Today’s choice
Previous poems
Leigh-Anne Hallowby
You used to be shorter
When we first came here two seasons ago
You were barely as high as my hip
Now you can look me right in the eye
It’s almost impossible to believe
You’re not quite as tall as Giannis
But you hope that one day you can
Jump like him
Until then, I’ll chant defence with you
Take you to the park
Return balls in the rain
I’ll watch as you practice your shots
Talk tactics with you every day
And when you get older
We’ll still be in the stands
Foam fingers for hands
Because it’s such a beautiful game.
Leigh-Anne Hallowby is a poet from North East England. She likes striding up hills with a hot flask, and a notebook in her pocket. She’s tried to dunk a basketball, but just doesn’t quite make it.
Aidan Semmens
The ash tree A superb winter sunrise backlights edges of cloud tinting sky above and bay below the palest blue, hints of gold glistening on the water. Beneath a faint sliver of rainbow a young ash, bold denier of dieback pushing through a broken wall wears a light...
Gail Webb
How To Remain Human This Year
We give a throwaway kiss
to strangers, to see New Year in.
We plant the seed with hope
it will grow, form fruit, to feed us.
Valentine Jones
CANNIBALISE THE CORRUPTION, I GUESS Ok? Everyone's dying. You're not special. You've a Tree in your stomach, Splitting the roof of your mouth, Leaves curled around teeth, and your skull Cracking like an ancient castle? Nothing I haven't seen before. Had three people...
Amanda Coleman White
I sit in quiet daylight
wondering if I should pray,
hearing mother cardinals echoing
my laments, an aural mirage
mutates into children crying
as a teacher hushes them into a corner,
quiet mice now…
Kelli Lage
Dead of Winter
If my inner child is kidnapped,
I’ll freeze my nightmares to that ole pole.
I don’t know how to use a lighter
is what I’d say if asked.
Shamik Banerjee
A Rumination
With ginger chai, lounged in the balcony,
Revisiting the years she and her spouse
Endeavoured for a better, self-owned house,
She takes a breath of content, finally.
Benedicta Norell
Questions
We were always in the car that year the price of having a nice house in a nice area get in get
in it’s time to go where are we going our friends the supermarket the cinema the mall just for
a drive between banks of jaded shovelled snow
Kathy Pimlott
It’s impossible to foretell what will provoke tears, the sort
that well up and tip over while you hold onto the kitchen sink
waiting for them to subside…
Ali Murphy
Mean sister We are stuck in our own words, not hearing each other. Sixty-somethings, we may as well be six, throwing sticks down the beck or poking dolls eyes out of their sockets, scribbling on their perfect faces. We are well rehearsed, know our cues,...