Today’s choice
Previous poems
Susan Elizabeth Hale
Cup
Sometimes words are the only thing
that get you through,
But not the words you think,
not a word like love or hope
those are imprecise.
It’s more a word like window
or fenêtre
even curtain
words that are more certain,
that have weight on the tongue
that you feel through the teeth
puffs of air
that set off plosives in the mouth
Rilke was right
we are on this Earth to say
fountain
Sometimes it’s the sound of a voice
you’ve heard for seventy-four years
or since 8th grade
a sound that sets something in motion
like a harp string plucked
a name like Susanna
or Ian,
names that have origin in the body
that rise and generate
names that find you through the night
When words like broken
frozen
alone
stretch too far on the horizon
we need a word like cup
to bring us in from the cold
American ex-pat, Susan Elizabeth Hale has found her home in Ledbury and is a member of the Stanza Hereabouts. She has been published here and there and won third place in the Winchester Writer’s poetry competition in 2018. She is completing her first book.
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‘BROKE(N)’
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Aoife Mclellan
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Beams slide from our single lamp through the pane
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after Benjamin Gucciardi
When the bus hits the tunnel and the sun disappears
I remember how the greatest risk-factor for drowning
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We give a throwaway kiss
to strangers, to see New Year in.
We plant the seed with hope
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Valentine Jones
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Amanda Coleman White
I sit in quiet daylight
wondering if I should pray,
hearing mother cardinals echoing
my laments, an aural mirage
mutates into children crying
as a teacher hushes them into a corner,
quiet mice now…
Kelli Lage
Dead of Winter
If my inner child is kidnapped,
I’ll freeze my nightmares to that ole pole.
I don’t know how to use a lighter
is what I’d say if asked.