Today’s choice
Previous poems
John Grey
Your Town
stuck between
no place
and nowhere
it’s more
of a gathering
than a town
and if there’s
beer aplenty
so much the better –
back-slapping
piss-taking
bonhomie by the breath-full –
all are good
anything is possible
everybody’s stuck here –
and then
the laughter wears thin
the beer goes warm –
and you realize
there is no more
this is it –
the whole circus
the whole
excuse for a miracle –
men with busted heads
women with weary eyes
kids with blank expressions –
something better
never comes
just sleep –
the long rollcall
of night to which
nobody answers
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Shift, River And South and Flights. Latest books, Bittersweet, Subject Matters and Between Two Fires are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Levitate, Writer’s Block and Trampoline.
Alison Jones
Mrs Norris had thought ascension
would be whirligig rides in bright violet rays,
as the training books all implied.
Sandra Noel
The tide unpleats from her godet,
zig-zags in running stitch
round the base of the côtil.
Matthew Caley
supposedly: if I am to render
‘a man’ then
this ‘man’ must I guess resemble me‹›
Jenny Robb
The nun in charge of the children is thin, her back straight as punishment.
Ken Evans
You try doing star-jumps, steps,
or squats, in knee-high wellies.
Joe Williams
I was born in a town of shadows.
Anne Symons
She was only a little woman
five feet nothing in nylon stockings.
‘If I stood sideways they’d mark me absent.’
Ben
When she said ‘could’, it was clearly in italics
and when she said ‘one day’, the creak of glaciers
shuddered around its edges.
Dragana Lazici
the days are long but the years are short.
seconds are tiny kitchen knives in my back.
i stopped reading Dickinson, her voice is a sad parrot.