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
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 stretched
and I worry about tomorrow. Until,
three areas of wavering light. ‘The swans,’
you say. But it’s dark. I have my doubts.
But the three vague shapes begin to gleam:
It’s them on the bridge, with their necks
folded back and heads half-buried in wings.
Sleeping swans as still as stones, and white
as falling snow. We grow closer.
a head rears up; perfect feathers ruffle.
We slip by into the wind. Beyond the trees
the orange lights wait, and cars are everywhere.
Tonight we’ll sleep as the fireplace howls
and the dead come drifting by again. But
in the light we’ll feed the swans, see them glide,
so white with grace, like galleons bearing gifts.
Damaris West
Into this Breathing World
Found in hallowed soil,
his scoliotic spine strung
loosely like a rosary
(one shoulder higher than the other;
five foot eight but would have seemed
much shorter) he’d been struck
by many men so each
could claim the fatal blow.
History has told of his unhorsing.
Mounted on his courser,
no terrain however steep
would have defeated him.
He could have gone where no roads go,
however crooked he became,
if he had lived.
He would have fought
to reach completion
like the gibbous moon.
He would have sought
to be compared with trees
whose curvature
in bole and bough is grace.
More Guest Poems
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...
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...