Today’s choice
Previous poems
James McDermott
Samsara
if samsara’s concrete please don’t come back
as black jackal for I live in Norwich
nor spineless worm as I don’t have a lawn
ditto poppy fields with my hay fever
nor breeze I don’t open those windows now
so I might not hear you nor beige house moth
nibbling my pink knitwear nor hot new squeeze
father for ease please just come back as you
I shake my head aren’t I then fixed to lose
you all over again and I don’t want
you to be on a loop as I won’t be
fireproof and I don’t want you to be
kicking to sink your son praying Jim won’t
rise as poppies jackal that worm this wind
James McDermott’s collections published by Nine Arches Press include ‘Father Myself’ and ‘Wild Life’. James’s poems have been published in Poetry Wales, Magma, The North, Butcher’s Dog and Interpreter’s House.
Cally Ann Kerr on International Transgender Day of Visibility
How many blows does it take to crack an egg?
Is a question I never expected to ask
If you don’t know, I should tell you, an egg
Is what they call the girl inside the male mask
Gita Ralleigh, Julian Matthews, Jackie Taylor on Colouring Outside the Lines
The hue of brides, appliquéd dark with henna.
Citron’s acid curl, vernal blades between teeth.
Sue Moules
I sell the postcard
of multi-coloured sheep
over and over again.
Kevin Denwood
Name called.
Not mine.
Wasn’t I
here first?
L Kiew
I leave everything on shingle,
meet surf like a sibling,
crest over playful breakers
and chase the moon’s tail.
Margaret Baldock
We launched, lovingly
into dark and silky water
unknown yet benign.
Krishh Biswal
You did not ask for knees —
They found the floor themselves.
Not from command,
But gravity.
Tamara Salih
That winter the snow kept rising,
a slow white wall climbing the windows,
each morning untouched,
Alicia Byrne Keane
I’ve been reading about ghost apples.
They are a real phenomenon, like how
everyone we can see on the wide street
outside this building is still living,