Today’s choice
Previous poems
Rongili Biswas
Rosary peas
Girls under the tree,
one with hands clasped as in worship,
the others picking
the scarlet fallen seeds,
so they could string them,
those necklace beads.
They’ve played this game
since sun-up, and even now,
all through this windswept day,
rosary peas fall to their feet,
waiting quietly
to be gathered
and picked and gathered again
for a stringing
that will never end.
Rongili Biswas, a bilingual writer and musician from Kolkata, India, writes across fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her work, published in journals and magazines internationally, explores memory, observation, and the rhythms of daily life. She has received multiple literary awards.
Elizabeth Barton
On Diamond Hill
I didn’t
think of you once
as I climbed
past stunted willows
straggles of gorse
Susan Jane Sims on Mothering Sunday
Matter cannot be created and it cannot be destroyed.
I think of this as I pour the almost white ash from
the green plastic container that came in the post
into the vibrant red metal urn I have ready.
Daniel Sluman
just as the night sky shifts
beyond the minds
of the animals outside
the ceilings
we are pressed beneath change
in aspect & colour
Farah Ali
Notes from nature on how to survive this:
1. Learn crypsis and mimesis be a gecko or a mossy frog
2. Method actors sway like dead-leaf mantises on branches
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.