Today’s choice

Previous poems

SJ Lunn-Rockliffe

by | Nov 9, 2026 | ,

 

 

 

Pillar saint

Crammed onto his high
stone square, he cranes
to see the whole number
of eternity as it unwinds

its relentless gilded length,
trailed by bi-plane cherubim
and their seraphic cousins –

but he is granted only
a raw bald pate

horned thoughts
of silk and bells

an alkaline draught
from a far-off well

fire ants beading
their wrath into
his toe folds

and the sour
roar of believers
at his column base,
begging for a
sign, a word,
a fingernail of
hope for
their cattle
their bellies
their men,
a swelling on
the jaw,
cyclical
fevers,
failing milk,
the cries of a
nameless newborn –

while he awaits the

blank

of the seventh day.

 

 

SJ Lunn-Rockliffe is Associate Professor in the Divinity Faculty at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches, reads and writes about the histories of ancient religions. She works on ideas about thinly embodied beings like demons.

Anne Symons

by | Oct 13, 2026 | ,

      Magic Pennies My dad was a magician. He could make a penny disappear with a twist of his wrist just vanish in thin air to pluck it later from your ear or nose. People laughed when dad did that. He’d put a matchstick in the centre of a clean white...

Dave Wakely

by | Oct 11, 2026 | ,

      Grandfather/Grandson A hot, dry day in an already arid season. I stumble through stands of age-misshapen oaks, leaves blistering brown as they beckon me into the shade. From time to time, I glimpse a clearing to one side of the path, or a view...

David Lukens

by | Oct 10, 2026 | ,

Having earned their wings through evolution
it is almost as though they are loth to use them
preferring familiar earth, the old tree’s broad shadow.