Today’s choice
Previous poems
Matt Bryden
Killing Time
at the cider farm, eight minutes
before handover, we strike on
feeding the donkeys – and sprint
towards the orchard, only realising
in the 5:23 dusk that
this is winter, the boughs fruitless,
donkeys stabled – that
beside ourselves and a motorhome
this car-park belongs to that
scrap of feathers
and scramble into air
as, in two lines of three, six ducks take flight.
Matt Bryden is a teacher and father living in Devon. His most recent publication is The Glassblower’s House (2023, Live Canon). He is Royal Literary Fellow at the University of Exeter www.mattbrydenpoetry.
Anna Fernandes
My stubby maroon glove spent a chill night
on the velvet ridge of Clent Hills
tangled in summer-dried grasses
Jo Eades
It’s Wednesday and / again / I’m laying pages of newspaper on the kitchen table / tipping up the food waste bin /
Sue Butler
We cultivate the knack
of getting down on the floor and
back up three or four times each day.
JLM Morton
In a dull sky
the guttering flame
of a white heron
Tonnie Richmond
We could tell there was something
we weren’t allowed to know. Something
kept hidden from us children
Morag Smith
When the waters broke we were
out there, borderless, with just
a view of bloodshot sky from
the labour suite
Gordon Scapens
Stripping wallpaper
leaves naked the scrawls
of yesteryear’s children,
small forecasts of flights
that are inevitable.
Chrissy Banks and Antony Owen (from the IS&T archives) for Holocaust Memorial Day
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Goodnight moon, goodnight stars, goodnight cherry, pear, apple tree. Goodnight pond, stop wriggling, newts, stop zipping the water, water-boatmen. Goodnight, glossy horses on the hill, rabbits in the field, white...
Clare Bryden
how do I begin?