The Friday Poem archive

A Portrait of my Father in the Public Bar of the Royal Arms

by David Lukens — Thin but not gaunt – that came later when the cancer did its stuff. / Just now he's on top of his game. The face ...

by Rachel Burns — and my brother in the kitchen / arguing with dad over who’s making the brew / and how to work the hob to reheat stew ...

by Jonathan Humble — Sir Isaac Newton delivered an apple pie the other day. / Wanted to give it to my dog Derek / as a token of thanks ...

by Matthew Bullen — I’m sitting in a rough deck chair / in a tiny gravel park on the edge / of what the city calls its town square / for the arts ...

by Victoria Gatehouse — When he doesn’t respond to my call / I leave the path, push bracken aside / to find him rolling on badger pelt ...

by A. A. Gunther — Let them depend on me for once, I think. / I’ll buy their drinks. Get them the round for free, / Let them depend on me ...

by Michael P. Aleman — In Chicago during the 1950’s / my mother’s clothesline was a study in white / (or grayish white, to be accurate) ...

by Richard Meier — How Lazarus reacted / St. John does not record. / I wonder if, like me — / after I saw that woman / who took away the pain ...

by Ian Seed — I was woken by a tapping on the window. / When I opened the curtain, I saw a small girl / with her palms on the glass ...

by Maria Castro Dominguez — My son sails the Mediterranean / and sends me a photo of a sextant from the deck: / mythical and modern ...

by Pam Zinnemann-Hope — Here I am, walking up Pope’s Hill / on the tarmac track. / It’s a cold January day, / the track’s very steep ...

by Robert Halleck — Feltes Motors searchlight scans the sky. / Mid August, rain coming soon. / Children’s holes to China left from the day ...