Today’s choice
Previous poems
Lesley Curwen
Ringed
Her feet snagged in a cleverly-placed net
my sister waits for him to untangle her,
to hold her head still between thick fingers,
feather ruff ticking in each rapid breath,
her eyes black and bright, body eclipsed
by the size of him, nothing she can do
to escape. He takes the measure of her,
splays wings with ruler, pliers a metal ring
shut on her thin limb, blows chest feathers
apart, testing tender fluff for fat reserves,
slots her headfirst in a film can, trembling
tail upended, to pop her on the scales.
He smooths her down for a photo, knowing
if he lets her go, she will be trapped again.
Lesley Curwen is a poet, broadcaster and sailor from Plymouth. Her pamphlet Rescue Lines is published by Hedgehog and an eco-chapbook, Sticky with Miles by Dreich. Her poems have been published by Dust, Bad Lilies, Broken Sleep, Atrium, Spelt, Black Bough and East Ridge Review.
Greek Feature Day 1 with Leanne Moden, Elliott Waloschek and Z D Dicks
Herpetology Often, my worries are frog-shaped, flexed flippers flashing through vanishing ripple reflections. Poisonous green thoughts. The amphibious twisting of double-state catastrophising. I have perfected the art of doing nothing, looking busy and helping no one....
Judith Wilkinson
If I can shape-change myself if I can
reassemble the rubble of my vision
so I can re-see
dragonflies, apocalypses, trivia
Juliet Humphreys
Look at me, look —
night eyes find their way
without light.
Damon Hubbs
How a Plastic Bag in an Elm Tree on Winter St. Learned to Mimic the Moon
It’s growing in what was once the tree
with the great green room.
It’s singing in yogurt
and fluttering like an amorphous pearl
of necrosis.
Shasta Hatter
Empty Basket
Driving down the boulevard, I see large trees decorated with pink and white blossoms, evergreens tower over houses, trees flourish with spring greenery.
Tim Dwyer
The kitchen window has been
my hermit cell
Cindy Botha
what shows up at dusk
moths of course, pale parings―
filmy, restless
dark swarf of birds homeflitting
to perch-trees
sometimes a hedgehog
nosing leaflitter
an owl wooing from the pines
Vic Pickup
Operation Alphaman
It took a great effort and I had to bite hard on the stick
to push the subcostal muscles aside.
The skin had parted easily under my knife,
though keeping the blood at bay with no one to swab the wound
was difficult. This was remedied with a vacuum cleaner
Julian Brasington
When one has lived a long time alone
and not alone your time become
someone’s history and you have grown
tired of yet another war and the world
has it in for you simply for being