Today’s choice
Previous poems
Alice Huntley
I had a leaf in my hair when I arrived
the receptionist thought it was a hairclip
I didn’t know how to tell her I’d been doing my pre-op
under a beech tree, leaves drifting down like snow
fungus like a great carved shelf
bracketing the question when do we begin to die?
three ages of a tree: sapling, adult in crown
then the dying creature leaning on its own crooked arms,
fingers splayed, velvet skin slumping, gathering tenderly
over lumpen nodes where limbs once were
if our days are numbered may they be beautiful numbers,
numbers in their prime scampering soundless along
branches of all possible numbers, numbers of cells
multiplying, numbers of leaves, numbers of wrinkles
in our shared grey skin, myriad threads spooling out through
nodule and root, fibbonnaci ribbons, the final conclusion
that all is energy exchange, sugar and light, water and sap,
a slow movement from one state to the other,
that even in death, all is life.
Alice Huntley is an estuary girl, born by the Humber and living by the Thames. She has an MA in Chinese Studies and writes & reads with local poetry groups in Barnes & Chiswick, London. Her work deals with memory and the body and has appeared in Mslexia, Ink Sweat & Tears, Pennine Platform, London Grip, The Waxed Lemon and Poetry Worth Hearing.
Fizza Abbas
They say change is a constant,
but this constant became a coefficient
always racing to catch me
Scott Elder
What will you do in winter dear when drifts
cover your fingers and shoes
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Richard Meier, Will Pendray and Fiona Dignan: Day 2 (re)place feature
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Erik Kennedy, Sally St Clair and Catherine Edmunds: Day 1 (re)place feature
Animals on Leads We entered the town and the first thing we saw was a woman taking her ferret for a walk. ‘Nice day for it,’ I said significantly. The ferret was going everywhere at once, an absolute possibility engine producing the energy of a...
Roger Allen
AFTER YOU HAVE GONE Morning moves with tempered sound. A heel turns by the green gate. The alley setts rest in purple curves. Some night seems to have been left here. Pots of sweet herbs are placed to fill the yard with subtle scent. Somewhere a...
Andy Hoaen
On flat plains of low juniper scrub
monolithic, massive remnants of ice
dwarf the land, draws the herds: mammoth, deer, horse
Gordon Vells
Not the boring twin.
Not even benign.
This is a proper island:
rocks, foghorn, lighthouse.
Jacob Burgess Rollo
Jacob Burgess Rollo is a poet and prose writer based in Dorset, his work is featured in From the Lighthouse and Avant Cardigan, a zine he founded with friends. He has an English Literature BA from Durham and is going on to study for a master's in...