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
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...
Jock Stein
The First Snowdrop Modest, trembling, they appeared together:why be first when you can burst upon the scenelike mini US cavalry, genes and ethics matched,despatched midwinter on a mission, gently bentto tame the harsher shades of government,calm down showers of...
Ursula Kelly
When I Can Make it to the Pub Again It’s not so much the pain butfear of pain, that makes me hesitate.I am learning to bear my own weight again,with crutches and a moonboot.Every tiny step’s a giant leap of faiththat a rearticulated ankle will still hold,the pins will...
Jayant Kashyap
Child as a Piano During the ultrasound, it lies there,dormant, like a landmine inside you.Later, it erupts – a months-quiet volcanoof its own. Now the constant ticks,the continuous whirring of me, me,me, mommy, me. A four-leggedsinister machine in the...
Isabel Miles
Night Vision At noon the garden’s open as a flower,its beauty fitting to our spectrum and our scale.Green lawn, brown earthand flashing red, black, white,three partridges that sprint across the grass.Plain everyday. The midnight garden’s a dark pool.Upon it strands of...
Michael Tanner
Pavement Poppies A half dozen or solending a delicate beautyto vertical brick,trodden tarmac,swayed by the passageof traffic down to the town. None noticed their green emergencefrom the crack that time digsat the base of walls –big enough to admit dustand water, the...
Lisa Lopresti
Dreary Pavements and Roads In the dusky afternoon trafficof a grey tarmac dayan urban fox stands bya zebra crossing, military still. The fox’s coat isa scotch bonnet spiceto the drone of the daypeppering flavour to the scene. Her brush-tailed rushacross the crossing...
Alex Barr
In Praise of Sheds In the glow of a paraffin lamp from ‘Spick and Span’master of my domain long agoin the old rocking chairthat ground the floorboards in a heavy rhythm busy with some childish occupation,humming the ancient hymns I believed inI watched through the...
David Seddon
Return This is a note to say I’ve arrivedin Nowhere-next-the-Sea,I’ve dumped the baggage overboardbut sent you back the key. Hang out the washing on the cliffs,flap and wave the cloth;skiffs will flex their ribs and strakes –embrace the water’s wash. Sun shall rake...