Today’s choice
Previous poems
Frank Phelan
Renegade Voices
I am most visceral
when being disarmed
by a song, a lyric
written and sung…
in the broad New Yawk vowels
of Dean Friedman.
The scowl of Dylan.
The scat and growl
of George Ivan.
Matthew Devereux’s demonic staccato.
Pierce Turner scaling a single word
to a symphony of syllables.
These renegade bastard voices
of unconvention
dismantle the notion
of the perfectly formed,
crafted to within an inch of bland.
The very sheen of it dimming the soul of it.
Blunting the grit and sharp edge
of what it means
to be truly alive.
Frank Phelan is a Dublin born writer living in County Kildare, Ireland. His work has appeared in a broad range of print and on-line journals across Ireland, America and the UK. His work has been shortlisted and won awards the UK and The Republic of Ireland
Marc Janssen
The sky opens
Blinking its single slackened eye.
Sigune Schnabel tr. Simon Lèbe
She cut letters out of me,
which quietly and unnoticed
danced red poems.
Pat Edwards
He is in white-out, stopped in his tracks,
dying for the comfort of a fag.
He makes a chalice around the flame,
hands becoming shield so he can light up.
Pamilerin Jacob
Annette the gap-toothed,
You kissed a man & I was born. You gave him
your laughter & he built an empire,
Fatihah Quadri Eniola
There is an album of all the men
your mother have loved. It sits every
night in the deep silence of the
basement.
Nathan Evans
If they ask where I am, tell them: I am
wintering. I have secreted small acorns
of sadness in crevices of gnarled limbs
and shall be savouring their bitternesses
on the back of my tongue until the days
lengthen.
Jim Ferguson
we can travel anywhere
she winks, but let’s rest here
in amongst these words
a moment can take a while
Gabrielle Meadows
I am tearing the peel from an orange gently and somewhere
Far away a tree falls in a forest and we
don’t hear it but the ground does and the birds do
Hongwei Bao
Every five minutes it does its job,
hoovers every inch of her memory,
declutters all pains and sorrows.