Category: Poetry

Poetry

Embryonic Scavenger

By Olivia Petrini

in the morning I know myself best

my shoulders light and sliding

from the iridescent walls

stretching limbs to trace the

embossed red contours of the map

and you, across the way.

we could criss-cross, you know.

collide, the embryonic scavenger,

tiny neanderthal with a mallet

in one hand,

a stone grasped tightly in the other

staggers over flints like a rock-hopper

to the tangled white arms

which glint up from the sea.

I untangle myself from your embrace

to clamber over the slick roof tiles

and perch at the peripheries

senseless by the lazy messes

of the afternoon.

we advance along the beach

the sunlight bleaching our eyes

a civil orange, rolled between

both palms you cast into the

sky and back again with a

thud

which might once have been a moon

now scatters the bully-rooks

loose from their briar

up into black trees

and once again we retire to

the shadowed nooks of the night.

Poetry

Sonnet for Winter’s First Frost

Post author By Woody Jeffray
Post date November 27, 2024
No Comments on Sonnet for Winter’s First Frost

By Woody Jeffay

Winter’s maiden frost clouds up my window

Through drawn blinds, dulled sun caresses my face

Outside icy grass crunches soft below

Winter’s presence announced with such cool grace

I’m awoken from autumnal slumber

From the depths of sleepy October hush

To mild morning air and misty splendour

The echoless chirp of a lonesome thrush

I stop and watch as she glides above me

Effortlessly she drifts with the wind’s will

Bound to nothing but air, she seems so free

And I swear, in this moment all is still

Stark-blind and cold there’s a peace in the air

The winter sun warms my soul – all is fair

Poetry

Slug

By Esme Bell

Like shame, you stop me sick:

Heaving at your foot, damp sickle

By my feet – who turn away, afraid.

But you, unlike me, can write in silver;

and what plains are forged,

and acres tended, and quiet empires

felled by you, unshelled warrior.

Naked bodkin, singular em dash –

command your line, your road. A car

threatens, and like a dare, you stay.

I won’t think of the wet starburst,

your treasure gorged and spilt as

guts, sharing now with the sky.

I will walk instead around, and keep

an eye open for hedgehogs.

Poetry

Prayer for October

By Saoirse Pira

On the bank of the river in

early October, I fall fast

and in love with Living.

It is a prayer–

when I fall to my knees

in the grass, when

the trees dance in the wind,

and the woods sound like waves.

I pray there for plenty. For

so much sun, for something to love

like the bank loves the bluebells

and the water-mint. To care because

I can, to love because I must.

When I die, as I know I will–

let it be here, let it be

like this. With the wind in

the trees and the dance like the

waves. Let it be kind.

I can only be as gentle as

A prayer on my knees by the river.

Poetry

Nighttime poem

By Madeline Harding

Tonight my sadness has a sound,

It seems to fill my nose and mouth,

Seeping in and drowning out,

The world as it’s known to be.

Darkness wears me like a shroud,

Soaked and wet it pulls me down.

To my feelings I am bound.

I want to get back to me.

Poetry Uncategorized

Ode to the End of the World

Post author By Saoirse Pira
Post date October 21, 2024
No Comments on Ode to the End of the World

Ode to the End of the World

The road is long,

it arches softly like the back

of a cat on a hot day

basking in the sun

and I think we’re lost.

The sun is setting

or maybe it’s the middle of the

day, but the birds —

they are awfully quiet.

I think the trees are

drowning and the dust

is hurting my eyes

but you can hold my hand

(please hold my hand)

Time is a slipping like so

much sand through my fingers

my legs are tired our legs

are tired. Come, we should sit down but

I love you and I love you

and that is all there is

The Wind

The leaves are dancing; a waltz

with the Wind in late afternoon.

For a beat they are gentle, then

the Wind missed a step —

she is clumsy, experience can only

teach so much. The leaves don’t seem

to mind, they press on to the sound

of the bell. It tolls in the distance,

and the Wind finds her footing,

if only to tell the leaves of Her stories

— of children playing and lovers

dancing, of the hymns they sing to find

their God

but they do not know (and for this,

the Wind laughs) that their God is all around them;

hiding in the whisper of the Wind

for this is her very own hymn —

in the dance of the leaves,

and the beat of the waves as they find

the shore, again and again and again.

Quiet now, the Wind slows her waltz

and whispers something for

only the leaves to make out.

It can be only love, truth be told.

This is all she knows to do.

Ode to a Home I Do Not Have

Four walls, a table and two chairs the

doors make do with the hinges —

they laugh, but it sounds,

to the untrained ear, like a creek.

A fire burns somewhere off-stage,

they can’t quite tell if it’s the

mantle or the heart of the girl

upstairs.

Regardless, it is warm and

the walls are painted ivory; the

curtains hang in green. A bookshelf

stands tall in the corner, not dusted – but

not unclean. One shelf boasts stamps and

pens and envelopes;

the books are read to be shared.

A cat is stretched out on the floor

by the window — her black fur

kissed brown by the sun.

She would swallow the sun if

she could — I would give it

to her on a plate.

The present and the past meet

in the middle, here. Nothing lasts

forever, but for now feels long enough.

Stay here for now, please.

Come — the kettle is on.

Poetry

A Railway Trilogy

By Rohan Scott

Ticket to Ride

It’s ten past nine.

The morning sun is still cloaked in her clouded gown.

Traipsing up the steps,

Shuffling past weary smokers,

I approach one the petites portes of the colonnade,

Before being swallowed up by Empire frontage.

Now under the canopy of rusting ribs, I am enveloped by a chorus of chatter

Incoherent announcements sound across the hall

My sullen eyes scan as my tired bones creak,

The languor of the morning has been rudely interrupted.

A scene of anxious voyagers unfolds before me:

People scuttle across the floor,

mothers shepherd their children,

tourists trundle their baggage.

The seemingly lost are then soon found,

Whilst the sloth-like are then suddenly forced to scramble.

Amidst this flurry, pressings of caffeine permeate the air,

Mixed in is the buttery waft of pastry.

I pause my senses to interpret the abacus of departures.

Taking directions towards the mooring of the steel serpent

I join the tide of passengers lumbering along this landed jetty

Studying the numbered portals, before reaching my station.

I mind the gap and then unshoulder my effects.

I then squeeze past my newfound neighbour,

And nestle into seat 643.

Rolling Anaesthesia

Upon the timetabled minute, the iron horse gracefully shunts out of her vaulted burrow.

She ambles through industrial edifices, trots by postcard scenes before building to a gallop.

Metropolitan facades begin to flicker until they dissolve out of sight.

Suburbia is swiftly replaced by the visual delights of rolling pasture.

My eyes sift through darting morsels:

Grazing livestock and hedgerows.

Winding becks and solitary oaks.

Church spires and cookie cutter clouds.

The motion picture of countryside, an optical lullaby that soothes the insatiable mind –

One last blink, then I am lulled asleep

Crossing the Thar

I peel my arm away from my vinyl bed

Glued by sweat,

The swelter keeps me in a permanent state of damp.

Triggered by an unwelcome touch,

I swat at a fly, palpating on my thigh.

The dry currents of air shunted through my window do little to stave off the heat.

The ever-growing lagoon on my back juxtaposes the barren desert landscape.

My companion drowsy from the scorch, dozes whilst saline beads roll off his brow.

The atmospheric fever holds me down, too weary to read a verse, too sapped to raise a pen.

Even my tepid water tastes of desert sand, it does little to satiate my discomfort.

The inhospitable palomino landscape is scattered with fatigued spinneys of desert shrub.

The wagon rattles through this hellish landscape, inviting those warm gusts.

My awe for this sand swept plain is fickle, soon the character of the intrepid and adventurous

quickly folds.

As I wallow in a pool of sweat, I yearn for modern comforts.

My loathing of this morbid environ grows,

My fantasies blend into hallucinations,

Until I join my companion,

In the realm of the unconscious.

Poetry

October

By Esme Bell

This gold afternoon tastes of crying –

A scalded throat caught in hoar-frost

Breath and last-time wistful sun. Leaves, day,

Year – all wryly clench their trembling chin,

Strong as the sky, who veils her damp eyes

In gulping cloud. Like Persephone,

They know the end: feel the pricking

Of pitiless stars and the canine

Leanness of watchful early dusk.

We walk back under this mourning,

These plaintive funeral jewels –

And we are glad, we say, to reach home.

Poetry

Genesis

By Imogen Harrison

I perch, legs dangling-

toes clenched (to keep my socks and shoes on)

-upon the precipice, the ledge of wet sand

at which light turns to dark, in the haze of dusk.

And all things end. Less of a bang than a whine.

No stranger to endings, I think, they’re

fertile ground if you’re thinking of beginning.

And I watch him work –

really, out of nothing, but that’s hard to imagine,

so I’ll give you a hint;

he’s like a motorbike, headlamp dimming, fading

speeding out of the gloom on the oily asphalt,

glittering with glass and stars; throwing up waves

of almost-creatures in the heaving dust of

ribs and fruit,

clattering and rolling in his wake. Settling.

And the high-rises climb over the horizon,

glittering, getting their bearings –

planting pipes like roots into the earth that keeps

the waters from the waters.

And, watching this, it seems it’s always existed.

The kneading of creation and un-creation –

the crumbling of it all into

universe soup –

can be This:

Poetry

Elegy for a Snail

By Esme Bell

Whorl is a word that should be

Licked. Nutty and round, nearly

Hollow but rich things are tricked

Underneath. Strange, how

Someone so brown can wield such

Silver. You can stroke a garden wall

With one finger and know everything.

An agent of slow truths: what grass

Really feels: how rain doesn’t fall but

Weeps – my eyes, somehow less than

Two, don’t feel like you do. Tell me

Small fresh secrets; smile in the dawn;

And avoid the boot, fat and over-strong.

The day will crack and the air will flay

Into a weal: you can’t even scream under

This new terror, this brazen sky.

Crime is a small word for this large splinter

Of space hard wedged in my shoe,

But the blackbird still cries and

Somewhere, so does the rain.

wayzgoose

wayzgoose

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Archives

Categories