Today’s choice
Previous poems
Winifred Mok
Wildflowers
No one has ever told me to
Go back to where you came from
Perhaps it’s because
I look like
I’m just passing through
They know I know
I don’t look like I belong here
I fall into the category of guest
The perpetual rambler
A forever tourist
All’s fine: roaming landscapes
Of poppy, cornflower, ox-eye daisy
The native ecology of
Where I might have come from
Versus where I want to be
Winifred Mok is a poet, filmmaker and podcaster. Based in the UK, her writing has appeared in various publications, and her poetry has been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize.
Note: Some wildflowers that are considered ‘native’ are actually neophytes — a plant introduced into an area relatively recently and has since become naturalised (in the context of the UK and Europe, this is defined from 1492).
Maxine Sibihwana
here, water does not run. instead it
sits obediently in old plastic containers
Lesley Curwen
Her feet snagged in a cleverly-placed net
my sister waits for him to untangle her,
to hold her head still between thick fingers . . .
From the Archives: In Memory of Jean Cardy
Denizens Mice live in the London Tube. A train leaves and small pieces of sooty black detach themselves from the sooty black walls and forage for crumbs in the rubbish under the rails that are death to man. You can’t see their feet move. They...
Tina Cole
Mr. Pig modelling his best Sunday suit of farmyard smells,
flees from the cook’s cleaver to find himself a sow.
Ellora Sutton
My heart is breaking, so I’m setting up my new Wonder Oven.
The waft of toxicity as I run it on empty for ten minutes
is a welcome distraction.
Erin Poppy Koronis
Naked feet rush
over cold pebbles,
phone-torches light
our pathway to the sea.
Bob King
The first wristwatch was first worn
in 1810, despite what old turn-it-up
Flintstones episodes might have you
believe.
Brandon Arnold
Alone, I drive along the midnight, winter road. My left hand at the 12 o’clock position of the steering wheel. And I coast. I let out the day’s long breath, which started out today as a sigh.
Steph Ellen Feeney
My mother is here, and might not have been,
so I hold things tighter:
the small-getting-smaller of her
running with my daughter down the beach . . .