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
Annie Kissack
Saint with Accoutrements
after ‘Mrs Mounter at the Breakfast Table’ by Harold Gilman
All spotless. Some objects we might deem
especially significant:
the glistening tea pot, pristine cups
lustrous milk bowl, the best surely.
We inhale diverse aromas:
odour of home-made polish, Jeyes Fluid, Vim.
Mrs Mounter, tell us why?
Perhaps she’s a saint, a kitchen anchorite
sealed into contemplation of a state of grace
so very nearly reached.
A martyr to the Sunlight Soap,
the damask drape, her table is in order;
observe her coronet of curious light,
that hint of halo.
At three o clock she sits and waits.
Behind the periwinkle eyes,
a mind is ranging wide through space;
her best is not enough.
Each day she relocates the empty cup
a fraction to the left and trusts
the virtuous will one day be rewarded.
Jonathan Steffen
Car Coat
Through all the subtle chicanes of his existence in the 1960s,
It was his constant companion –
That car coat redolent of hairpin bends and handbrake turns,
Bearing him along shopping parades and in and out of supermarkets,
Evoking pine-clad mountains and Alpine meadows
And the sophisticated heartaches
Of Bacharach & David songs,
Its pockets primed with cigarettes and menthol sweets,
Its collar turned up for raffish effect,
Quilted and poppered and cut short for ease of movement,
Economically negotiating a world of prawn cocktails and vol-au-vents,
Of frozen peas and Black Forest gateaux,
Always on the lookout for that checkout girl
Who would instantly recognise him and,
Slipping on a silk headscarf without a word,
Abandon her supermarket till forever
To accompany him on revving, rolling rides
Down roads the shape of trumpet solos
In the roaring rally car
That he would never own.
More Guest Poems
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...
Gary Day
Your Call Is Important to Us Dust in a sunbeamSlanted across the naveIs all that remains of thoseWho prayed here once. Did they get an answer?Or did they meet with the sameSilence the visitor does today,One older than God himself? No matter. They are at peaceNow,...
Briege Duffaud
Granada I recall it life-sized, to my left, beside the altar:Isabella’s royal foot treads on an Arab neck,triumph of Los Reyes Catolicos.The man’s eyes howling. That was the week of Abu Ghraib. A tv in my roomshowed the US soldier’s equal triumph,trampling her...
David Olsen
Nothing Happens I sit in the darkness of the stallsawaiting a momentous eventthat never occurs, as if the actiontook place in the green room;the actors emerged exhaustedby the effort of dressing and makeup,too tired to propel the plot. I sharethe idlers’ ennui as they...