Today’s choice
Previous poems
Play, for National Poetry Day: Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana, Ruth Aylett , Brian Comber
Telephone Piece
電話 ピース
(after Music of the Mind, Tate Modern)
Hello it’s Yoko
Yoko desu
Hello it’s Yoko
Yoko desu
Hello it’s Yoko
Yoko desu
Purchase an old-fashioned telephone
Place your tongue in a number hole
Taste the dust
Or if you like
Buy a doll’s house phone
From Fisher-Price
Write down the number of an ex-lover:
0191 526 7766
Say it aloud in a sing-song voice
He may have been from the nineties
He may have lived in Hetton-le-Hole
He may have been a prick
Eat the paper on which it’s written
Find a copy of The Yellow Pages
· Look up the name of a plumber
(he may be called Lorrie Wilson)
· Throw it into a neighbour’s garden
· Photograph what happens next
Or put it on your bedside table
Like a Bible
And when your mobile rings
Answer in another language
Moshi moshi
Alex desu
もしもし
Alex desu
Moshi moshi
アレックス です
Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana’s debut collection was Sing me down from the dark (Salt Publishing, 2022). Her second collection, Skinship is forthcoming with Salt Publishing in September 2026.
This poem originally appeared in The Pomegranate London.
Playing Sim City in Sheffield
Building, building, building,
on the tumbleweed East End
flattened by the 80s into
grey warehouses and emptiness.
My gleaming graphical residencies
for all the children who move away,
for Somalis and Yeminis
and everyone jammed into small rooms.
Here are virtually new roads, greenery,
imaginary new industries
on top of old steel works;
once again cars nose-to-tail parked
and the pixel-pubs heaving on
happening streets.
But SimCity mass transit always fails,
programmed by Americans;
the sim population revolts
demands low taxes,
the buses stay chaotic and competing.
And here comes Godzilla
brexiting through fragile modernity,
tail smashing the plastic promises.
Ruth Aylett teaches and researches robotics in Edinburgh and has been known to read poems with a robot. Her pamphlets Pretty in Pink (4Word) and Queen of Infinite Space (Maytree) were published in 2021. For more see ruthaylett.org
Note: Playing Sim City in Sheffield was published in High Windows, March of last year.
A Theatre Director Speaks
They can imagine a forest,
we don’t need this minimalist tree,
we’ll represent a place to live without walls, without foundations or a hearth.
A canvas sheet flapping in the wind counts as home;
a person only needs to pretend a shelter.
What can be removed while making a play?
what is left of a person on stage?
The road, the sunset backcloth,
we don’t need the window, or a roof to be out of the rain.
Remove the family,
the actor doesn’t need a cast, they have a slew of children.
Pick them off as the budget doesn’t match
their decadence, represent them with just one actor, one
with nowhere to sit, they must be waited for without showing up,
ditch their knotted emblematic handkerchief,
the audience knows this man has no state, their
steady hundred-mile gait means the audience get this is
a refugee without supporting cast,
on an empty stage, a stadium holding pen.
Here comes a doctor with a hat and a bag, deny him entry,
the sick can cure themselves, a fluttering red crescent
stands in for disease, clear the stage, we don’t need medicines.
Two blindfolded actors with flags may signify a war;
no cannonades, have them exit to piano diminuendo
to allow a pause, within which
the audience are too affected to speak.
Brian Comber has had four volumes of poetry published, Preparing a Child for the Physical World with Cerasus and Panopticon, A Caparisoned Elephant and This World a Hunting is with Black Pear Press. The Fishmongers of Jerez is next.
Jennifer Cole
take your wedding ring
or it might get “disappeared”
Eithne Longstaff
On the road to Belfast today, I failed
to recognise my father. I saw a flamingo
by the Tamnnamore turn off, but paid
little regard as it took off…
Mark O’Connor
At half a tonne in weight
It was like the anchor –
Michael Mintrom
They lie deep in a forest, wounds
unseen, unhealed. Further back,
an escarpment with dark scars.
Thea Smiley
There’s a hiss as he eases himself in
to the green pool, steam in his smoky hair.
Roger Bonner
It’s forbidden to call it war.
We’re here to liberate you;
ignore the glide bombs as they roar.
Maryam Seyf
You and I sit
facing each other
in dialogue
across the table
Kerry Darbishire
Imagine a spring day drawing out possibilities
the newness of life, sisters in long skirts digging
tangled ground, breaking bones and loam wild
Paul Chuks
Newton didn’t discover gravity
The apple did.