Today’s choice
Previous poems
Paul Connolly
At Aber Falls
he felt nothing
water sheeted
past grottoes
snakes of tributary
lazed along
below Yr Wyddfa
a steam train
sauntered by
sun-sharp tufts
of grass and black
tears of earth
upward away
and all the land
beside the train
slipped down
away and down
from Swallow Falls
cataracts brewed
scummy heads
on pints of stout
in a heaving bar
festive thunder
empty of people
as small-hour streets
are emptied full
and flowing waters
surge clear
and feel nothing
full and empty
he felt nothing
Shortlisted twice for the Bridport poetry prize, longlisted for the Orwell Prize in the blog category and for the Bridport novel prize, Paul Connolly has had poems appear in many poetry periodicals, including previously in Ink Sweat & Tears. Shortlisted for the Charles Causley Prize, he was highly commended in the Sentinel Quarterly and third in the Magna Carta Competitions.
Moira Garland
tall as the absentee house.
How the girl moored her hands and heart charmed by riven bark…
Maureen Jivani
I dream I’m at the hospital
massaging your feet, your tiny feet
that I have freed from their tight
white stockings…
Jayant Kashyap
We are in the bath, your hands
around my back, mine around yours—
everything covered in a fog.
Jane Holland
When fog falls over Rough Tor,
the world creaks
on the end of a string…
Emma Lee
Snow’s Reset The roofs blend with the snow-laden clouds, borders softened so it’s only memory that differentiates my space from my neighbour’s. The wet smell confuses pets whose footprints meander over territorial edges, leave crazed patterns like...
Lisa Rossetti
Toughened Bark it takes a hefty blow sometimes to split you open a sharpened blade to split through years of tough old bark in the deeper channels feel how sap and resin thicken sap to carry nourishment keeping the woodiness supple resin to...
Maggie Mackay
A thirty-year-old woman walks into
the wee sma’ hours of a December
night. Snow is light
on her hair and the back
garden shrubs. It thickens. The sky
turns white. She stands still.
Short Poems Feature III
as a child, I learn to eat words
fill me up with words
brittle like sugared almonds
they crunch in my bones
Amaleena Damlé
Short Poems Feature II
The second Short Poems Feature with poetry from James McDermott and Edward Heathman.