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
Duncan Wu
Fired Up
Ruthless hot the angry August sun glares
down upon the slope. Nothing moves. My
dog sleeps in a pool of light while I stare
at a gap in the outer wall which I
will have to fill. But not right now. With luck
I can ignore it till the weather cools.
This is the unforgiving rut I’m stuck
within – a heat-induced inertia rules.
Yet this inaction, I begin to think,
is that to which all human business tends,
for everything resolves as rest; a blink,
and all that once was living finds that end.
Whatever is, is burning up – you, me;
to burn to ash is what it is to be.
Louise Walker
Octave/Sestet
With each deep breath, the flute will utter prayer,
its voice vibrating with the purest note
of G in the first octave. Then you can float
up to the next because you know it’s there.
The painter knows how to balance sea and air,
concealing rules that have been learned by rote;
the same that give the poet secret hope
that all will be in order, nothing spare.
But look – the sunflower makes a perfect turn
with each new seed; at heart it knows the code
which gives each one sufficient space to grow,
facing the light. It never had to learn
to ask the question Fibonacci posed
of eight and six, the golden ratio.
More Guest Poems
Peter Sutton
Here I Stand Here I stand for I can do no other,tied to my neighbours, my enemies, friends,cousins and siblings, ancestors, offspring,pushing and shoving and reaching for light,building up brawn and strengthening sinews,bartering messages, crisscrossing limbs,digging...
A. C. Clarke
Crossing the language divide We commit to speech as we do to a bridgein the faith it will bring us to the further shorewithout cracking, in the faiththe further shore is where we want to be.What if our words shape themselves differentlyin the listener’s ear, distorted...
Charlene Langfur
On the Cusp of Climate Change Days are like thimbles now, full of small needs,whatever works, potluck, making do.I plant aloe in clay pots on the porch, arugula,orange nasturtium, parsley because it matters.I am a woman walking under the fan palmsunderneath the desert...
George Davey
Goldilocks and the three percent inflation rate Three bowls of porridgeall differing in sizes,her silver spoon risesto herrosy red lips.She sips.She gulps.She convulses. Porridge icylike her harsh moral code.Three skinny bears,return to their humble abode. Fur ragged...
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...
Briege Duffaud
Privilege A school day, normally. He may have thought of that,missed friends and reading books. Or not. (I never knewhis thoughts nor wanted to.) But still. Nine milescutting over frosted fields to the Newtown hiring-fair,to shiver in a hungry street while meat-fed...