Today’s choice
Previous poems
Claire Miller
I sit on the grass and listen to the earth purring
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
rose stem sways like a tail
rose thorn is a claw in my jumper
rosebud squints in midday sun
rose flower opens to trill its song
rose stamen twitches like a whisker
rose is miracle to witness
then rose slumps against the trellis
rose breathing slows, exhale of petals
rose pales and withers
but rose whispers don’t worry
rose will be back next summer
Kath Mckay
How to become two-dimensional
Die. You’re soon reduced to a photograph.
Lugubrious Co-op undertakers will zip you in a bag
and keep you cold . . .
Cindy Botha
atlas bear
black-footed ferret
cape lion
Jasmine Gibbs
This morning – Blackstar,
Bowie, those jazz swan songs
sputtering from the CD player,
wild trumpets that convulse
through negative space
Jane Pearn
the pool holds my face
my breath
ripples the water
Robin Lindsay Wilson
The single crimson rose
she wears in her lapel,
to test his imperfections,
draws him into detail
Ian Hickey
When the half-light drops below the horizon
the birth of darkness comes
Rose Lennard
My mother died seven years ago, but last night
she had a message for me. The mechanics
are irrelevant, what she gave stays with me
Rongili Biswas
Girls under the tree,
one with hands clasped as in worship,
the others picking
the scarlet fallen seeds
Laura Sheahen
What is the ancient curse they know that you don’t
Moving along their mouth-lines and their eyebrows
Lowering their lids, tensing their nods or shrugs