• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
The Friday Poem

The Friday Poem

A poem every Friday

  • The Frip
  • About
    • Masthead
    • Contributors
  • FAQ
  • Archive
    • Search the archive
    • Friday Poems
    • Reviews
    • Features
  • Subscribe
  • Submit

The Friday Poem archive

The Biddy Boys

by Frank Dullaghan — Three times I called from outside. / Being the eldest girl, I was tasked to do so. / I bid them kneel and then entered / with an armful of rushes from the marsh, / which I heaped by the wall. / We prayed to St. Brigid, had a big pot

Continue readingThe Biddy Boys

Evolution

by Colm Scully — These days I remember things that never happened; / how the world was won / by us, through our evolution, / winning each fitness battle that we fought. // How we changed just the right amount / at just the right time

Continue readingEvolution

The Instrument

by Andrew Neilson — I dreamt the body was an instrument / and lay as such, beneath a great black lid. / As I waited, subdued in that antique air, / dust gathered on the inward machinery – / the wrest pins and hammers, the tension of strings

Continue readingThe Instrument

The Break

by Tim Goldstone — You see them from the village / only as tiny silhouetted off grid figures / high on the exposed ridge / bending straightening bending / all day long / patching holes / in crumbling dry stone walls, / hot coffee-splutters

Continue readingThe Break

Softwood

by Philip Hancock — Two lengths of inch and a half / by a quarter, stacked one on top of the other, / planed: no splinters, no need to tape or tie them. / In one hand seems the natural way / to carry them – no bother. // Impossible to say how they come

Continue readingSoftwood

Escape

by Rachel Burns — Suddenly, I’ve time warped like in that German TV show / where everyone listens to cool eighty tunes on a Walkman. // I’m fifteen again, sat on the top of the double decker / with best friend, Kat. Look, we are sharing a long menthol

Continue readingEscape
Black text on white reads ‘Sisters, by Karen Smith’ with a Friday Poem yellow blob at the far right top corner.

Sisters,

by Karen Smith — there are ways to protect yourselves / from the perils of quickening in these / days of proscription. After the event, hold // your breath, sit with your knees bent /
and sneeze out the seed, or prior / plug yourself with nettle leaves

Continue readingSisters,
Black text on white reads ‘Chapwench by Jay Whittaker’ with a Friday Poem yellow blob at the far right hand end over the last few letters of the word ‘Whittaker’.

Chapwench

by Jay Whittaker — Where do I start? / Not with the gut punch, / all my father said / after I came out. //
I’ve deleted his slander from this page. / I choose not to repeat it. / Didn’t he apologise? / Don’t I have the last word? // It was the argument

Continue readingChapwench
Black text on white reads ‘Buggy Baby by Rowan Bell’ with a Friday Poem yellow blob over the far right hand corner.

Puggy Baby

by Rowan Bell — Dear Daddy, I love you so much / but I don’t want you to come / to my pre-wedding party. You’ll be / there at the lunch, so you mustn’t be glum. // You can go home on the train / and spend a few moments alone / in Tavistock Square

Continue readingPuggy Baby
Black text on white reads ‘More friendly, more humble than a bird by Nell Prince’ with a Friday Poem yellow blob in the top right hand corner like a little sun.

More friendly, more humble than a bird

by Nell Prince — The early light is wooly blue / and comes with a buzz: outside / the room a single bee assumes / a sonic prominence, sounds large // against the dusty silences. / It gives the quiet day

Continue readingMore friendly, more humble than a bird
Black text on white reads ‘Ping by Martyn Crucefix’ with a Friday Poem yellow blob over the word ‘Ping’.

Ping

by Martyn Crucefix — I will talk of course / but mostly I listen / and at lunchtime / snowflakes crashing down // onto London tarmac / though you’d hardly / call this snow / perhaps even sleet // yet something more / fleecy than hailstones / is making

Continue readingPing

Muscle memory

by Richard Meier — A wide, blank beach in northeast Norfolk, / my young son learning frisbee throws. // A backhand, arrowed from his checkered breast pocket. / A second like it, only one which reaches // the other thrower slower, stalls, / to

Continue readingMuscle memory
  • Previous
  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to page 5
  • Go to page 6
  • Next

Site Footer

MENU

  • About us
  • FAQ
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Mentions Légales
  • THE FRIP

    The Frip is The Friday Poem’s reviews and features magazine. We run book reviews, profiles, interviews, essays, lyric essays and other features of interest to poets and readers of poetry. Read the Frip here.

    NEWSLETTER

    Why not sign up for our monthly newsletter and never miss a Friday Poem again? Pop your email address in the box and click the button.

    Copyright © 2023 · The Friday Poem · All Rights Reserved · follow the Friday Poem on Twitter · follow the Friday Poem on Facebook · ISSN  2968-7675 follow the Friday Poem follow the Friday Poem on