Today’s choice
Previous poems
Chris Emery
Truer
Knowing nothing of him now except this:
a log of sickness upon sickness
embarrassing to dream. The boatyards west
of reasonable shipping. The wars guessed
at out beside the jetty – he abstains
from something, shining buttons. But the rains
keep coming far beyond the breakwater
and if we walk to the same sea later
we’ll see something heaving up beside us:
caskets of grey, white-capped, barren and loose,
the way memories are. At least we know
despite these are not ours they come to show
something of an appetite for love or
something close to that, not true, but truer.
Chris Emery was born in Manchester in 1963. He has published four full-length collections of poetry, most recently Modern Fog (Arc Publications). He is a founding director of Salt, an independent publisher, and lives and works in Norfolk.
www.chrisemery.me
Robin Houghton
I’m looking through a lattice of magnolia
not yet ready to blow open its thousand furring buds—
every year the same urgency—
Lesley Graham
I like soft grass, the sort you see
in early spring sprouting from
improbable interstices,
Robert Nisbet
Our family does weddings.
When Rosalie married, first time round,
and the cars assembled for the drive,
it was in fact a lovely sunrise…
Amirah Al Wassif
I know a fig tree walks in beauty singing a fair song as soon as my heart beats.
She uses elevators & electric stairs
Royal Rhodes
Halfway within
the sheltering woods
you found yourself.
Claire Walker
we are holding each other so we don’t forget
the way water holds us.
Sue Spiers and Mike Huett for Day Three of our Archive Feature
You will need four hundred items in the stew of her:
cumin, lemon, colocynth, bitter apple, lime, broccoli
to get the aftertaste she would want in your memory.
– Sue Spiers
It took years to piece events
together; hushed voices, evasions,
or little glances…
– Mike Huett
Zeeshan Choudhury and Emma Lara Jones for Day Two of our Archive Feature
Took my pain, buried it in buttercream.
Unboxed, licked off the top, Masticated
each grain into saline, let my bloodstream
drip-feed membranes their acid-fat. In bed,
-Zeeshan Choudhury
consists of tiny pink erasers,
safety pins, shirt buttons and the odd
butterfly clip.
-Emma Lara Jones
Mymona Bibi for Day One of our Archive Feature
corners folded
edges worn.
where girls in
the night’s meski
giggle in secret
hair in tangles.