Friday Poems
Protection
by Helena Nelson — You need to understand the context. / There’s an English verb: ‘to be in mourning’ / and it applies to me and I am in it. / I’m in mourning for my sister who has died / so when they talk about 'women in mourning' / I relate to that.
I’ll Know I’ve Made It When Going to a LongHorn Steakhouse on a Sunday Evening in the Dead of Winter Doesn’t Depress the Hell Out of Me
by Christine Naprava — There’s tremendous hurt / in knowing / that in this booth / I will never be complete.
Eventually
by Michael Laskey — yes, she gave up conversation. / She’d lift her chin and finger / her neck, feeling for the stoma — / her trial and almost always error — / to seal it tightly enough to speak // intelligibly in that growling / voice which sounded like
Folio
by Sharon Black — Hard to tell if these are my words / on wood pulp pressed to paper / or the tree’s own testimony. // Take this fallen leaf. Our veins are / indistinguishable. They snake and crisscross / under
Studley Royal Water Gardens Temple of Fame
by Sue Burge — When they peeled the dome / from the damaged temple // it was full of honey, oozing / down the columns like sweet candlewax //
the workmen’s hands slathered / as if they were desperate bears
What the owl said to me
by Annie Fisher — I blink, therefore I am. / The moon and stars despise your crude chronology. / The skylark’s ecstasy is the sparrowhawk’s breakfast. // If you're scared of the dark, don't sleep in the forest.
About the Building
by Paul Stephenson — The entry says it’s homely in style, / double-fronted and two-storied / with gable dormer windows in the roof. / It refers to brick quoins and brick surrounds, / two large chimneys, one either side
Everything You Always Wanted To Know
by Mark Granier — At 15, I found Burt Reynolds in my mothers bed, / stowed under her pillow in a Cosmo centrefold. // Impossibly hairy, recumbent on a bearskin rug
Revelations 01/01/2022
by Jane Burn — try harder lose weight skim the weight from your clumsy bones / make a bit more of an effort get fit this is a new start forget / all the empty promises grow your hair vow yourself amazing
Observation
by Nicola Sealey — ‘I like a look of Agony, / Because I know it’s true — Emily Dickinson // I have noticed / when I am gripped and wrung / by agony, and manage / to catch its distilled drops // in a poem
Elephants
by Lorna Dowell — at heart we’re all elephants / compelled to cluster over the bones / of our lost kind we’re all kin / when it comes to grieving / though some choose to forget /
how we fall silent / when crying
Song
by Martin Edwards — As you walk it becomes clear / that the far mountains / will never get /
any nearer. // Although you started out early, / walking briskly and singing / songs about the lands / beyond