Today’s choice
Previous poems
Helen Akers
Window of tolerance
we’re trying to construct a frame for this
highly reactive impulsive emotion
the nurse is looking into it meanwhile
we must find something cold to hold lick it
we’re trying to expand the tolerance – think
of a moth thumping at the window imagine
a pane adjustable along the diagnosis
for excessive information’s tiny racing heart
to be processed a bullseye window pivoted
on the horizontal with cunning joints
at either end allowing it to open let it fly
it’s a lovely day if you like lovely days
Helen Akers lives in North Norfolk. She is working on a collection of poems which explore the experience of bipolar disorder from the carers’ perspective. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia.
Arlette Manasseh
You were the pine, softening the dirt I grew up in: the one I climbed in the breeze. Wanting to describe you, I had called you Paulie. That is not your name.
Lynn Valentine
A Bad Spell
The rowan by the house is cracked in two,
her bark ragged, grown good-for-nothing old.
Matt Nicholson
Cousin
I didn’t know who the call was about,
just that it was past my proper bedtime
Karen Hodgson Pryce
All at sea on a serenity of sheep,
we played monopoly, box tatty and frail.
Its missing chance cards, no get-out-of-jail.
Nicole Knoppová
Mami, I find myself wishing your memory
were a bird of prey—
red-tailed hawk or black vulture . . .
Ali Murphy
One Winter’s Line
Between underpants and saggy bra,
she hangs her fallopian tubes out to dry.
Harry Gunston
night knocks inside my dream
at the end of the world
death house
where sawdust covers everything.
Isobel Williams
If you’re asking how to get invited
To draw at a sex club . . .
Clare Currie on Mother’s Day
After learning about the maternal instincts of seals, I took to listing postpartum offensives