Today’s choice

Previous poems

Ned Vessey

by | Nov 3, 2026 | ,

 

 

 

Conversations

My father and I
skim the surface of conversations
something like those swallows do
down at the lake
instantaneous precision
of withheld effort
brief furrows
of beak and wing
on water’s brows.

But sometimes we forget
ourselves
the pub sends us
into the drink. Cormorants
beaks that know
surgery of water
peel back gloom and grit
until the innermost things
of the lake choke
writhe on the shoreline
unaccustomed
to the scrutiny of light.

Fearful we let the lake
have them back
and no one says a word.

 

 

Ned Vessey writes poetry and prose about landscape, people and place. His prose has been featured in The Guardian, Slightly Foxed Quarterly and The Clearing. His poetry has appeared in The Dark Mountain. He lives in Bath.

Emma Dandy

by | Sep 30, 2026 | ,

I’ve been staring at the blank page of this notebook for an hour. I close my eyes and breathe in for four, hold for four and out for eight, then repeat three times.

Ken Cockburn

by | Sep 29, 2026 | ,

We slept as best we could on the night train.
Leaving the station we walked empty streets

aimlessly until turning a corner
there it was, silent and vast as the moon.