Today’s choice
Previous poems
Matt Bryden
Lightly a god, if he wishes, can save a man, even from far off
Now a blanket is spread, offerings
of chutney and shin bones,
a taper held to the fire
that heats the tar beneath our boats.
A phial of bathwater discolours on a shelf,
unemptied since the day she was taken.
A pigeon in the role of catastrophist at the feast.
And Tiresias there, blindly
reading auguries of birds
from the mishmash of their sounds.
Peter Branson
Emerge, from way beyond the pale, one day,
clenched feet an amulet about your wrist
Alice Huntley
carved from the tusk of my grandmother
I am learning how to remember
Bel Wallace
My dad is thinking geometrically,
eyes closed; he waves his arms
Sarah Crowe
they gave me the cold
cap to stop my chemo
hair falling out
Daniel Dean
A beastly man swallowing leeks. His throat
Is dirt, and yet his ghost could sit with Raphael
Lesley Burt
a conch found in hot white sand
on the shoreline at Sanur Beach
a Fibonacci whorl
among morning offerings
Annie Acre
i am sun-shot / green-beamed / stem-steep /
hands cupfuls of heartlines / conjuring water
Jennifer Cole
take your wedding ring
or it might get “disappeared”
Eithne Longstaff
On the road to Belfast today, I failed
to recognise my father. I saw a flamingo
by the Tamnnamore turn off, but paid
little regard as it took off…