Today’s choice

Previous poems

Anna Chorlton

by | Dec 20, 2024 | ,

 
 
 
Holly Queen 
 
She curled emerald
tights about the core of
an oak
slumbering with thick bare
limbs. He had lost his hair she
noticed a vast shock of lemon
green let fall to a muddy mulch
below. Ivy’s agile twitches
hugged tight twisting, twisting,
embracing.

Holly felt comfy here, high
up and cradled in Oak King’s
bristling bark-arms.
She began to felt her berries
droplets of fresh ruby blood
and deeper crimson blushes
pinched along her spikey coat.
 
 
 Anna Chorlton is author of Cornish Folk Tales of Pace, The History Press (spring, 2019). Her poetry was published in Atlanta Review (summer, 2020), Wild Court (winter, 2021, autumn 2024), Indigo Dreams (winter 2022), Ice Floe Press (summer, 2022), Ink Sweat and Tears (summer 2022), Seaborne Magazine (summer 2022), Skylight 47 (Autumn, 2022). King River Press (summer, 2023). Anna wrote the animation scripts for Cornish Folklore project Mazed.

Cliff McNish

by | Oct 23, 2024 | , ,

Heaven For starters, the standard works everyone gets: three trumpets blown in unison; your name acclaimed to the galactic hegemony of stars; plus assorted angels with ceramically smooth hands (the nail-work!) casting wholesale quantities of petals (flowers of the...

Paul Stephenson

by | Oct 22, 2024 | ,

Rhubarb after Norman MacCaig And another thing: stop looking like embarrassed celery. It doesn’t suit. How can you stand there, glittery in pink, some of you rigid, some all over the shop? Deep down you’re marooned, a sour forest spilling out beneath a harmful canopy....