Today’s choice
Previous poems
Iris Anne Lewis
Blodeuwedd ensorcelled by Gwydion
And so I went into the owl.
Eyes, green as moss,
darken to black. Oak tassels
spell-woven to feathers.
A blossom-soft body
wrath-scorches to brown.
Broom flowers harden to bone,
curve into beak, curl into talons.
Tiny red buds now remnants
of mouse, packed into pellets.
They stick in my craw,
spit out as vomit.
Shunned by sparrows, harried by crows,
doomed to fly lonely at night.
When he rides his spurs
through night-sighing woods
I loom out of trees,
my meadow-sweet face
moon-bright and savage.
Iris Anne Lewis is widely published. Featured in Black Bough Poetry and Poetry Wales she has won or been placed in many competitions. Her first collection Amber is available from Amazon or contact her on @irisannelewis.bskysocial; X and Instagram @irisannelewis.
Morag Smith
When the waters broke we were
out there, borderless, with just
a view of bloodshot sky from
the labour suite
Gordon Scapens
Stripping wallpaper
leaves naked the scrawls
of yesteryear’s children,
small forecasts of flights
that are inevitable.
Chrissy Banks and Antony Owen (from the IS&T archives) for Holocaust Memorial Day
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Goodnight moon, goodnight stars, goodnight cherry, pear, apple tree. Goodnight pond, stop wriggling, newts, stop zipping the water, water-boatmen. Goodnight, glossy horses on the hill, rabbits in the field, white...
Clare Bryden
how do I begin?
Yvonne Baker
an etherial whiteness
that covers and disguises
as a strip of white frosted glass
Hilary Thompson
Ambling up North Street
on a Saturday afternoon
at the end of a long Winter,
I am stopped by two women
Irene Cunningham
Lavender seeps. I expect my limbs to leaden, lead the body down through sheet, mattress-cover, into the machinery of sleep where other lives exist.
Graham Clifford
The Still Face Experiment
You must have seen that Youtube clip
where a mother lets her face go dead.
Her toddler carries on burbling for twenty to thirty seconds until she realises there is nothing coming back to her.
Susan Jane Sims
After you died,
someone asked:
What was it like
in those final sixteen days
waiting for your son to die?