Today’s choice
Previous poems
David Bernard
Bison
I wrote the title of the lesson on the board and underlined it with a flourish. The class listened to my introduction. I could see that even Rachel’s eyes were waiting for what I would say next. I felt calm. The pile of marking on the desk in the office didn’t matter. The lesson was on algebraic substitution and I can’t even remember what I said but I made a joke about bison. That day it felt right to let it fly. There was a lot of bison talk before the class settled down and started working through some problems. As she left the lesson, Rachel drew a bison on the board. It looked like it was dancing.
David Bernard is a poet based in Ledbury. His work has been published by London Grip, Wildfire Words and elsewhere. He lives with his partner and two young children.
Lesley Burt
There’s a house in a suburb of between-the-wars pebble-dash & bay windows, where the soundtrack is sighs, tuts & bellows, the clash of plates & jangle of cutlery.
Gabrielle Meadows
She gets into your bed
like when she was little.
Flowers grow out of the wardrobe,
moss claims the windowsill
Alice Huntley
I had a leaf in my hair when I arrived
the receptionist thought it was a hairclip
Gemma Blakeley
My Dad Complains That The Hedges Are Overgrown
and the word bemuses me, implying as it does
the concept of excess in what can only be good.
Nick Cooke
Molluscous receivers, would that you could
turn your talents inwards, and pick up
all that goes on in the cerebral swamp . . .
Luke Moran
There’s a
flash of colour
from the hedge.
Cáit O’Neill McCullagh
And when you step into the clearing
there will be dancing. The unsteady moon, shaken
to ribbon; shimmering through regalia of clouds.
Adam Cairns
A buzzard mews, turns in the wind,
a faraway engine grumbles.
Siân Bentham
She doesn’t know what she is doing.
She chops and boils, snacks and sneezes, sits.
Classical radio plays, imbuing
the scene with comic dignity and wit.