Today’s choice
Previous poems
Bob King
You Know What 9am Feels Like, Right? Like, If Your Watch & All Clocks—Suddenly Worldwide—Disappeared, You’d Still Know What 9am Feels Like, Right?
The first wristwatch was first worn
in 1810, despite what old turn-it-up
Flintstones episodes might have you
believe. But we all need to believe
in something, which is why at least
93% of us have chosen at least one
to follow. Even if tenants-of-the-faith
aren’t really acted upon 6½ days out
of 7. But hey, It looks good on the social
resume. That rhyme wasn’t intended
for you. You know what it feels like
when you’ve broken something
you loved, a sentimental trinket
on your dining room breakfront
from your great-great-grandmother.
But for the life of you, you can’t
remember if it was the maternal or
paternal grandma. It feels like ferns.
It feels like hot coffee. There’s a fire,
mostly warming embers. Maybe
books. Excessive light & houseplants.
The fallen ash almost in a straight line,
the sandalwood ash, the burnt bitty
twig a reminder of a once upon a time
forest. Light snowfall, but it’s warm
enough that you kick your socks off
your heels & leave them like mittens
on your toes. It feels like it’s a nice
enough morning, the sun is doing
his best to breakthrough, & you finally
decided to forgive. To forgive
yourself for that thing you’ve really
been beating yourself up for lately.
Lately & a lot longer than lately, once
again, if we’re really being honest with
each other. It may be my favorite of
all the hours. Screw you, 3 O’clock.
You know what it feels like, right?
You know what it feels like to for
once celebrate, right? To celebrate
the fact that you finally, maybe
for the first time ever, know how
to celebrate yourself?
Bob King is an English Professor at Kent State University at Stark. His poetry collection And & And published in August 2024. And/Or is forthcoming in September 2025. Recent nominations include 3 Pushcart Prizes & 3 BoTN. New work appears in LEON Literary Review, The Broken Spine, & Allium: A Journal of Poetry & Prose. He lives in Fairview Park, Ohio.
On the Third Day of Christmas we bring you Anne Symons, Lydia Macpherson, Sue Butler
‘Time of year’
‘The Winter Outing of the Woolhope Naturalists Field Club, December 1870’
‘A woman becomes a Goddess’
On the Second Day of Christmas we bring you Julie Maclean, Gill Connors, Ankit Raj Ojha
‘A Post-Colonial Cool Yule to y’All’
‘Little Town’
‘The Boy Next Door’
On the First Day of Christmas we bring you Sarah Davies, Sophia Argyris , Iris Anne Lewis
‘Not my partridge not my pear tree’
‘BROKE(N)’
‘The World Tilts’
Aoife Mclellan
Charcoal darkness shades late afternoon,
at the narrow edges of a chalk white snowfall.
Beams slide from our single lamp through the pane
onto soft-heaped mounds and frozen branches,
Tim Kiely
I Have Memorised a Series of Statistics About Drowning
after Benjamin Gucciardi
When the bus hits the tunnel and the sun disappears
I remember how the greatest risk-factor for drowning
is being near water; then being near it drunk;
Claire Berlyn
I don’t really care about butterflies, especially when they land in poems
except when a Red Admiral gets lost in the great grey fields
of the curtains and, because you really don’t see them so much
Aidan Semmens
The ash tree A superb winter sunrise backlights edges of cloud tinting sky above and bay below the palest blue, hints of gold glistening on the water. Beneath a faint sliver of rainbow a young ash, bold denier of dieback pushing through a broken wall wears a light...
Gail Webb
How To Remain Human This Year
We give a throwaway kiss
to strangers, to see New Year in.
We plant the seed with hope
it will grow, form fruit, to feed us.
Valentine Jones
CANNIBALISE THE CORRUPTION, I GUESS Ok? Everyone's dying. You're not special. You've a Tree in your stomach, Splitting the roof of your mouth, Leaves curled around teeth, and your skull Cracking like an ancient castle? Nothing I haven't seen before. Had three people...