Today’s choice
Previous poems
Pratibha Castle
Conscience
as taught her by the nuns was a bridle
on a young girl’s tongue pony frolic legs
a choke-hold on convolvulus excess
seductive as leaves skittering over moon
scatter grass dandelion pappus weighted
with girlish longings a burr hooked
onto the undercarriage of a rook in flight
that b r e a k i n g f r e e nuzzles into earth’s
amorous embrace wooed by rhapsodies
of amoral worms nurtured by clouds lavish
as a toddler’s sulk blasé gaze of wolf or super moon
till a blackbird at spring’s edge pipes their tarantella
stirs the first tousle-headed dente-de-lion
sun-gold tongues ravishing a winter-drowsy bee
Pratibha Castle – a finalist in FFP Award, shortlisted in Fish, Live Canon and Bridport Prize, published widely including Under the Radar, Lighthouse, Stand, was awarded third prize in Sonnet or Not. Her pamphlet Miniskirts in The Waste Land was a PBS winter selection 2023.
Becky Cherriman
What does it wake me to
as sky is hearthed by morning
and my home warms slow?
Mark Carson
he dithers round the kitchen, lifts his 12-string from her hook,
strikes a ringing rasgueado, the echo bouncing back
emphatic from the slate flags and off the marble table.
Elizabeth Worthen
This is how (I like to think) it begins:
night-time, August, the Devon cottage, where
the darkness is so complete . . .
Elly Katz
When naked with myself, I feel where a right elbow isn’t, then is. I let my left palm guide me through the exhibition of my body.
Laurence Morris
The night of his arrest I climbed a hill
to find a deep cave in which to hide
Sarp Sozdinler
As a kid, Nehisi used to sleep in a treehouse. He could curl right into it from his bedroom window. He would have a hard time falling asleep every time his parents got loud or physical.
Three poems on Counting for National Poetry Day: Max Wallis, Julie Anne Jenson, Brian Kelly
I don’t wear them
or have any
but you gave me a pair
of seven-inch goth platform heels.
Fizza Abbas
They say change is a constant,
but this constant became a coefficient
always racing to catch me
Scott Elder
What will you do in winter dear when drifts
cover your fingers and shoes