Today’s choice
Previous poems
Ryan O’Neill
at the drop-and-go
we hug and i act cool
as the american fridge ice
shattering on kitchen tiles
lift my case from the boot
practice my cold show face
drain emotion like wine from
the christmas market we bought crepes at
dropped a claw over a stuffed Pikachu
where you promised this would be our year
trace the rim of my glass at the airport bar
small wet moons form on the table
spidery foam dries on lip
departure board blinks i drop my empty
wave back at no-one like it’s winter jacket time
and cosy corner pubs helping me pack real slow
Ryan O’Neill is an Irish poet and writer from Cork, Ireland and based in Cardiff, Wales. His work has featured in Ink, Sweat & Tears and These Pages Sing and you can find him on both Instagram (roneill9414) and X (@Roneill1994).
Heidi Beck
Self-Portrait as Road Runner You with your elaborate schemes of entrapment, your hunting parties, moonshine and shot-gun weddings, your Sunday-school socials for girls to glue bird seed and pasta on prayer plaques, sew aprons with Singers– this...
Catherine Godlewsky
I have not known how to shape
This poem—
I found it, drowsy,
Quarter-to-six in winter
In the cold of an unfinished floor…
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, we bring you Elizabeth Gibson and Roma Havers
‘Weighing yourself in the dark at Christmas in your parents’ house’
‘A Rink’
On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, we bring you Alle Bloom and Mariam Saidan
‘Knots’
‘God Makes Me Promises’
On the Tenth Day of Christmas we bring you Jean O’Brien, Paul Stephenson, Ruth Aylett, Sarah Mnatzaganian
‘Left Over Christmas Trees’
‘New Year’
‘New Year is no cliché’
On the Ninth Day of Christmas we bring you Scott Elder, Lynn Valentine, Sue Finch
‘The Ninth Day’
‘Winter Soup’
‘The Stars are Clays’
On the Eighth Day of Christmas we bring you D.A. Prince, Frances Boyle, Maggie Mackay
‘Redbreast’
‘Advent’
‘Ambulant’
On the Seventh Day of Christmas we bring you Pam Thompson, Mary Mulholland, Oliver Comins
‘Advice To One Who Is Single’
‘Mother Bear’
‘Yuletide Snapshot’
On the Sixth Day of Christmas we bring you Alison Binney, Kathy Pimlot, Elaine Westnott-O’Brien
‘Muscle Memory’
‘And then that first Christmas’
‘Month’s Mind’