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
Wendy Webb
Unpacking a Bomb Articles for the Blind wrapped securely as a bomblike Dad impossible to open Dad’s… his presentscontaining surprise practical mug: King Charles...
James Priestman
That Tremendous Fish after Elizabeth Bishop So, I let the fish go, but it did not swim away,remaining instead port-side of the hired boat,right eye staring unblinking into my startled gaze. I raised the revs on the motor but it stalked me.The bows pushed harder...
Rachel Bruce
Du Lac My lover was born under a wet star.He is not my first, but he is my favourite.The waters of the lake hold the shape of my body in their silt.I found him at the water’s edge,blurring into the shallows like a mirage.His hands slid over my shouldersand droplets...
Cyril Dabydeen
Last Inhabitant Left on Earth Give me one place only –one area the size of Americatoo large to fathom where I willmake myself known asking formore space a fortress where tobuild upon and declaring myselfto you without animosity. What’s left on earth notlooking...
Sarah Hehir
The Poisoner’s Poison Sleep has led me one step to the leftof lead.A periodic transition to thallium:softer certainly,like freezer bread thawing. But there’s still no stretch inside thisgrey,tasteless,odourless shape. Though they say sometimeswe live in secrets -that...
Seán Street
On Hearing of the Death of Benjamin Zephaniah 7.12.2023 Because they told me in the neutral grey of an ordinary day when the sun neither shone nor set,when the rain could do no more than drizzle, when all I was doing ...
Edmund Prestwich
The Ground of our Music Now the warm moist air is alive with voices.Frogs are singing. Soft introspective crooningmakes the mild night throb with erotic feeling.Somewhere above them owls are calling, female to male; hauntingbreeze-blown signals float between houses....
Beth Junor
Partition i.m. Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920), mathematician Don’t be afraid. Like the first brushstrokeof the Mona Lisa, it begins simply enough. The partition of three is three,the partition of four is five. Meaning, you can arrive at three in threedifferent ways...
Sue Wallace-Shaddad
Twine Lazing on the tablestrung out with a casual loopit could be someone’s noosethe knot ready to slip tighteraround a waiting neck ...
Adam Cairns
Abandoned When the A-Road Was Built How do you find St David’s church?You must search. It is here, but lies abandoned?Look beyond. I see towns, the heavy traffic.Take your pick. Its loneliness makes my heart sick.All progress has its consequence.And our children’s...
Neil Beardmore
Cave Paintings, Onuke Kundi,Near Hampi, India Boulders of granite tossed intumbling piles around a flat oasisof date palms hold the plateausafe from intrusion. Camouflaged by the earth’s ochre,a bulge of rock with deer,where men, no longer sticks with sticks,come to...
Kathryn Kimball
The Ghost Magnolia in commemoration of the opening of the National Memorial forPeace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama, April 2018 Give me a ladder to climbthe ghost magnoliaon the corner of Pleasant Avenueto sit there with the sweet fragranceof the foot-wide blossoms...
Lola Haskins
The Perch The glacier on which I stand has become an island.Blue and white as the insides of clouds, it calvesinto the sea which is no longer ice, and the newbeings, the calves, sink slowly, but they sink. The glacier on which I stand is a mystery in whichI used to...
Peter Robinson
Evening Primrose You call me out as the light goesto watch our evening primroselemon-yellow petals splay. With more rain threatened for the weekend,sun come and gone all day,getting ahead of itself againcan a summer remember its springtime?Is it welcoming of autumn?...
Jeanette Burney
The Discoverer Undiscovers 1948 Explorers take a trip to discover Antarctica.They take their leave of household chores.They take boats.They take cameras.Then they take white stretches of Antarctic iceonto film. Adventurers take trips too,to get away from home, and...