Today’s choice
Previous poems
Bill Jones
Three Jackdaws
Three jackdaws walked widdershins
around the birdfeeding station. A fat woodpigeon,
pompous, hieratic,
tried to undo their magic
by walking from four to six. For a moment,
the two birdfeeders, full of seeds and nuts,
were the pillars of the Temple.
I wondered what it spelled for the day ahead
as I watched their spells, this augury-pokery.
Bill Jones is a poet and illustrator who lives in Gloucestershire, UK, with a small dog and an interest in magic. His poems have appeared in anthologies from Yew Tree Press and his cartoons have appeared in Private Eye and Poetry Review.
Finola Scott
Winter dusk soughs in, dark
clouds threaten, tangle her wool.
Huw Gwynn-Jones
Black is the colour inside black light on
blackened brick and slats
Clare Morris
Necessity, that scold’s bridle, held her humble and mean,
So that she no longer spoke, just looked –
Her world reduced to a search for special offers . . .
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.