Today’s choice
Previous poems
Anthony Lawrence
Gathering Mushrooms in the Shadow of a Barn
One had a ball of water that magnified the word shiver
on its cap, and one had been torn and thrown
against the wood, a soft bomb, leaving gills and skin.
I knew enough to give them names and say the words
primordium and veil in the manner of my neighbour
who can find mushrooms blindfolded. The smell,
she says, when you’re downwind, is earth as invitation,
earth made vertical with lit stems. My fingers flecked
with spores, the knees of my jeans dark from over-
night rain, I arranged them cap-to-stipe in lines.
In the barn, at a table, my knife gleamed in a band
of afternoon sun. Agaricus campestris, I said,
and a crow leaned from a rafter to listen.
Anthony Lawrence has published nineteen collections of poetry and a novel. His books and individual poems have won a number of awards, including the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry, the Ginkgo Prize for Eco poetry, the Gregory O’Donohue Poetry prize and the Peter Porter Poetry Prize. He lives on Moreton Bay, Queensland.
Gráinne Daly
Not for me the tomb of Irish soil.
Put me on a plane
and let me make one last journey
before my final departure.
Rebecca Cohen
If you don’t believe in God, my friend says,
why don’t you eat pork?
Rhian Thomas
On my phone a newsreel shows a car boot lifting
just above the flood. Tail lights like eyes
caught in a comic gasp, while its body, like the carriageway,
lies under sixty million litres of last night’s rain.
Sue Norton
Today I tipped the packet of coffee
into the cafetiere instead of the tin.
Caught myself in time, didn’t pour water in.
Steph Morris
Who’s idea was it? I think his, as I’d started
wearing everything from Oxfam. Among my finds
collarless shirts.
Kathy Pimlott
Going down to do lights and curtains to fool any burglars Twilight: one after another security lights click on illuminating pathways, steps, empty front lawns, triggered by my benign progress, then, disappointed, click off. The sky is a layer cake...
Sharon Black
My thoughts are skittish,
peck at whatever they find.
I flick each whitewash flake
into the bin. Shadows on the walls
Vanessa Napolitano
Floors are unvacuumed. Spices remain un-alphabetised.
I bless the spaces between the furniture to keep everyone safe. Seven.
Ben Verinder
Nostalgia as Yogi Bear
Ruminates through you for something tasty,
prizes of the Jellystone mind.