Today’s choice
Previous poems
Katie Beswick
Can I Kiss You?
We were on my pink love seat
skin touching skin
I was drunk but longing
circled me, like stars
from a cartoon head wound
I nodded
you moved towards me
and as I parted my lips
little hesitations flew as daggers
out my mouth, though I said nothing
just let the momentous wrongness
come at you rapid, sharp
you ducked your lips were hard
and dry we tried –
oh darling we’re still trying now
the baby’s sleeping between us
and there must be some tenderness
I didn’t shred that first night
unpeeling hurts
sour as unripe oranges
you sucked them down.
Well. You said, That was the worst kiss ever.
Katie Beswick is a writer from south east London. Recent/forthcoming poems appear in Under the Radar, And Other Poems, Barrelhouse, Rattle and Narrative Magazine. Her books include Plumstead Pram Pushers (Red Ogre Review 2024) and the hybrid work of poetry, memoir, cultural history and arts criticism Slags on Stage (Routledge 2025). She teaches at Goldsmiths University of London.
David R. Willis
. . . something, cold
wet and bitter, saline
sided by yellow sand . . .
Jim Murdoch
and I said,
“I understand,”
and I did, ishly . . .
Sue Spiers
Thirsty Shadow
the kind of being
that won’t post
an image
Julian Dobson
Street after street, ears bright to bass and tune
of two thudding feet, gradients of breathing. But rain
is brooding. Sparse headlights, ambient drone
of cars kissing tarmac, merging
Oliver Comins
Working the land on good days, after Easter,
people would hear the breaks occur at school,
children calling as they ran into the playground,
familiar skipping rhymes rising from the babble.
George Turner
Some days, the privilege of living isn’t enough.
The weight of the kettle is unbearable. You leave the teabag
forlorn in the mug, unpoured.
Craig Dobson
Slowly, ordinarily, the unimaginable happens,
lowering the past into the dark,
covering it.
Clive Donovan
If I were a ghost
I think I would shrink
and perch on wooden poles
and deco shades – get a good view
of what I am supposed to be haunting
Rose Ramsden
We left the play early. It was the last day before the start of secondary school. Dad told me off for slapping the seats