Today’s choice

Previous poems

Vanessa Napolitano

by | Sep 16, 2026 | ,

 

 

 

A bit OCD

Floors are unvacuumed. Spices remain un-alphabetised.
I bless the spaces between the furniture to keep everyone safe. Seven.

I do not arrive exactly on time. Margins can keep their default size.
I would like you to promise me this isn’t poison. This supermarket chicken.

I do not straighten any of the objects on my desk.
I have seen the word crash on three magazine covers, which must be a sign.

I have clutter on my bookshelves and coffee rings on the little table.
I move the little tables to make the spaces right. Seven.

Reports do not say I am a perfectionist.
If I say the prayer wrong, I say the prayer again.

Gosh, that’s a dark thought, I’m sure you’d say.
If I say the prayer wrong, I say the prayer again (seven) –
If I say the prayer wrong,
 
I say the prayer again.

 

Vanessa Napolitano is a Yorkshire-based writer and was a Word Up North New Northern Poet 2025. She has published four books, including the chapbook the lives we had before with Stanchion Press in 2026. Her work can be found in And Other Poems, Interpreter’s House and Alchemy Spoon. Find her @nessanapolitano_ on instagram, and @ Moette on X.

 

Gordon Vells

by | Jul 25, 2026 | ,

Impotent in family life and ineffectual at work,
sometimes he would spend a full quarter-hour
just circulating the mini-roundabout on his moped,
dizzy from the power of blocking everyone else.

Patrick Wright

by | Jul 24, 2026 | ,

i protest     say how when i’m gone i’d like to rest before the choice to return & go through 
all this again     you sigh as though that’s absurd & endings are just endings     we’re mulch 
& nothing but endless fucking 

Francis de Lima

by | Jul 22, 2026 | ,

Oh London. U useless city. Map to

                                                                        nowhere land. Tight stretch 

                                                                        open eye. The underground metal. 

The night tube. The railway. Smog

Over coaltrip. The presence

                                                                          Of machine upon machine. U

Miriam Swales

by | Jul 21, 2026 | ,

When I was 12, I knew the weight of a human head.
8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (a bit of dark comedy).
It grew from there. The curiosity. The calculations.