Today’s choice

Previous poems

Farah Ali

by | Mar 12, 2026 | ,

 

 

 

Notes from nature on how to survive this:

1. Learn crypsis and mimesis be a gecko or a mossy frog

2. Method actors sway like dead-leaf mantises on branches

3. Spikes are effective, mollusc shells cumbersome

4. Warning! sea urchins maim and poison in any depth zone

5. Wear red, hiss, spray, rattle in worst-case scenarios

6. Injured starfish grow another limb, they don’t miss the old one,
barely remember it, apparently

7. Hide, freeze, or gallop away from prairie rain and savannah shadows

8. *Important* octopuses can be harmed by their own ink cloud

 

 

 

Farah Ali has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and shortlisted for the Touchstone Awards. She has been published in Anti-Heroin Chic, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Rattle, Right Hand Pointing, tiny wren lit, Tokyo Poetry Journal and many others.

Jeanette Burton

by | Sep 10, 2024 | ,

What is this, a family outing?

Yes, dad, that’s exactly what this is, I want to say to him
as I open the car door, climb into the front seat,
remembering those marvellous trips to the tip at Loscoe.

CS Crowe

by | Sep 9, 2024 |

      Lines He lived next to the funeral home with his three daughters. A cherry picker beeps in the distance. I cannot see it, but I know the light is red. Who brings roses to a funeral? Rain rolls down window glass, but not here, only somewhere in the...

Carole Bromley

by | Sep 8, 2024 | ,

I don’t know why I went,
I’d already heard about the time
a colleague’s husband turned up
at the staff barbecue and punched him.