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
Judith Wozniak
Back to Nature
i.m. J.S.
You liked to sleep out
at the edge of your garden
under a scatter of stars
tucked into your bivouac
on a bed of leaves
soothed by a soft breeze
drift over the South Downs
the smell of honeysuckle
after rain the rustle
of hedgehogs in the compost
to wake with birdsong
your face spritzed with dew
on the other side of time
I see you walk The Lane
with Edward Thomas
in your beloved Steep
under silent beech and yew
the scent of wild rose
sounds of song-thrush
a distant cuckoo calling
the bees hum the hiss
of wind in meadow-grass
a swift rising over
a shiver of aspens
or are you exploring
another galaxy
held in moonlight
Robert Leach
Horse
A pool of shadow
Shapes the lonely place
Where the old horse stands.
He shakes his head.
Remote from
Cows, sheep, people,
It seems farming proceeds
Around, beyond him.
His tufty fetlocks ape
The head-heavy cow parsley,
Hair grass, oval sedge
Unheeded at the field’s edge.
He’s not far from the farmyard,
Where a stick-figure person
Strides towards the dark-doored
Corrugated iron shed.
Across the sloping meadow
There’s a splattering of stones,
Yellow-shadowy,
Birds twittering and flittering,
And sheep, clusters of them,
Bleating, munching, staring
At the comforts
Of the known home farm.
A fidgety hoof
Scuffs the bank, the long head sways,
And he stands, spectre of
What’s always far away.
More Guest Poems
Maggie Brookes-Butt
The Conundrum of Proportion You try to force your arm into dolly’s dressbalance her hat like a pimple on your head,crush her cardboard-box bed with your giant toddlerbody, puzzled by further mysteries of perspective:big or close; small or far away; the way your...
Piers Cain
Another Land There is another land. A land of rockand falling water. Valleys deep in shadewith railway stations blue with rising mist. There’s a city of sunshine built on slopesthat flows down a hill in a torrent of stoneto water. Gardens hang in steps of green. In...
Julie Craig
Remembrance The pin pricks like a memory.She tries again,Almost stitching the plastic poppyTo her chest, over the heartBleeding past into present. Years have progressedBut the wound won’t heal:A scout’s compass, it pointsTo loss and leads to a monumentMarking her...
Vuyelwa Carlin
George Orwell Typing at his Desk – a Photo Cigarette (always), reek of paraffin, the flintyJura house; those poor, rotting, blood-leaking lungs: he pounds out, a year or so from death, his last bleak book – I ballsed it up…so ill… he wrote– that cracked, wheezy laugh....
Stephen Miller
Gull Island Unfamiliar shorea broken doorsill to a part-remembered landthe dismantling sun bleedsinto a rough-hewn slab of seaand seabirds scream their warningand welcoming of all that is unfixed,uncharted, unrehearsed. Demonstrative as daysavvy as bull terriersand...
John Sewell
St Lucy’s Day 1This dark year’s endis a short night’s passagefor the veteran oak. John Donne’s passionruns centuries beyondhis lover’s last embrace. Neither recompenseoff-sets our final days. But let’s light a New Yearfrom the night that’s gone,bring to...
Cathra Kelliher
Kestrel kestrel hoveringthe moment before her stoopas our first remembered falcon the field behind the cottageempty farm buildings and twilight fallinglike a gathering of ghosts shadow dropping from the fencepostthat could be a buzzardthe instant, unexpected movement...
Ralph Mold
Scilly Shore Here white foam flecks the fingersof cracked black granite,one world surrounds anotherand edges seep inwards. The thousand-mile momentum of waves,the strong, slow, shunt of currents,are broken, parted, giving uptheir gifts, blindly, unknowingly. Live...
Sue Spiers
Al Fresco Dining Ctenocephalides felis A black cat saunters under our tablewhere 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...
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...