Today’s choice
Previous poems
Matt Bryden
Killing Time
at the cider farm, eight minutes
before handover, we strike on
feeding the donkeys – and sprint
towards the orchard, only realising
in the 5:23 dusk that
this is winter, the boughs fruitless,
donkeys stabled – that
beside ourselves and a motorhome
this car-park belongs to that
scrap of feathers
and scramble into air
as, in two lines of three, six ducks take flight.
Matt Bryden is a teacher and father living in Devon. His most recent publication is The Glassblower’s House (2023, Live Canon). He is Royal Literary Fellow at the University of Exeter www.mattbrydenpoetry.
Annah Atane
That night,
the stars had slept. The wind
silent as something dying.
Jake Roberts
hamlet asked it to the dark night sea
where do waters end and i begin
Miguel Cullen
The pelican is so dovey, with her funny crème anglaise feathers with pink and her split-ended crest and mouth.
T N Kennedy
inside the apiary it is always spring
human beings and honey bees cohabiting
Kate Vanhinsbergh
We Should Probably Get Up Now
but, outside, the world has paused:
the wind has put down its loneliness
Bel Wallace
Interior My dear, I washed you out of my sheets. And now I sleep softly in them. My dreams are sweet and free. I opened the windows to air out your smoke. I liked it for a while, how it held the past in its wispy fingers. I emptied your cigarette...
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas we bring you Rachel Burns, Lauren Middleton, Hedy Hume
I start the day early with a cup of tea.
A new diary asks I make an affirmation,
while cleaning my teeth.
I have nothing to offer –
On the Eleventh Day of Christmas we bring you Mary Mulholland, Edward Heathman, Edward Alport
No Nordmann firs in Bethlehem.
No holly or ivy. But pomegranate,
almond, fig and olive trees to anoint
with signs of blessing and peace.
And houses don’t smell of Balsam
On the Tenth Day of Christmas we bring you Rupert Loydell, Ruth Aylett, Eithne Cullen
The village is made of darkness and wood smoke
and the hunting owls sounding from the garrigue.