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
Jeremy Page
Phantom Ancestor
Hawker of Morwenstow
Who wouldn’t claim a man like this
for an ancestor? Poet, man of God,
mermaid impersonator, who bore the name
of my maternal line, whose wives
were twice his age then less than half,
who saw birds as the thoughts of the Almighty
and engaged them in fervent theological debate.
Whose pets were a pig called Gyp
and a stag called Robin, and nine cats
who joined his human congregation (his tenth
cast into outer darkness for the sin, cardinal
not venial, of mousing on the Sabbath).
I see my phantom ancestor, Parson Hawker,
gazing out across the Atlantic from
his cliffside driftwood hut and drawing on
his opium pipe while he is visited by the muse,
asking And shall Trelawny die?
And I wonder how many minutes passed
between his eleventh hour adoption
of the Roman path and the exhalation
of his final breath.
Christine Griffin
His Chair
They’ve cleared the rooms,
feeding the fire
with what’s left of his life.
Only the chair remains
in a miasma of old man,
pipe smoke, Rich Tea crumbs.
The cat by the footstool
waits for the gnarled, caressing hand.
Fragments of poetry float
from tattered chairside books
to settle on the cushions,
searching for his voice to give them life.
Soldier pals, freed from his memory
stand by the threadbare arms
in mute salute.
Outside, the riotous garden,
triumphant with birdsong, calls out
reminding him it is Spring.
All in vain, for he is gone,
flown to the corner of the room, to watch
as the careless flames take hold.
More Guest Poems
Tim Dwyer
After Chang Chi-Ho These twenty years of banishmentbecame a gift. Though it is saidI fled from the world, here I found it – my beloved, the moon,my friend, the sea,my shelter, the sky. I wake to the welcomeof dawn’s open doorand the gull’s spirit call. I didn’t flee...
Jan FitzGerald
Sky Goodbye I didn’t see you at the funeral.You weren’t there.I believe you escaped in a shaft of lightstreaming through the stained glass window,before the organist went all stops outand speakers leant too long on the pulpit —as far away as possible from all that...
Denise Bennett
Speaking to my Dead Mother What are we doing here in this station tearoom?We’ve slipped back sixty years.You’re wearing your grey pencil-slim skirtqueuing for the buffet. Sipping tea.I’m in my pink cotton frock covered in smuts.You’d told me not to sit facing the...
Terry Quinn
The Doppler Effect is me standing stillthe sound of my heartracingto the sound of her voicecalling my nameas she runs up the pathto hand me an ultrasoundI’d left on her ward is me standingmy heart stillas we talkfor a few minutesabout transducersand the right type of...
Stephen Boyce
Perigee I have been looking to the Eastwhere they tell you everythingis illusion, nothing lasts. The night of the strawberry moon,though I saw it, I was shutteredin a windowless room. I saw you standing in a fieldwith your back to that glowing moonamong grasses,...
Bridget Khursheed
Plotting Doggerland There are farms you reveal as our plane slidestowards Amsterdam. An ex-navy surveyorof forgotten seafloor, you have seenthis obscure bombscape drilled into neolithic geography. Using a digital weather-eye,submersible and deep dive, you sometimes–...
Colin Pink
Surveillance I lie awake at nightthe ghost-of-myself paces the citygets on and off buseshurries through turnstilespauses to look in shop windowsgives a beggar a coinjust stands in the street for no reasonraises suspicion from passers-byhurries ahead againenters the...
Jemma L. King
3 Month Scan A bell curve of grey static against black.What new worlds, old suns burn here? This space, hushed, aseptic. We are sidelinerson the brink of history before her instrument as it ploughs the stars,sends galaxies and all of creation tumbling from view....
Duncan Wu
Fired Up Ruthless hot the angry August sun glaresdown upon the slope. Nothing moves. Mydog sleeps in a pool of light while I stareat a gap in the outer wall which Iwill have to fill. But not right now. With luckI can ignore it till the weather cools.This is the...
Louise Walker
Octave/Sestet With each deep breath, the flute will utter prayer,its voice vibrating with the purest noteof G in the first octave. Then you can floatup to the next because you know it’s there.The painter knows how to balance sea and air,concealing rules that have been...
Deborah H. Doolittle
Like Wordsworth in Wales Who doesn’t like ruins? The oldstone shaped to make the landscape wild. The fragmented walls, like thoughts, framethe sky with Gothic windowpanes. Now, blue is the preferred hue forreflection that is wide enough. Ivy climbs the parts of...
Don Rodgers
Magnolias What do we make of magnolias?Like beaks of exotic birds, their budsbreak from bare branches, singingthemselves open into sculpturalpink and white waxworks of flames. You were given a Magnolia Susanone birthday. Not caring for our garden,it managed one clutch...
Richard Schiffman
The Wisdom of Seeds You don’t seed a cloud with another cloud,but with bone dry particles of dust. Sahara dust blown to the Amazonmakes the mineral-poor soils fertile. The Amazon seeds its own rains which blownoff course make the Sertão desert bloom. Hopelessly off...
Myra Schneider
Jungle It’s January but outside the lawns and grassy vergesare very green after months of rain and the palm treesin the frontage at the end of our road are thriving. I love the spread fans of their spiky leavesand the yellowish cacti spears underneath them –they jump...
Janet Dean
Angels in the Air Morning spills sand from its bucket, a clock ticksone Mississippi, two Mississippi. Deserted by an outgoing tide, an afternoonspread flat and dreary, wet with longing. She spent years learning to silence the ticking clock,change her voice, open...