Today’s choice
Previous poems
Paul Stephenson
The Poem of the Sock
after Martin Stannard
The poem of the mask disguises meaning.
The poem of the diet lost seven words.
The poem of the snowman melted.
The poem of the invisible man .
The poem of the ventilator needs to breathe.
The poem of the ruler rules, okay!
The poem of the bath had no depth (full of bathos).
The poem of the mirror was a true reflection.
The poem of the plane never really took off.
The poem of the ship soon ran aground.
The poem of the sock has a hole in it.
The poem of the needle is a stich-up.
The poem of the highlighter reveals all we need to know.
The poem of the horse that fell was just getting into its stride.
Paul Stephenson’s debut collection Hard Drive Carcanet, 2023) was shortlisted for Lambda Literary Award and Polari Book Prize. He has three pamphlets including The Days That Followed Paris, written after the 2015 terrorist attacks. He co-edited the Europe (70) and recent Ownership (92) issues of Magma.
Pippa Little
a woman’s rage cannot raise the dead
but it may split stone like lightning
Abiodun Salako
a boy grows tired
of dying again and again.
i am building him a morgue
for Thanksgiving.
Patrick Wright
It’s as if the dream
is telling me we are still joined
somehow, despite waking
and me trudging on, even though
your voicemail is off, your locks
changed.
William Collins
We carry the shame of Paragraph 352D
folded into suitcases at foreign borders,
where love is questioned like a crime,
and disbelief stamped heavier than visas.
They tell us to run for our lives —
but only if we can do it quietly.
Oz Hardwick
The ghost of my mother knows the names of everything, but
she can’t tell me, because ghosts, whatever you have heard
to the contrary, can’t speak.
McLord Selasi
I walk the flat barefoot,
step over old dreams
still curled like cats
in the corners.
Warren Mortimer
& you’ll understand if i leave open this theatre of air
not as the invite for another loss
but to honour their world unwilling to collapse
Jena Woodhouse
Language reinvents itself,
coruscates in signs on walls;
falls silent, mute as clay and stone
on tablets that enshrine its form.
Martin Rieser
The river is an old demon
& my heart is an infirm creature
The river is sure of its way
& my heart is capable of lies.