Today’s choice
Previous poems
Luigi Coppola
Prometheus Burns Down The Last Bar Of The Pub Crawl
Out of ten bars, by the fifth, half of us had flickered
out and by this ninth one, it ended up just him
and me. A matchstick balanced on a stool, he sat
trench-coated and ember-tense. Salt from peanuts
stung his scolded fingers. The beer lip that frothed
every twenty seconds was steamed away by his
singed tongue or calcined palm or cauterised
sleeve. The reflection in mirrors behind bottles
refracted through cremated breaths. We talked
of many things: the warmth of hearths in heaven,
the snort of mulled wine, the smouldering hog
slipping off the bone, the shine of smithied gold
around necks of beautiful Gods. And all the other
stuff too that was given away or taken away or
lost. He stared through the cigarette smoke that
congealed in the heavy air, at the rolling, grilling
hot dogs from parts unknown and the flameless,
oil-clogged heater simmering like a plague
in the corner. We had had enough; besides, he had
somewhere to be. As we left, he sparked his fingers
at the edge of the soaked bar – kindling for a pyre –
amongst the heated laughter, stinging smog and
spilled paraffin. In the absolute alleyway, circled
by the fighting, puking comatose, I plucked
up the courage to ask that one burning question:
‘Can I see it?’ He smiled without looking up
from the half-empty glass (that he accidentally
stole and was destined to be fully empty and
balanced on rubble for eternity). He opened up
his coat and there it was: an eagle, bright and on
fire, with coal-dust eyes and charred beak pecking
under his grey ribs and the torn pink skin curling
inwards like cindered leaves – his blood-doused liver
exposed to the elements, bleeding for forgiveness.
Luigi Coppola – www.linktr.ee/PoetryPreacher – poetry, music, rum & coke. Featured at Glastonbury Festival, Tate Modern, Greenwich Theatre, Koestler Arts, Cutty Sark, Southbank Centre’s New Poets Collective, Poetry Archive Worldview winner, Bridport shortlist, Ledbury & National longlist, Lost Souls & Farrago Slam Champion, music as ‘The Only Emperor’, debut from Even God Gets Distracted Sometimes is out with Broken Sleep Books.
Rhian Parker, Madailín Burnhope and mithago on Trans Day of Visibility
Your focused eyes on a box of plantain.
Deep concentration making them filled
more brown than white.
A different mouth asks if they sell iru.
-Rhian Parker
My cockatiel, Pippin, has learned to listen
for that particular resigned sigh of the bus
as it passes the living room window
and shrieks whenever he hears it.
-Madailín Burnhope
you wanna know if it screams like a man or a girl?
i want to rip a throat out
teeth bared
growling
guttural
it builds in the back of my throat
i scream like an animal
sick of losing siblings
-mithago
Chloe Hanks
the feminine urge to bleed
all over the bedsheets, to refuse
to grow his babies, to abandon your
responsibilities, to forget to buy his toothpaste,
to move everything on his desk an inch to the left,
Avaughan Watkins
and waves jumped like giddy children
onto the stones.
Jellyfish loomed, a cove of beached moons.
You stood in your room for hours
a rock pool
waiting for the sea to hold you
Maggie Mackay
Daddy’s girl, always. Tea done, you fetch Glen’s lead and we climb the hill to the spread of The Links. We talk. It’s as if we have met in a previous life, the click – you, a pipe smoking fan of Bertrand Russell, always think, think, and think the eternal puzzles of existence. Our walks are adventures in language, in invention, a form of The Great Egg Race without eggs.
Sarah Nabarro
Your smile
Woke something –
Up.
If you knew,
Mike Wilson
My reptilian brain calculates the minimum I’ll do to escape
the weight of obligation …
but before I finish the math, we regress into college kids
rushing the street Julia barricades with furniture
to keep out the law by breaking the law.
Allyson Dowling
Night drops by
In a coat of onyx and blue
Lights up his silver pipe
And asks how do you do…
Emily Veal
boudicca you’re a brewery down the road i drank a bottle of your finest on the train back from bury st edmunds the red queen (no one will call you ginger) i see you everywhere realised you were also the wetherspoons round the corner the one with...
Lesley Burt
tongue it various from burr to babel swish to swirl
rushes between buttresses plaits threads of currents
where swans lord-and-lady-it along the centre
trips over own flow with
fish-out-of-water flash salmon’s silver high-jump