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
Jeremy Page
Phantom Ancestor
Hawker of Morwenstow
Who wouldn’t claim a man like this
for an ancestor? Poet, man of God,
mermaid impersonator, who bore the name
of my maternal line, whose wives
were twice his age then less than half,
who saw birds as the thoughts of the Almighty
and engaged them in fervent theological debate.
Whose pets were a pig called Gyp
and a stag called Robin, and nine cats
who joined his human congregation (his tenth
cast into outer darkness for the sin, cardinal
not venial, of mousing on the Sabbath).
I see my phantom ancestor, Parson Hawker,
gazing out across the Atlantic from
his cliffside driftwood hut and drawing on
his opium pipe while he is visited by the muse,
asking And shall Trelawny die?
And I wonder how many minutes passed
between his eleventh hour adoption
of the Roman path and the exhalation
of his final breath.
Christine Griffin
His Chair
They’ve cleared the rooms,
feeding the fire
with what’s left of his life.
Only the chair remains
in a miasma of old man,
pipe smoke, Rich Tea crumbs.
The cat by the footstool
waits for the gnarled, caressing hand.
Fragments of poetry float
from tattered chairside books
to settle on the cushions,
searching for his voice to give them life.
Soldier pals, freed from his memory
stand by the threadbare arms
in mute salute.
Outside, the riotous garden,
triumphant with birdsong, calls out
reminding him it is Spring.
All in vain, for he is gone,
flown to the corner of the room, to watch
as the careless flames take hold.
More Guest Poems
Mike McNamara
Writing in Ice It gets harder to claimthe lie of few summers livedwhen so many wintershave taken their toll. The deceiver fools you.More fool you. Writing in ice on frozen bonecontusions of ruptured words,mortality’s woundson the immortal soul. The reaver robs...
Jennifer Horgan
Gap ione birdfor weeks the young boy saw one bird on every wire iiyesterday, it fanned its tail feathersand he felt his growing bones reacta shared balancing act, a mirroron the northside of the citydown as far as the dock bridge iiiwhere yesterday toohe saw an otter...
Peter Lockhart
Winter in these parts We lug paving slabs onto wheelie bins,Coax the smaller animals into the spare room,Sling frayed hawsers over outhouses and hen coops.Glacial swamps appear from underground.We cradle our children from school, weight them downWith rocks, free up...
Liz Adams
apple blossom if I were to disappear from here, beneaththe wing of the day, where the apple blossomsemerge a whitish pink, and the bee hovers mesmerised – where the hellos gather upthen spill open like flowers, and the beeretreats as the light fades, the white petals...
D. A. Hickman
The Dreamer’s Song We wish, we worry, we long to conquer things,but is the world stage ours to impose on like perpetual star gazers, never satisfied or contentwith a spinning planet that needs our care? What is it about the wild storm inside? Fuellingour edginess, we...
Anthony Head
Angels My Angels don’t answer. They never do. Sources disagreeon how many each of us has, but often have I pleadedfor mine to show themselves or leave at least some evidence.Never a whisper or sign, no sudden ruffling air on a windlessday, no bright light at the end...
David Ball
To those who will come after us after Bertolt Brecht who will work longer to pay off the debtswe have accumulated, rememberhow many things we had to buy,how many interesting things there were to do,how many places in the world to visit.The cars, in which we went...
Kim Moore
And As When And as when the houses of Pompeiwere covered in ash, heavy enoughto cause buildings to collapse, and the pyroclastic flows,mixtures of lava blobs and gasran through the city faster than a horse could run,the horses trapped in harnessin the stable, bodies...
Alicia Byrne Keane
Sceach / Uncommon Knowledge The last days of January lap & settlebut, twice now, I have heard birdsat dusk. The skylight that slantson the landing of my parents’ houselooks unfamiliar for a second:some things are seen and seen again.Dust-mauve, that swatheof clear...
Ben Banyard
Car Boot Sale Stall as a Metaphor For Life Do you turn up at 8am, front of the queue,car full of desirable items from an elderly relativewhich savvy buyers peer at through cupped hands,eyes creased, noses fogging the glass,clammy at the thought of bagging a Clarice...
Nick Pearson
Water He spends fifteen minutes bringing stuff in,makes himself at home on the bathroom flooras if he’s arrived at a favourite camp site. I hear him thinking behind the door,his expertise the commodity of silence. He reminds me of a person I’ve seen before,a...
Chiara Salomoni
Heartwood Sheltered by young cypressesand thick-leaved olive trees,a plum tree stands in my family garden. The knobby branches hold clustersof round, juicy plums in summerso heavy they twist. The smiling crop persists for a month at least;the taste is so sweet, it...
Myra Schneider
Brussel Sprouts When the February sky is weighty with clouds and the wind,a ferocious animal, knocks over fences and rickety sheds,rushes rubbish down streets, rocks trees madly,tears off their branches and crashes any it can to the ground, when the paper is packed...
Martyn Crucefix
‘when’ whenlike a falling flower-print cotton dress has dropped its round spoor in the breathy silence...
Michael Henry
The Brownfields of England This “Go-Between” of a summerthe heatwave’s a marqueand hours and days repeat themselves like a slo-mo film. This chameleon summera hare jogging in a fieldturns out to be a man ...