Today’s choice
Previous poems
James McDermott
Samsara
if samsara’s concrete please don’t come back
as black jackal for I live in Norwich
nor spineless worm as I don’t have a lawn
ditto poppy fields with my hay fever
nor breeze I don’t open those windows now
so I might not hear you nor beige house moth
nibbling my pink knitwear nor hot new squeeze
father for ease please just come back as you
I shake my head aren’t I then fixed to lose
you all over again and I don’t want
you to be on a loop as I won’t be
fireproof and I don’t want you to be
kicking to sink your son praying Jim won’t
rise as poppies jackal that worm this wind
James McDermott’s collections published by Nine Arches Press include ‘Father Myself’ and ‘Wild Life’. James’s poems have been published in Poetry Wales, Magma, The North, Butcher’s Dog and Interpreter’s House.
Mary Mulholland
It doesn’t trust paper. It writes itself
in my head where no one can reach it,
laugh, tear it to shreds, or
call it a waste of space, a disgrace.
Afolabi Ezra
It was a quiet day—
no bad news,
no sudden loss,
no reason to hold my breath.
Karina Jutzi
I think today of the boy in choir class
who closed his eyes when we sang
about Jesus. Who swayed, as if the Lord
Isabelle Thompson
We saw a kingfisher threading the bright needle
of his body along the river. We saw a shag, stamping
her prehistoric shadow on the sky. We saw a hobby,
Roger Robinson
We walk from cane fields,
cotton in our nightshirts, sweet
Amirah Al Wassif
My double sits before me now. I stare deep into her, as I do every day after midnight. When I raise my hands, she raises hers.
Sophie Lankarani
Even though I only once traced your streets with my own feet,
you wandered into my dreams anyway
sliding in through my grandmother’s stories,
Mark A. Hill
She wills his brush in colour
and chalking, fierce hued flaws,
which fall flat on the canvas
Rebecca Wheatley
He thought his heart was broken yet the day began again.