Guest Poems
We love to read your poetry and, even though we receive over 1,000 poems per month, we always take time to read every single one.
A few of the poems we especially enjoyed and which were selected for publication in our Journal are reprinted below.
For more information, please see our Submissions page.
Guest Poems
Ralph Mold
Scilly Shore
Here white foam flecks the fingers
of cracked black granite,
one world surrounds another
and edges seep inwards.
The thousand-mile momentum of waves,
the strong, slow, shunt of currents,
are broken, parted, giving up
their gifts, blindly, unknowingly.
Live thrives in the mixing,
the erosion and remaking
of rock-sure certainties
to fractured sanctuaries
where crabs creep from cracks
through shrimp-churn confetti,
where waving anemones wait
for the sea to return the sun.
Sue Spiers
Al Fresco Dining
Ctenocephalides felis
A black cat saunters under our table
where a meat meze calls to its nose.
Feeding it would keep it attentive;
there’s more kleftiko than we can eat.
I tickle its brow. It looks hopeful.
A piece of its ear is missing
like a voting form with a torn-off chad.
It tilts on one hip and lifts a back leg
to scratch, vigorously, its neck.
It meanders to the next table
where a woman drops
a pork cube from her souvlaki.
She’s made a friend for the evening,
thirty, if you include the fleas.
More Guest Poems
Biljana Scott
Time has Slept Soundly in this Archipelago Time has slept soundly in this archipelagoher soft couch hollowing the hills of Hoy.A corrie for a pillow and here, two glacial sheetstheir edges scalloped, a watch-stone at their feet. What did time dream of during that long...
John Greening
Monks Wood to an unborn grandchild ‘Growth, growth and growth’, Liz Truss Roaring downthe hours as ifto forget rootsand obliterateplainsong,the A1 has no timefor Monks Wood,its yellow crossesflashing their diebackhazard warning,but certain rides offer a...
Susan Mackervoy
Community Wood, Evening Let loose from his lead, the elegant dog,though it is late and leaves murmur cautious forest words in the compact modern wood,speed-changing green to gold to winter black as we look down from the path and trafficpelts by, making thrumming beats...
Stephen Claughton
Kite Weather Clever you! You’ve made it workfirst time without any practice. The kite we bought for your birthdayjinks and swoops and dives, skywriting a scribbled message,which says you’re a natural. You held it up like a placard,while I attached the string,...
James Deahl
Scarlet Roses of October for Norma The sun near the harbour turns maple leavesinto stained glass windows. Sailboats head outto celebrate this Indian Summer daybefore autumn’s storms set in. Norma andI watch a freighter pass the harbour’s headon her way to Europe. All...
Joan McGavin
In Praise of the Clearers-Away who when the tree falls across the roadcome with their winches and chainsaws and hard hats;who when the nappy needs changed, the bedpan emptiedcome with sense of smell deliberately dulled;who when floods recede leaving mud floors and...
Richard Lister
Antarctic Follies Manchurian pony, fetlocks sunkinto the snow, then hock and knee,straining, slowing, stuck. She shiversin this blind space of hammered cold. Scott stumbles on bloodied feet.He can no longer drag his sled,dried beef and fat run thin.His woollen kit and...
Kathryn Daszkiewicz
Of Ducks and Dinosaurs Here at the farthest lake, everythinghas the precise brightnessof a Dali dreamscape. Instead of swansreflecting elephantstall, grey, January birchesfind themselves mirroredby ancient, long-necked creatures -plesiosaurs, perhaps. The stillness of...
Nick Grundy
Verbal Economy: Getting Your Words’ Worth… Windy Day Rewind I saw lots of daffodilsSeeming to dance in the wind;Thinking of them still makes me smile. A Touch of Frost… The snowy woods look nice.My horse and I would linger,But we’ve got too much to do. Marvel Soon...
Cindy Botha
on good days I believe a thousandCalifornia condorswill fly headlonginto the futurenot looking back believe the coloursof a paint-box skyaren’t pollutionbut light scatteringthe way it’s meant to on good days I thinkwe’re doing our bestor at least our bit ‒not...
Roberta Dewa
Kay The river is playing at land again. She used to say that, standing onthe floodbank by the sudden lake,her feet gloved by the water. She was always remembering things. How our mother wore her headscarflike a bandage, drew her bike around her like an arm;watched out...
Martin Reed
Running Late My father stands with his back to the firetrying to keep our spirits upin the waiting-room, speaking of trainsand life getting better for all of us.We study brazen, purple flames,listen for a piston pulse,picture a single pinpoint of lighton the front of...
Siobhan Ward
Morning Swim, Saint Malo The water is never as cold as it looks.If you think too much about the cold,you’ll miss the chance to let it slapyour skin, push your body back and forth,be legs, arms and chest in it – and eyes –yes eyes – to see the expansiveness of sea,sky,...
Charles Bennett
Robin I realise now what I wanted when I whistled in a botched echoas if to say ‘sorry’ for all the harm humankind has wrought, was a recognition of sortsa sign I was known and familiar. When I said in my cackhanded...
Gary Day
Your Call Is Important to Us Dust in a sunbeamSlanted across the naveIs all that remains of thoseWho prayed here once. Did they get an answer?Or did they meet with the sameSilence the visitor does today,One older than God himself? No matter. They are at peaceNow,...