Today’s choice
Previous poems
Elaine Baker
To my Ovaries
My cahoonas. My muscular daisies.
Potent white olives. You make me sick.
My mute twins on tricycles. Femme fatales.
Relay racers. Nightmares wished upon stars.
In my brain you’re pendula on speed.
My climax on the horror film screen.
You are landmines inside me,
birth and death simultaneously,
two tickers, with all a heart’s grief,
none of its mercy. You’re mad for procreation.
You’re my future on the run.
My past gunned down in the street.
Elaine Baker is the author of poetry chapbooks: Dancing in Babylon, Winter with Eva (both V Press) and five-point-palm (Red Ceilings Press). She lives in the wilds of Norfolk. Find her on X @kitespotter, Instagram @elainebaker76 and at: www.elaine-baker.com
Hélène Demetriades
At breakfast my man sticks a purple
magnolia bud in my soft boiled egg.
The flower opens, distilling to lilac.
Stuart Henson
Sometimes I’m surprised there’s light
in dark places, those corridors, those alleys
where you wouldn’t stray if you didn’t need
Richard Stimac
Trends of lead, silver, copper, and zinc
vein the middle of Missouri . . .
David R. Willis
. . . something, cold
wet and bitter, saline
sided by yellow sand . . .
Jim Murdoch
and I said,
“I understand,”
and I did, ishly . . .
Sue Spiers
Thirsty Shadow
the kind of being
that won’t post
an image
Julian Dobson
Street after street, ears bright to bass and tune
of two thudding feet, gradients of breathing. But rain
is brooding. Sparse headlights, ambient drone
of cars kissing tarmac, merging
Oliver Comins
Working the land on good days, after Easter,
people would hear the breaks occur at school,
children calling as they ran into the playground,
familiar skipping rhymes rising from the babble.
George Turner
Some days, the privilege of living isn’t enough.
The weight of the kettle is unbearable. You leave the teabag
forlorn in the mug, unpoured.