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
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...
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...
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...