Today’s choice
Previous poems
Sue Moules
BLACKBIRD IN THE EARLY MORNING
Sings at the top of the bare-branched tree
an aubade to morning
welcomes the light,
early spring, season of nest-making.
This melody is not for me
but to attract a mate.
I walk the dog under the dulcet notes
and think he sings for me.
Blackbird on the verge
gathers small sticks in his orange beak,
lifts into the sky where
tree branches hold shapes of air.
Blackbird tugging worms out of grass
to feed his young,
always singing even at night
falling notes of: keep away, keep away.
Sue Moules has been published in New Welsh Review, Planet, Poetry Wales, and Ambit. She also has poems included in the International Women’s Day anthology (Welsh Women’s Coalition 2010), By Ways Anthology (Arachne ) 2024, and Words on Troubled Waters (Lutra Press) 2024. Her poem ‘Walking the Whippet’ was chosen for Brighton and Hove Poems on the Buses (2024). Her most recent collection is The Moth Box (Parthian).
Anna Mindel Crawford
We have our eyes on the chairs, ready
for when the music stops. Nobody wants
to be in the space where a seat had been
Sue Proffitt
Sue Proffitt lives by the coast in South Devon, UK. She has an M.A. in Creative Writing and has been published in a number of magazines, anthologies and competitions. She has two poetry collections published: Open After Dark (Oversteps, 2017) and The Lock-Picker...
Daniel Rye
When did the slowness
of this afternoon
merge with the chugging
boat engine in the harbour?
Anna Ruddock
Let it be okay that it took me a while to get here
If not better then equally fine to be
the goldfinch . . .
Laura Fyfe
How do we pull ourselves back
when we’ve nothing to hold on to?
Find a way clear
or stay? Wait.
David Belcher
How to not exist
Allow yourself to be elbowed aside
become a non-person
an avoider of lingering looks
Simon Williams
I Want to Become
a weasel, in a sleeky, twisty body,
all eyes and teeth like a deadly zip.
Zoe Davis
I joined a secret society
advertised in the back pages of a magazine.
I forget which, but I found it nestled
in 8pt font and fancy border
between time share apartments in Lanzarote
and the commemorative plates.
Callan Waldron-Hall
long weekend ← or ← perhaps ↑ summer holiday →
from the back of someone’s car boot ↑ the strange →
sweated plastic all pink and blue and folded →