty million litres of last night’s rain. 

Sue Norton

Today I tipped the packet of coffee
into the cafetiere instead of the tin.
Caught myself in time, didn’t pour water in.

Kathy Pimlott 

      Going down to do lights and curtains to fool any burglars Twilight: one after another security lights click on illuminating pathways, steps, empty front lawns, triggered by my benign progress, then, disappointed, click off. The sky is a layer cake...

Jane Spray

I’m just an ordinary dryad
not like fancy Eurydice   with her sun god father
keep things simple   I say   I don’t have her dilemmas

Paul Stephenson

The poem of the mask disguises meaning.
The poem of the diet lost seven words.

The poem of the snowman melted.
The poem of the invisible man.