Today’s choice
Previous poems
Mark G. Pennington
The sea organ city
Vigo in Autumn is still a furnace
the nightjars
roost on ram-tarmacked roads
and hot guapas carrying fish baskets
in narrow alleys
or chestnut groves
leading to the sands
listen to me
hola
gracias
and other various offences
and when I rest in the mainland
there is a man in a pornographic suit
beside an old olive tree
shading from the sun
and with him is a briefcase
open
showing the box of sandwiches
along comes a water dog
sniffing for explosives
the line trying to catch hake for zarzuela
he closes the case
then waves the animal away
palatially swatting in steaming air
its owner
comes over with the leash
hanging limp
and nooses the dog
ahead of an oyster stall
in the street
and all is beautiful again in the sea organ city
Mark G. Pennington has published three collections of poetry, one chapbook which finished runner-up in the Cerasus chapbook competition, and one novel. He has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize.
Annie Wright
Sing silver times, shimmering columns
of light on the wine-dark, temple
to moon-eyed Hecate, the insatiable.
Magnus McDowall
We rolled out on Seven Sisters Road,
two crates of Tyskie empty in my stairwell.
We were talking from the chest, walking backwards
crackling air above our heads like streetlights
Yucheng Tao
But look here, I turned my head
and discovered the Denver Museum
waiting,
nerve, a soft-boned
species hums
Sarah Boyd
He’s a house of cards, a delicately balanced pyramid
held together by hearing aids and dusty bifocals and
wobbling dentures and ageing pacemaker and
shirt with three buttons missing in action and
Samantha Carr
You became obsessed with nucleated red blood cells when you peeked through an
aperture window at your liquid, viscous nature. You became obsessed with maps
Helen Akers
we’re trying to construct a frame for this
‘highly reactive impulsive emotion’
the nurse is looking into it
Jenny Robb
By the light of a wolf moon,
my father turns mad.
Anne whispers to a girl in the wind,
and a friend blows into my life.
Diane Webster
Squirrels dream of a cougar,
a cougar given permission
to crouch like an assassin
awaiting its prey . . .
Bill Jones
Three jackdaws walked widdershins
around the birdfeeding station.