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
Sarah Doyle
Sunstroke I knew a man with suns for eyes, he blazed with sex and golden lies, a burning shitstorm in disguise. How slowly do the seasons turn. The solar flares of hot desire cannot cleanse a cheating liar. The glaring fact: you play with fire,...
Abigail Ardelle Zammit
House, Coyo Atacama Desert Two men talking about sex, drunk, splattering words like spells – they'll bring in the culandero, the woman with fangs – Somebody has given herself prematurely. Somebody has fallen off a swing. Somebody knows the timing’s...
Kenneth Pobo
TIME OF PAUSE I’m what’s left in the toothpaste tube when squeezing won’t get any more out. I’ve often felt this way before. I need to pause, to be the quiet on the underside of an oak leaf. Let the wind come. I’m going to pause. I don’t know when...
Kate Ennals
Note To the Pathologist. Take a scalpel, cut along the white bone of breast fold back the flesh, there behind the ribs, you’ll see ribald laughter caged, gasping for breath. Between the red thread of capillaries you will discover a black patch...
Lynn Valentine
What was it like in the War, Granda? I became desert, death, murderer, a kind of killing machine. I washed my clothes in oil. I bartered my knife for water. I used my gun. I saw friends die over an officer’s stupidity. I was made to polish boots while the winds...
Ernesto Sarezale
A LONGER KISS (to John, 1963-2018) On a mound of ancient rubble opposite the Shish Gumbad, in New Delhi’s Lodhi Gardens, a sign announces in English “This Is Grave Not Allowed” and a brown dog howls. The dog struggles in circles to poke its muzzle through the...
Adrienne Wilkinson
big safe knives her greedy hands cook for me slicing limes into such thin wheels ginger honey sesame to steam in this english culture with the least amount of time to cook in all of europe as she eats i touch her hands and feel grease the salt of...
Cáit O’Neill McCullagh
THE MOTHER TREE Go to the pine to learn of the pine ̶ Matsuo Bashō Spring empties us of snow, spits us winter-lean Fat gritted rhizomes, our roots upend feeble as sea foamed on rock fast with limpet full dulse. & we swing sparse growth...
Pam Thompson
Hotel Blue (after John Ash) 1. Above each of the sea-facing windows of Hotel Blue, a canopy. At night the smell of fish and vinegar. It’s a good place to fall out of love, fall in love with someone else, a good place to tip out clutter from your bag or pockets....