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
Kate Hendry
Talking to Thrushes
for Andy, of Maggie’s Centre
Instead of you, I’ll talk to the thrush.
As I can’t book an appointment,
I’ll talk to a sparrow too –
one that calls from the hawthorn.
Or the nervous starling
on the green steel bridge.
When birds are hidden, I’ll talk
to blackthorn with its inch-long spikes,
crab apple (more blossom than leaves)
and ash trees – so many marked
with the white crosses of death.
I’ll talk to them till they’re felled.
Passers-by too. Good morning to cyclists,
the woman I imagine’s a minister,
the man with his old, slow dog.
Last spring, I saw you, cycling to work
in your fluorescent gear.
You noticed me first.
Because I was well and busy staring
at the canopy for the thrush I could hear
but not see, you whizzed past
and only after did I realise who’d waved
and felt blessed
as I do on this cold morning
when the thrush, its speckled chest
standing out against overnight frost,
waits for me to speak.
Daljit Nagra
bells
bearded men under straw hats at spring
gaudying the playground with ribbons
that sprout from a maypole
you’d go in groups round the canopy
but recall the other times when snakes would descend
through a nightmare in the air
round your side of the bed till you’d find yourself
charging for the cool road in pyjamas
at maypole you’d get to shin a bell-pad
which was said to scare away spooks
so your mum needn’t weekly sprinkle the house
with holy water and chant prayers
for the snake shrine in your sandy village
bend your knees and skip with your year
to the countryside buzz of accordion and fiddle
as an auntie swallows a potion from the preacher
to grow her firstborn, a boy
while your gran’s in the whites of her eyes
for a deep-voice forebear who says you’ve sold your soul
your hair gets tugged cos you can’t recall the mantra
to appease the chicken-pox god
then clack sticks with Nigel bobbing your head
as the ribbon enwraps the maypole
and tie away what you earwig – the astrologer’s chart
once said your brother’s soon to pop his clogs
applauding the smoggy breathless sun
after everyone’s stopped could your smack
of a bell-pad stillness heal a hole in the stars
More Guest Poems
Helen Ashley
On Stage Small spillages of lightare gathered on the woodland floor.Invisible strings tie themto the matrix of branches above. Sun, looking down through the canopy,has assembled them and standsas director, while a light breezetakes on the choreography. To their...
Terry Sherwood
Warning Signs gracing sea and coastland: kittiwake herring gull puffingracing wetlands: curlew whimbrel lapwinggracing grassland: fieldfare yellowhammer skylarkgracing waterlands: goldeneye...
Piers Cain
Half life It all depends which way you turn in the halflight, in the space between day and nightor between one year and another. It affects how much your eye adapts, and how darkor bright the sky you face, how soon or latefor you the night draws in. And when you walk...
Matt Gilbert
A Solar Diversion The sun slants low. Rays point west,refracting from the roofs of oversizedparked cars on Manor Mount, forcing youto squint, walking down the slope towards the station. Preceded by long shadows,bouncing to the rhythm of their owner’s feet,you are...
Jeremy Page
Phantom Ancestor Hawker of Morwenstow Who wouldn’t claim a man like thisfor an ancestor? Poet, man of God,mermaid impersonator, who bore the nameof my maternal line, whose wiveswere twice his age then less than half,who saw birds as the thoughts of the Almightyand...
Christine Griffin
His Chair They’ve cleared the rooms,feeding the firewith what’s left of his life.Only the chair remainsin a miasma of old man,pipe smoke, Rich Tea crumbs. The cat by the footstoolwaits for the gnarled, caressing hand. Fragments of poetry floatfrom tattered chairside...
Jim C. Wilson
Swans At Night On the wildest night of the year’s beginning,the park’s a moor, the pond a heaving ocean.Like hailstones, stars soar past our heads;the trees are stripped by the shrieking gale. My eyes stream and my face feels stretchedand I worry about tomorrow....
Damaris West
Into this Breathing World Found in hallowed soil,his scoliotic spine strungloosely like a rosary(one shoulder higher than the other;five foot eight but would have seemedmuch shorter) he’d been struckby many men so eachcould claim the fatal blow. History has told of...
Sara Davis
Carousel Set free – the horses leap out to grasspause – sit onto angular hocksstretch stiffness from limbs cramped too longthen snorting – high stepping they buck – run – droproll over and over – ease rigid spinesmask paint-bright colours in scuffles of dust. Heads...
Chris Hardy
Samos On the beach wherethe Syrians landedthen walked along the shoreto the police stationleaving their long boatand orange jackets behind, where the sea easesback and forthagainst the landas if trying tomake peace with it,I collected marble pebbles that the waves had...
Denise Bennett
The Table You made the coffee table long beforeI was on the scene, aged thirteen, a term’s work in the carpentry class, as yet the namesof your wife and children uncarved in your heart; young to master the music of your tools:bit and brace, mallet, plane, drill and...
Fred Beake
Spring Returns By the narrow high-hedged lane to Holne; and then up over the moor to see the snowdrops at St Raphael’s! The gale rocks us; and the rain slaps the...
Seán Street
Breakfast with Michael Longley River and Fountain From beyond the window October’s memoryof what summer might have been poured in, and therewas Billie singing God Bless the Child, there wassun through the apple juice, dazzling the table. There was Hart Crane, there...
Caroline Maldonado
Foraging for the Ideal The lights of Macerata, Loreto, Treiapulse across each hilltop townand fireflies swing their lampsover the earthto echo the stars. There’s the scent oflaurel, rosemary, lavenderwild mint and fennel. L’amore che move il solee l’altre stelle warms...
Carolyn McCurdie
To Cleave This morning a sheer, immaculate skywas bisected horizon to horizonby interlacing white and blue threads of a cloud formation,delicate, curling filaments, intricate weavingsthat bound east to west. And held their breath. I stood at my back door, thinking...