Today’s choice
Previous poems
Siân Bentham
Knowledge
She doesn’t know what she is doing.
She chops and boils, snacks and sneezes, sits.
Classical radio plays, imbuing
the scene with comic dignity and wit.
I close my eyes, wrapping truths in wool and
wearing them about me. To be frank is
to be cruel, they say. They misunderstand.
Kindness is crueller. It holds a promise
of rest whilst it bludgeons the likes of me,
who have suffered quietly but madly.
And all the while she does not know what she
is doing – and nor do I exactly.
Confound it all and let the cool ones go;
I am not wretched but could be less so.
Siân Bentham is originally from South-East London. She’s an copyeditor for Wasshoi!, an online magazine about Japanese culture, and recently graduated with a degree in Geography. You may well find her in the Polish section of your local supermarket.
David Van-Cauter
Two calls this morning – flood of tears…
She cannot eat a single thing they give her.
Dan Stathers
A long way from the quags of Nova Scotia,
stowaway beneath the cherry laurel thicket,
more triffid than cabbage . . .
Sarah L Dixon’
I fall in love with Leeds Coach Station, Holts pints,
a shared fish supper from Arkwrights.
Simon Alderwick
1
in the beginning,
there was light.
and light said:
let there be god.
and god meant: everything
touched by light.
Tim Kiely
The Abbot of Kosljun Monastery Considers the Cyclopean Lamb
He suppresses a shudder as he summons
the brothers from the library; shows…
Rebecca Bilkau
Travel essentials
A rucksack isn’t a kitchen dresser, or a view, or
a whirl of Christmas Market cinnamon, sweet almonds…
Sylvie Jane Lewis
Water Damage Noted 06/24
An old lady enters, soak-dizzy,
puts her returned book on the trolley.
Leigh Manley
Should You Wish to Imagine Poetry in Ventricular Ectopy
False starts, I’m aching to roll with you,
though you catch me stumbling off beat latches…
Patrick Wright
When you drew lines in the sand with your long white cane
the lesson was that faces can be found just about anywhere.