Today’s choice
Previous poems
Phil Vernon
After the forest fire
Because we were four
and I only had strength to carry one
and knew no other way
I carried the one who called out loudest;
threatened us most.
You two were left to walk behind
in the dust of hot, dry summer and
the heavy mud of winter and spring.
Perhaps I thought you’d learn the land –
more likely, I just hoped we’d be OK.
That morning found us silent, slumped
among the charred remains of trees.
The flames, too, were spent after such a night.
But the undersoil still burned, untraceably,
towards where uncharred trees remained.
Phil Vernon’s third full collection is Guerrilla Country (Flight of the Dragonfly Press, 2024). He lives in Kent. www.philvernon.net
Sue Butler
We cultivate the knack
of getting down on the floor and
back up three or four times each day.
JLM Morton
In a dull sky
the guttering flame
of a white heron
Tonnie Richmond
We could tell there was something
we weren’t allowed to know. Something
kept hidden from us children
Morag Smith
When the waters broke we were
out there, borderless, with just
a view of bloodshot sky from
the labour suite
Gordon Scapens
Stripping wallpaper
leaves naked the scrawls
of yesteryear’s children,
small forecasts of flights
that are inevitable.
Chrissy Banks and Antony Owen (from the IS&T archives) for Holocaust Memorial Day
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Goodnight moon, goodnight stars, goodnight cherry, pear, apple tree. Goodnight pond, stop wriggling, newts, stop zipping the water, water-boatmen. Goodnight, glossy horses on the hill, rabbits in the field, white...
Clare Bryden
how do I begin?
Yvonne Baker
an etherial whiteness
that covers and disguises
as a strip of white frosted glass
Hilary Thompson
Ambling up North Street
on a Saturday afternoon
at the end of a long Winter,
I am stopped by two women