Today’s choice
Previous poems
Gary Akroyde
Cracks in the Concrete
We searched for it
through the tarmac in every rain-bruised sky
in dark Pennine shadows where great mills
spewed out ringlets of ghost-grey fog
we learnt to see Yorkshire mist in charcoal technicolour
Along the canal with its ribbon of rust we frisked
the dirty water for dazzling orange carp
heaved shopping trolleys from sludge traps
sailed two wheels high in the air thick with damp wool
In the wasteland breath-hot kissed fog grass
danced with nettles lounged beach-like
on barren patches of our summer home
shared with mongrels fleas and ants
down cobbled snickets
seeped in spilled ale and yesterday’s blood
we lobbed dog-chewed tennis balls
bin-sticky off chipped kerbs
As kids we knew the spaces between the stones
found beauty in those cracks
where weeds burst through
Gary Akroyde is from from Sowerby Bridge and currently working as an English teacher. He have been published in Dreamcatcher, Black Nore Review, Intenational Times and will be published in three Yaffle Press anthologies this year.
Gopal Lahiri
My father stitched an evening with current ripples
spill over rocks and shadows gather at the corner,
Paul Loney
i was standing
very still
my mind
Mai Ishikawa
Taxi I took shelter under a tree, where you also sheltered. You looked at me awkwardly, as if to say Excuse me before shaking your feathers – a tiny droplet landed on my cheek. Suspended, we held each other responsible for the silence. We listened to the...
Lue Mac
Sad how things expire before you work out
what they mean. Like earlier I was noticing
the rose petals on the path, all damp and slick,
Alice O’Malley-Woods
For the Peregrines of Offham Chalk Pit The quarry holds your eyrie like a grateful palm. You - indelicate gobber all gape and gum-pink circled in the beach white like a mouth stuck in wonder. O spit-shrieker coming back for yourself, tearing fur so diligently, never...
Lori D’Angelo
The cat puts his paw on my hair, and I think about
where we could go if we weren’t here. Maybe the
nail salon, which seems like a good destination for
kill time Saturdays.
Lucy Wilson
Dear Fish, you swam from life and gave your flesh; forgive me.
In your ice-tomb, your scales a rainbow of tiny glaciers, frozen in flight;
like you, I let myself get caught, sank my heart in a false sea.
Amirah Al Wassif
The God I know works as a baker in a local shop.
From time to time, I see him feeding the kittens bread crumbs soaked in milk.
Cliff McNish
Heaven For starters, the standard works everyone gets: three trumpets blown in unison; your name acclaimed to the galactic hegemony of stars; plus assorted angels with ceramically smooth hands (the nail-work!) casting wholesale quantities of petals (flowers of the...