Today’s choice
Previous poems
Colin Pink
Masquerade
I keep thinking I see you
across the street, hurrying along,
you’re too busy to see me.
Strange, to think of the dead being busy,
people to see, places to go, so many
appointments in the calendar of eternity.
I used to ‘see’ you when you were alive,
I mean when you weren’t there. I carry you
around like a photo in a wallet.
I’m amazed that so many people
turn out to look a bit like you,
so they can, fleetingly, masquerade as you.
It’s a good word masquerade it has just the right
number of syllables and that juicy squer sound
in the middle makes it luscious in the mouth.
You left the dance before the slow numbers;
still, the slow dances were always a bit
of a let-down, if you ask me.
Anyway, I mustn’t keep you,
just thought I’d let you know
I’ve been thinking about you.
Colin Pink co-chairs the Barnes & Chiswick Poetry Stanza. His poems have appeared in a wide range of magazines and four collections, most recently Typicity and Wreck of the Jeanne Gougy. He posts on Instagram @colinpinkpoet.
Patrick Wright
It’s as if the dream
is telling me we are still joined
somehow, despite waking
and me trudging on, even though
your voicemail is off, your locks
changed.
William Collins
We carry the shame of Paragraph 352D
folded into suitcases at foreign borders,
where love is questioned like a crime,
and disbelief stamped heavier than visas.
They tell us to run for our lives —
but only if we can do it quietly.
Oz Hardwick
The ghost of my mother knows the names of everything, but
she can’t tell me, because ghosts, whatever you have heard
to the contrary, can’t speak.
McLord Selasi
I walk the flat barefoot,
step over old dreams
still curled like cats
in the corners.
Warren Mortimer
& you’ll understand if i leave open this theatre of air
not as the invite for another loss
but to honour their world unwilling to collapse
Jena Woodhouse
Language reinvents itself,
coruscates in signs on walls;
falls silent, mute as clay and stone
on tablets that enshrine its form.
Martin Rieser
The river is an old demon
& my heart is an infirm creature
The river is sure of its way
& my heart is capable of lies.
Sreeja Naskar
glass-tooth morning.
salt mouth.
i left the stove on just to feel wanted.
Gordan Struić
Still —
I kept
writing.
Sometimes
just:
“Hi.”