Today’s choice
Previous poems
Day Six of ‘Wonder’ for NPD: Martin McKenna, Emma Dandy
Prolonged Panic Attack II
it’s the end of the world and i choose
bottom shelf body wash, top shelf
shampoo. almost all the way over the
edge, i choose brand name bleach, leave
washing powder to the next life. it’s
the end of the world and i lean against
one of the sail sculptures city centre.
foot up, i feel how solid its casing.
i see one bus off, tinnitus. vision blurs
particularly bad the ride up another.
arm around solid paper shopping bag,
i need this water flow wash my hair,
need these last cigarettes to end the world,
their smoke opening old scars this guitar.
Martin McKenna
Do you know how your mum and dad met?
after How to be Adopted’s ‘Questions not to ask an adopted person’
A: I watch a greater spotted woodpecker strip the bark from the old apple tree in the middle
of my garden.
B: He jack-hammers into the trunk, searching for beetle larvae.
C: Dendrocopos major’s tongue is so long he stores it wrapped around his shock-absorbing
skull.
D: He flies to the drainpipe to knock out his territorial beat, and the plastic shatters.
Emma Dandy explores the fragmentation of identity after trauma as experienced by adoptees. She has been widely published in journals and anthologies including The Ekphrastic Review, Atrium and The Honest Ulsterman. Emma won Fish Publishing’s Haiku Prize 2026. Instagram: @emmadandypoetry
Claire Miller
rose is thirsty
rose senses water
rose root rummages in the earth
rose root punctures lung and frontal lobe
rose stem is a green straw sucking
Sylvia Banham
Pigeons have invaded the garden, two then four, then a flock.
They roost in the apple tree to nest, reconnoitre or mate
ignore my sorties to deter them and shit without stint
on patio and herb bed, foul lovely hyssop and thyme.
Daniel Naawenkangua Abukuri
What matters now is the feast of this survival.
The glory of our own light, black light.
Look at us: the deeper the root, the sweeter the juice.
Glory of the blacker berry, split wide open to the sun.
Robert Billinski
the sky met the water where the birds met the fish
the sky met the water where the fish met the birds
the sky met the birds where the water met the fish
Gordon Vells
Impotent in family life and ineffectual at work,
sometimes he would spend a full quarter-hour
just circulating the mini-roundabout on his moped,
dizzy from the power of blocking everyone else.
Patrick Wright
i protest say how when i’m gone i’d like to rest before the choice to return & go through
all this again you sigh as though that’s absurd & endings are just endings we’re mulch
& nothing but endless fucking
L. Haiman
My baby is hungry. Grabs
me with both hands. I am
an apple, apparently no will.
Francis de Lima
Oh London. U useless city. Map to
nowhere land. Tight stretch
open eye. The underground metal.
The night tube. The railway. Smog
Over coaltrip. The presence
Of machine upon machine. U
Miriam Swales
When I was 12, I knew the weight of a human head.
8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (a bit of dark comedy).
It grew from there. The curiosity. The calculations.