Today’s choice
Previous poems
David Bernard
Bison
I wrote the title of the lesson on the board and underlined it with a flourish. The class listened to my introduction. I could see that even Rachel’s eyes were waiting for what I would say next. I felt calm. The pile of marking on the desk in the office didn’t matter. The lesson was on algebraic substitution and I can’t even remember what I said but I made a joke about bison. That day it felt right to let it fly. There was a lot of bison talk before the class settled down and started working through some problems. As she left the lesson, Rachel drew a bison on the board. It looked like it was dancing.
David Bernard is a poet based in Ledbury. His work has been published by London Grip, Wildfire Words and elsewhere. He lives with his partner and two young children.
Rosie Jackson
I Am Trying to Love Frank O’Hara More
I really am! I am trying not to see his exclamation marks as cheap melodrama and his endless conjunctions as some kind of separation anxiety or fear of mortality for what do full stops signify except dying
Charlotte Holm, Jennifer A McGowan
A leaky drainpipe drips
creating damp patches on uneven paving,
slime green algae blossoms
forming viridescent ripples
James McDermott
if samsara’s concrete please don’t come back
as black jackal for I live in Norwich
nor spineless worm as I don’t have a lawn
Cheryl Snell, Alice Gregorio, Peter Lilly
I grew up on a farm so I should know all about expensive cows and free milk. You’re taking being a debutante much too literally. We only meant to give permission for you to make a good match, not flit among the suitable boys…
Jade Kleiner
There is the green that birthed all pine trees.
Tom Blake
We were the housing and the housed,
meaning nothing except that
we were always occupied,
or to put it simply never out.
Kate Bonfield
Coming home to days of heat
trapped beyond the door, to time skewed
by time away, the house bigger and
smaller than before.
Precious Ejim
I don’t know why I look to my mother
for her shadow never stays.
Jackson
I want to tell my mother,
I made a successful loaf
in the bread machine you didn’t know
you were leaving me