Today’s choice
Previous poems
Farah Ali
Notes from nature on how to survive this:
1. Learn crypsis and mimesis be a gecko or a mossy frog
2. Method actors sway like dead-leaf mantises on branches
3. Spikes are effective, mollusc shells cumbersome
4. Warning! sea urchins maim and poison in any depth zone
5. Wear red, hiss, spray, rattle in worst-case scenarios
6. Injured starfish grow another limb, they don’t miss the old one,
barely remember it, apparently
7. Hide, freeze, or gallop away from prairie rain and savannah shadows
8. *Important* octopuses can be harmed by their own ink cloud
Farah Ali has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and shortlisted for the Touchstone Awards. She has been published in Anti-Heroin Chic, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Rattle, Right Hand Pointing, tiny wren lit, Tokyo Poetry Journal and many others.
Julie Sheridan
They married in a chapel of black steel
bars, tethered up their feathers to serve as
stained glass. . .
Maxine Sibihwana
here, water does not run. instead it
sits obediently in old plastic containers
Lesley Curwen
Her feet snagged in a cleverly-placed net
my sister waits for him to untangle her,
to hold her head still between thick fingers . . .
From the Archives: In Memory of Jean Cardy
Denizens Mice live in the London Tube. A train leaves and small pieces of sooty black detach themselves from the sooty black walls and forage for crumbs in the rubbish under the rails that are death to man. You can’t see their feet move. They...
Tina Cole
Mr. Pig modelling his best Sunday suit of farmyard smells,
flees from the cook’s cleaver to find himself a sow.
Ellora Sutton
My heart is breaking, so I’m setting up my new Wonder Oven.
The waft of toxicity as I run it on empty for ten minutes
is a welcome distraction.
Erin Poppy Koronis
Naked feet rush
over cold pebbles,
phone-torches light
our pathway to the sea.
Bob King
The first wristwatch was first worn
in 1810, despite what old turn-it-up
Flintstones episodes might have you
believe.
Brandon Arnold
Alone, I drive along the midnight, winter road. My left hand at the 12 o’clock position of the steering wheel. And I coast. I let out the day’s long breath, which started out today as a sigh.