Today’s choice
Previous poems
SJ Lunn-Rockliffe
Pillar saint
Crammed onto his high
stone square, he cranes
to see the whole number
of eternity as it unwinds
its relentless gilded length,
trailed by bi-plane cherubim
and their seraphic cousins –
but he is granted only
a raw bald pate
horned thoughts
of silk and bells
an alkaline draught
from a far-off well
fire ants beading
their wrath into
his toe folds
and the sour
roar of believers
at his column base,
begging for a
sign, a word,
a fingernail of
hope for
their cattle
their bellies
their men,
a swelling on
the jaw,
cyclical
fevers,
failing milk,
the cries of a
nameless newborn –
while he awaits the
blank
of the seventh day.
SJ Lunn-Rockliffe is Associate Professor in the Divinity Faculty at the University of Cambridge, where she teaches, reads and writes about the histories of ancient religions. She works on ideas about thinly embodied beings like demons.
Day Four of ‘Wonder’ for NPD: Rupert Loydell, Nick Cooke, Dave Hubble
Down the great hill we plunged,
not scared of picking up speed
because that was the point,
running fast as a horse.
Day Three of ‘Wonder’ for NPD: Math Jones, Jean Atkin, Kate Noakes
We’ll find the beach, but first through
the flowering wood, there’s celandine,
little suns of spring, casting.
Day Two of ‘Wonder’ for NPD: Geraldine Stoneham, Guinevere Clark and Annette Skade
I stop reading
but learn the alphabet again,
live on boiled eggs, phonetics,
broccoli heads
Day One of ‘Wonder’ for NPD: Philippa Greasley, Cindy Botha and Niklas Pettersson
Halfway to the island, the engine falters
and every cup trembles in its ring.
Emma Dandy
I’ve been staring at the blank page of this notebook for an hour. I close my eyes and breathe in for four, hold for four and out for eight, then repeat three times.
Ken Cockburn
We slept as best we could on the night train.
Leaving the station we walked empty streets
aimlessly until turning a corner
there it was, silent and vast as the moon.
Tim Dwyer
On the pitch of the roof
a jackdaw holds a twig
longer than its wingspan—
do corvids feel pride?
Genna Gardini
go back, small cell, atom
slit by light. It takes up
space, an ocean, a planet, a
Fran Hayden
a friend messaged me:
“every time I see sunflowers,
I think of you”