Today’s choice
Previous poems
David R. Willis
Kiss me quick
Often, we sad creatures
for peace of mind,
pleasure, possibly, perhaps,
travel at speed through
swathes of green
lawns, tall trees, meadows
leafy stuff, to reach
something, cold
wet and bitter, saline
sided by yellow sand,
pebbles, rocks, dogshit
seaweed, plastic flotsam
to consume blubbery chips
kiss me quick hats,
cheap paper kites
fast food, warm beer
and wasps.
David R. Willis landed in 1956. Goldsmiths’ 1992 then 2022 Sheffield Hallam University: Masters in Creative Writing: Ictus Prize for Poetry. In Northern Gravy and wildfire words, Longlisted: Butcher’s Dog. Nominated: The Forward Prize (Best Single Poem). In Dreich, May 2024.
Amlanjyoti Goswami
In one of those colourful stalls
A gentle man with golden fingers
Carves a wheelbarrow from broken wood
Jacquie Wyatt
I think of that study that showed
the smaller the animal
the slower time passes for them…
Lara Frankena
The poet disregards the soup
she reencounters it on the hob
at a merry boil
not a slow simmer as instructed…
Antonia Taylor
That year I hunted Emily Dickinson. Stood at her grave as the snowbank split me open. Further from love than I’d ever been.
Helen T Curtis
You seemed to be born blind.
At first in cracked pot, in frosted compost
Your leaves pined – jaded limp swords
Christine Moore
If only my tongue were context then my teeth would be meaning and when I opened my mouth
to eat I would find a story there each time.
Rachael Davey
That particular, chemical clarity,
sun into blue, ripples on the ceiling.
Rare days when water rests
between the ropes, unbroken . . .
Christopher M James
I suppose
this beautiful bright dawn
is the sky trying to offset
the wild gusts of last night
like a rescue mission…
Chrissy Banks
. . . Yes, I’ve tasted pomegranates
and I know what they do. The sense of vertigo:
happily dizzy at first, as if you’ve downed
a bottle of Shiraz or Merlot. You live by night . . .