Today’s choice
Previous poems
Gary Akroyde
Cracks in the Concrete
We searched for it
through the tarmac in every rain-bruised sky
in dark Pennine shadows where great mills
spewed out ringlets of ghost-grey fog
we learnt to see Yorkshire mist in charcoal technicolour
Along the canal with its ribbon of rust we frisked
the dirty water for dazzling orange carp
heaved shopping trolleys from sludge traps
sailed two wheels high in the air thick with damp wool
In the wasteland breath-hot kissed fog grass
danced with nettles lounged beach-like
on barren patches of our summer home
shared with mongrels fleas and ants
down cobbled snickets
seeped in spilled ale and yesterday’s blood
we lobbed dog-chewed tennis balls
bin-sticky off chipped kerbs
As kids we knew the spaces between the stones
found beauty in those cracks
where weeds burst through
Gary Akroyde is from from Sowerby Bridge and currently working as an English teacher. He have been published in Dreamcatcher, Black Nore Review, Intenational Times and will be published in three Yaffle Press anthologies this year.
Jim Murdoch
I didn’t know what to do with all my dad’s love
so, I minded it for him fully intending to give it back one day.
Finola Scott
Such a knife, a real Et Tu Brute number. Bone handled, incisive. Decades of marriage
had whetted the blade to feather lean. Anniversaries marked in metal.
Sarah James/Leavesley
My mother’s knife made the first cuts –
she removed my fertile light bulbs,
then stuffed my womb with shredded tissues.
Max Wallis
god grant us the serenity / to accept the things we cannot change / the courage to change the / things we can / and the wisdom to know el differencio /
Play, National Poetry Day: Heather Hughes, Laura Webb, Jude Brigley
We searched so long for that clover.
Every time the sun shone we scoured
the fields and woods, running past
the children playing with skipping ropes
Play, For National Poetry Day: Suzanna Fitzpatrick, Charlotte Dormandy, Lee Fraser
10 Children dart in the dark, screamers
streaming sweets and neon, their parents
Play, for National Poetry Day: MD Bier, Catherine Sweeney, Rachel Burns
Those hot hot summer days. Hair curling against sticky clammy foreheads.
Pony tails, pig tails or braids. Keep it off our neck and backs.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana, Ruth Aylett , Brian Comber
They can imagine a forest,
we don’t need this minimalist tree,
we’ll represent a place to live without walls, without foundations or a hearth.
Play, for National Poetry Day: Jennifer A. McGowan, Judith Shaw, Robin Houghton, Wendy Klein
Over and over, you are Dorothy
or Glenda the Good,
me the Wicked Witch of the West