Today’s choice
Previous poems
Regina Weinert
Shared Attic
A key on a short string unlocks
a metal door to an unlit stair, steep
wooden steps, a turn at the top
where you can’t see back. We’re in The Gods.
A warren on the right, murk-bound filaments
of light strike coal briquettes, a broom lurks.
On the left, a breathless empty stage,
unsettled dust, the roof’s raw underside.
We unwind our frayed washing rope.
The drying floor is warm like baking,
the rafters smell of vanilla, sweeter
where diamonds of sunlight magnify the grain.
The skylights are half-closed, the traffic hums
and drums. My mother has a far-away look.
I offer her pegs from a bowl.
There’s room up here to hang the bedding,
she straightens all the edges. I slink along
a corridor of sheets, not touching.
Regina Weinert lives in Sheffield. She has had a university career in language and linguistics. Her poems are also published by e.g. Magma, The North, Pennine Platform, Poetry Salzburg Review, Stand, Under the Radar and Wild Court.
Vanessa Napolitano
Floors are unvacuumed. Spices remain un-alphabetised.
I bless the spaces between the furniture to keep everyone safe. Seven.
Ben Verinder
Nostalgia as Yogi Bear
Ruminates through you for something tasty,
prizes of the Jellystone mind.
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.
Alex Josephy
Let us now praise hi-vis men
who gather together
round a pothole, filling the gap
with their sticky black remedy.
Claire Lynn
I lie back, arch my throat,
pretend to relax. Contemplate
ceiling tiles . . .
Peter Daniels
This is not you, but someone soaked in fake Brut
coming at me in a gesture of fake generosity.
Emma Farmer
Your face was on a bus pass,
your hair falling around your face like a curly straw,
pressed in a puddle between the Queen’s old face
and an Aldi receipt for slippers and chicken.
Carson Wolfe
I owned a g-string like this,
the back connected by a rhinestone butterfly.
Starved myself at school to save
my dinner money, bought it from Poundland.