Today’s choice
Previous poems
Kate Leah Hewett
Web
Sorry, but I’ve stopped
cleaning the windows.
Or I guess I’m not cleaning
that one pane of the window
that looks in over the living room.
I’m leaving it for the spider
with the round body like a
peanut and the striped legs
who has made her web there
and who I can sit and watch
spinning thread for constant
little repairs that never stop.
Our year started with a slow worm
gleaming up at us from the wet grass.
What’s that an omen for?
Now it’s later and things have
changed again and well anyway
I’m leaving the web in peace.
It helps to feel there’s a part to play
and that I am playing it.
Kate Leah Hewett (she/her) is a poet, writer, cultural worker, gardener and occasional DJ. She lives on the edge of the Peak District with her wife and daughter. Her work has been published in One Hand Clapping, Sinister Wisdom, Yes, Poetry and elsewhere. She has performed in Yorkshire, New York and on Basilica SoundScape’s Poet Trolley, and has collaborated with musicians including Harkin and Tim Mislock. Hire her to DJ your gay wedding at https://www.handmirror.
James Benger
We tore it all down
just to watch it burn,
standing in that alley
of forgotten refuse.
Graham Clifford
Check the cavities in you where hurt goes,
exactly the right shape to house an insult
like a power tool snug and clipped in its case.
Gill Horitz
I woke to workers with blades
along the verge, yellow-jacketed
to signify contracted rights
Anita Karla Kelly, CE Collins, Clare Painter on International Women’s Day
In the beginning of the end she bit the thing she wasn’t meant to bite.
Apple stuck in her throat, one bite taken, then swallowed whole.
Elaine Baker
To my Ovaries
My cahoonas. My muscular daisies.
Potent white olives. You make me sick.
Jan FitzGerald
What is not to love
when you draw back curtains
and taste clouds
in their newness and innocence
Helen Finney
At my feet the window sprawls a view of kneaded land,
craggy baked by the hand of the gods, dusted green
with short bit grass.
Eugene O’Hare
It hasn’t been this bright all year –
the moon’s white scalp, spot-lit,
a head turned away from a thing
the rest of us fear: unearthly dark
Juliet Humphreys
Though I am not a painter
this is to be a portrait
of my parents and my sister.