Today’s choice
Previous poems
James Benger
Out of the Ash
We tore it all down
just to watch it burn,
standing in that alley
of forgotten refuse.
No one wanted it,
no one needed it,
so boombox and cigarettes,
bottles and pipes,
we ran riot with the fire,
unrestrained screams and smoke
rising higher than
our collective ambition.
And it was a forgotten place,
so the only light
came from us,
and we lit up the world
as though we were saving it
instead of destroying that little chunk.
But maybe in our wanton annihilation,
we were creating something new,
something intangible,
something infinite.
Flames burned down,
and we exhaustedly flopped
onto moldy abandoned couches,
recounting the glory that was us,
and never once to our own ears
did any of it sound hollow.
James Benger is the author of several books of poetry and prose. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Writers Place, and on the Riverfront Readings Committee, and is the founder of the 365 Poems in 365 Days online workshop. He lives in Kansas City with his wife and children.
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?
Yvonne Baker
an etherial whiteness
that covers and disguises
as a strip of white frosted glass
Hilary Thompson
Ambling up North Street
on a Saturday afternoon
at the end of a long Winter,
I am stopped by two women
Irene Cunningham
Lavender seeps. I expect my limbs to leaden, lead the body down through sheet, mattress-cover, into the machinery of sleep where other lives exist.
Graham Clifford
The Still Face Experiment
You must have seen that Youtube clip
where a mother lets her face go dead.
Her toddler carries on burbling for twenty to thirty seconds until she realises there is nothing coming back to her.
Susan Jane Sims
After you died,
someone asked:
What was it like
in those final sixteen days
waiting for your son to die?
Jane Frank
I imagine returning to the house.
Furniture is piled up in the rain—
the ideas that won’t fit.
Ilias Tsagas
I used to dial your number to hear your voice. I would hold the receiver for a long time as if your voice was trapped inside . . .