Today’s choice
Previous poems
Jennie Howitt
wild cows
Those full udders will slowly burst
spitting milk onto the grass strands. Will roll
down to feed the roots below. Then the weeds will follow.
Weeds will grow next spring. Weeds will unfold
as bulbous udders without holes
– un-milked –
with hip bones wider than a reach
Jennie Howitt is a writer and performer from Shropshire, working on bog and wetland poetics. She recently judged a competition and gave a workshop on bog poetry with the Poetry Society. Their work has been featured in Pamenar Press, Poets Choice, Ariel Magazine, Bedford Square Review, Writers Block, Beyond Words magazine, and multiple Young Writers anthologies. They have won and been commended in various Poetry Society competitions.
Steph Ellen Feeney
My mother is here, and might not have been,
so I hold things tighter:
the small-getting-smaller of her
running with my daughter down the beach . . .
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...