After * / / /Total/ / / * by Anna Gilmore Heezen *************************************************************************************** Two bags of chips……………………………………………………………….£4.00grabbed unkindly from the man down Caroline Street………………………….£5.00—another regret………………………………….……………………..………£5.00for when you wake up…………………………………………………………..£2.00& forget where you are…………………………………………………………£10.00for the fifth time this week…………………………………………….………£50.00 *************************************************************************************** Ella’s crying a little drunkly……………………………………………………..£3.00& that blue-eyed boy is eyeing you up…………………………………………£15.00or the chips……………………………………………………………………..£4.00you can’t tell……………………………………………………………………£20.00 […]
- Cynthia Miller, ‘Sonnet with lighthouses’, Honorifics (2021)
- Mary Jean Chan, ‘Resolve’, Bright Fear (2023)
- Luís Costa, ‘Harvest’, Two Dying Lovers Holding A Cat (2023)
- Luís Costa, ‘Ascension’, Two Dying Lovers Holding A Cat (2023)
- Jay Whittaker, ‘Why Flaunt It?’, fourteen poems Issue 9 (2022)
- Jack Underwood, ‘I Am Become a Man’, A Year In the New Life (2021)
- Mícheál McCann, ‘Haircut with beard trimmer’, Keeper (2022)
- Remi Graves, ‘Here at the shore’, With Your Chest (2022)
- Jack Cooper, ‘How to dance with hoverflies’, Break the Nose of Every Beautiful Thing (2023)
- Kae Tempest, ‘The actor dreams in character’, Divisible by Itself and One (2023)
- Savannah Brown, ‘The eternity we share’, Sweetdark (2020)
- Savannah Brown, ‘Rarities’, Sweetdark (2020)
- Luís Costa, ‘Good Friday’, Two Dying Lovers Holding A Cat (2023)
- Micheal Pedersen, ‘The Cat Prince’, The Cat Prince & Other Poems (2023)
- Kae Tempest, ‘Pride’, Divisible by Itself and One (2023)
Download a footnoted PDF showing the source authors here.
[post_title] => Portrait of two lovers as poems we have shared [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => portrait-of-two-lovers-as-poems-we-have-shared [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-02-29 13:51:58 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-02-29 13:51:58 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=24738 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => poems [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [meta_data] => stdClass Object ( [wpcf-published-in] => [wpcf-date-published] => 2024 [wpcf-summary-description] => This poem is commended in the Love Poetry Collage Challenge on Young Poets Network. [wpcf-rights-information] => [wpcf-poem-award] => Commended, The Love Poetry Collage Challenge [wpcf_pr_belongs] => ) [poet_data] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24747 [forename] => [surname] => [title] => Caleb Simon [slug] => caleb-simon [content] =>Caleb is a commended poet in the Love Poetry Collage Challenge on Young Poets Network.
) ) [12] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24653 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2024-01-18 12:39:10 [post_date_gmt] => 2024-01-18 12:39:10 [post_content] => What are you? Burning up, moon-faced scar, tucked into the folded corners of the 6 o’clock sky. Little hailstorm, packaged up in a jacket with bleeding roll-up sleeves. You do not belong here. Not with your soft hands covered with roosting moths, their frayed cotton wings falling off you like cobwebs. Not with your face all scrunched- -up, like it is jealous of how meteors can know both the sky and the ground so honestly. No. You do not belong here, strung out against the wash of blues like a clothes wire, a beached plastic cup, your limbs taut, pulled into knots, you, clipped onto your own body with clothes pegs. You cannot belong here. Not until you lose the pretence, promise you will want to be wanted and picture it. Learn to live like the rest of us, a life where the mirror is netted with wire, barbed, where the constellations are shapes that make sense that are familiar. Look at yourself. You’re kidding, right? Get serious. [post_title] => Self-portrait as a sky that does not know you [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => self-portrait-as-a-sky-that-does-not-know-you [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-18 12:39:20 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-18 12:39:20 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=24653 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => poems [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [meta_data] => stdClass Object ( [wpcf-published-in] => [wpcf-date-published] => 2024 [wpcf-summary-description] => This poem is a winner in the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network. [wpcf-rights-information] => [wpcf-poem-award] => Winner, The Self-Portrait Challenge [wpcf_pr_belongs] => ) [poet_data] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24662 [forename] => [surname] => [title] => Amelie Simon [slug] => amelie-simon [content] =>Amelie is a winner of the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network.
) ) [13] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24652 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2024-01-18 12:38:43 [post_date_gmt] => 2024-01-18 12:38:43 [post_content] => My new face is wide open like a bucket; Like the flat half of a cut apple. Broad shoulders for a girl, crescents of sweat in the folds of a Hollister t-shirt. The hands that pick sawdust from my jodhpurs are mealy and pink, with glitter polish on only some fingers. Ropeburn between the right index and thumb. Small studs in my lobes the shape of horseshoes, ̶f̶o̶r̶m̶e̶r̶l̶y̶ ̶s̶h̶o̶e̶s̶. Last summer we mastered the art of losing. The few rosettes over the mirror say Special and Placed and are wrong colours: purple, say, or yellow. In the pictures I am smiling. Hair like soaked hay. Flat, puppyish teeth. I flex my toes experimentally. Argyle training socks have made diamond impressions on the skin of my calves. I try to imagine the feeling of boots; stirrups. Of riding through green pasture and not knowing to be hungry. [post_title] => A Horse Swaps Bodies With His Rider, and Goes Home to Her Childhood Bedroom [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => a-horse-swaps-bodies-with-his-rider-and-goes-home-to-her-childhood-bedroom [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-18 12:38:52 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-18 12:38:52 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=24652 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => poems [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [meta_data] => stdClass Object ( [wpcf-published-in] => [wpcf-date-published] => 2024 [wpcf-summary-description] => This poem is a winner in the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network. [wpcf-rights-information] => [wpcf-poem-award] => Winner, The Self-Portrait Challenge [wpcf_pr_belongs] => ) [poet_data] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24664 [forename] => [surname] => [title] => Beth Simcock [slug] => beth-simcock [content] =>Beth is a winner of the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network.
) ) [14] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24651 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2024-01-18 12:06:20 [post_date_gmt] => 2024-01-18 12:06:20 [post_content] => Content warning: disordered eating so tell me about getting ready / about daisy chokers / jade rollers / silk pillows / button nose / proportional lips / glossy skin / text message: how can I look photogenic / inspections in the mirror / tighten the necklace clasp / red etched on the neck / a dark mole protruding on my cheek / a month-old cyst on my forehead / petals pouring out my mouth / dropping to the floor / in gentle jingles / hair in knots / a trickle of lemon juice on my cheek / earrings in the hotel sink, gone / searching for a shimmer / I want to travel and never get lost / I want to live and never lose / radiance so tell me about getting ready / about gemstones for breakfast / and a side of cucumbers / on a porcelain plate / the spoon ridge clinking against the edge / search history: hourglass figure / I slash a pomegranate / lifeless on the marble countertop / my nails and teeth / dig out the sticky aril / bite into its numbing sourness / nausea entering the stomach / repressing a wave of anxiety / until it swims / up my throat / hungry for slimness / I run to the bathroom / bending into pleas / inhale and my waist shrinks / skin pushing against the sharp rib / cage so tell me about getting ready / a tiara from Disney World, broken / I watch a ballerina on pointe / and little pink blisters / under her ribbon slippers / brush my teeth with affirmations / I will be beautiful / if anything / let me be young and carefree / where a dream isn’t met with impossibility / before, girlhood was a magical kingdom / my smile / empowering / instead of a necessity / an act of pretending / back then, the last thing on my mind was / my body / pretty cry silver tears / stifle down gasps and / repeat you're fine, you’re / fine and I tell myself / getting ready is / ready is / ready [post_title] => self-portrait as “grwm: 5 am morning routine” [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => self-portrait-as-grwm-5-am-morning-routine [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-18 12:37:46 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-18 12:37:46 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=24651 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => poems [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [meta_data] => stdClass Object ( [wpcf-published-in] => [wpcf-date-published] => 2024 [wpcf-summary-description] => This poem is a winner in the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network. [wpcf-rights-information] => [wpcf-poem-award] => Winner, The Self-Portrait Challenge [wpcf_pr_belongs] => ) [poet_data] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24321 [forename] => [surname] => [title] => Chelsea Zhu [slug] => chelsea-zhu [content] =>Chelsea is a commended poet in the Peace and Quiet Challenge and a winner of the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network.
) ) [15] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24650 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2024-01-18 12:06:03 [post_date_gmt] => 2024-01-18 12:06:03 [post_content] =>I’m curing my dysphoria
by drawing little hearts
instead of dotting every i
my gender is a fire-resistant pillow case
fairy lights strung up in a windowless room
a graphic novel translated into braille
I’m a synth arpeggio
covered by a string quartet
horsehair stroking catgut
earwig-made holes on a chard leaf
in a free box of vegetables
from a community centre
my gender is a blown-up photo
of purple-skinned onions
on the side of a Tesco I haven’t shoplifted from yet
I’m a middle-aged woman
trying out tasteful
sideboob for the first time
a femme fatale waiting
for an appointment at jobcentre
after assassination has gone out of style
my gender is a game
of connect four
where all the counters are the same colour
I’m a reversible fleece
that’s never been
turned inside out
I felt like a brick wall
with vanilla icing for cement
now I’m the palette knife they used when building me
Harper is a winner of the Self-Portrait Challenge and the Here and Now Challenge, run in partnership with the Museum of Youth Culture, on Young Poets Network.
) ) [16] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24657 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2024-01-12 16:04:50 [post_date_gmt] => 2024-01-12 16:04:50 [post_content] =>Holidays to Cornwall, holding hands
on hot metal benches. You cartwheeling
around me. Me watching in awe.
And when you tell me it’s easy, I fall
and you lie with me in the cool, long grass,
and silent, we watch the clouds drift over us.
We graffiti our names together
in the powdery sand, forgetting the inevitable tide
will take our love far out to sea.
Later, our sleeping bags rustling at our 9pm
midnight feast, we giggle in whispers, never tired
of sharing snacks and sticky secrets.
10-mile walks, through moss-carpeted woods
cos it’s what you love. Slouching on the living-room floor,
Moomins boxset on repeat, cos it’s what I love.
That sleepover on New Year’s Eve.
You cackling as I joke about being gay,
but still leaning in to kiss me as fireworks
burst across the sky. The deafening cry
of Happy New Year! And, for the first time,
me understanding what that means.
Hot chocolates – at the Manchester Road Costa,
weekday mornings before school.
Black forest for me, caramel cream for you.
That boy in science class asking are you
lesbians? and you saying no, course not,
that’s gross. You on a different bus home.
Ez (they/them) is a commended poet in the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network.
) ) [17] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24656 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2024-01-10 17:28:03 [post_date_gmt] => 2024-01-10 17:28:03 [post_content] =>Tonight my mother took off my makeup.
She sat me down, pulled out a makeup wipe,
And tilted my chin towards the light—
I pulled my head back. She began to wipe away my
Concealer, mascara, eyeliner, my lipstick.
She revealed my dark circles, burgundy bruises
That bled out across my orbital bones. Matching eye bags
With my mother, we both carry our troubles in the same place.
I scorn myself for letting hers become heavier.
She tries to wipe the blush off my cheeks,
But it is a perpetual tinge that I can never seem to shake,
And she smiles at this. Next, the stubborn mascara darkens my
Brown eyes. I think they’re just brown, but they remind
My mother of her own mother, who seems so far away now.
She says I look just like her mother, and I wonder if that’s why
She rarely looks me in the eyes. Lipstick encrusts the peeling
Skin of my lips and I bite it away as I've done as a child, so
That my lips were always red and raw and so that it
Stung to smile. This time I don’t smile, and I find it still hurts.
There is no more makeup on my face,
And yet the world doesn’t end,
And my mother is still here
Loving me, in ways I cannot understand.
Sophie is a commended poet in the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network.
) ) [18] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24655 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2024-01-10 17:27:24 [post_date_gmt] => 2024-01-10 17:27:24 [post_content] =>that i don't know what i'm writing.
self-portrait aware that nobody here
knows what i’m spilling on my page
is nonsense. self-portrait with me
scribbing faster and faster to purge
an inner sea-sickness, like the climax
of beethoven's pathétique sonata, which
doesn’t feel pathetic at all while i’m dramatically
doodling into white space. self portrait
where i remember why i started, my wrist
beginning to ache, my dinner going cold,
throat closing up in protest. self-portrait
being honest about how behind the poor
handwriting and forgotten capitals, i feel
empty as a bagless bin, an airless balloon,
a summer day without the sun, that nothing
i’ve done, can do, or will do, could ever
have any impact bigger than my insignificant,
ant-sized and futile existence. self-portrait
attempting to express how i've been
for too long, attempting to convey the paralysis
of future-thinking, a poorly written, waste
of paper, scribbled down and scrunched up.
self-portrait that could never fully explain itself.
a waste of my time, and now yours
self-portrait admitting,
i don't know how to redraw it.
Jack is a commended poet in the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network.
) ) [19] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24686 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2024-01-10 11:58:14 [post_date_gmt] => 2024-01-10 11:58:14 [post_content] =>[This poem is a concrete poem that, in the second half, becomes a contrapuntal and thus can be read either as one whole poem or in two separate columns.]
Kyla is a commended poet in the Self-Portrait Challenge on Young Poets Network.
) ) [20] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24543 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2023-12-06 17:11:25 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-06 17:11:25 [post_content] =>Nature is a mother indeed.
How else could I begin to explain her warm embrace?
She takes me into her arms and carefully places me onto her lap..
She rocks her antique stool gently, so as to put me to sleep.
Her parted lips concoct a breeze so soft, it caresses what's left of my hair.
She sings…
with the melody of a mockingbird and her hadada ibis fierceness.
It's a symphony that I, too, feel a part of.
Her daughter's stems are the colour of my skin…
Her hair, the colour of my blood.
Green, yes.
I, too, am full of life.
So abundant that her mother has to sit me down
and remind me who I am.
Finally, she brushes her burnt out lips on the surface of my cheek.
I hear every pause in between her breaths…
Each break longer than the one prior…
She whispers.
"Oh sweet child"
She continues…
"What a weighty heart you carry"
She places a peck down the nape of my neck…
"But don't you worry…"
"I cause havoc and cry too, it doesn't make you any less witty"
I gasp.
"But that is the price to pay for all this beauty"
[post_title] => Not Sonnet 23 [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => not-sonnet-23 [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-03-21 10:55:14 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-03-21 10:55:14 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=24543 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => poems [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [meta_data] => stdClass Object ( [wpcf-published-in] => [wpcf-date-published] => 2023 [wpcf-summary-description] => This poem is the first-prize Africa winner of the Peace and Quiet challenge on The Poetry Society's Young Poets Network in 2023. This challenge was set by poet Oluwaseun Olayiwola and asked young poets worldwide to write about cultivating peace, as part of a wider Poetry and Peace project created in partnership between The Poetry Society and Japan Institute of Portland Japanese Garden. The Africa-based winners of this challenge premiered their winning poems alongside a new commission by Siphokazi Jonas on 4 December at the Peace Symposium held in Johannesburg, South Africa. This was the fourth of six Peace Symposia by Japan Institute of Portland Japanese Garden, which will visit every continent between 2022 and 2024. [wpcf-rights-information] => [wpcf-poem-award] => 1st prize (Africa), Peace and Quiet Challenge [wpcf_pr_belongs] => ) [poet_data] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24496 [forename] => [surname] => [title] => Deity Ajna [slug] => deity-ajna [content] =>Deity is the first-prize winner in the Peace and Quiet Challenge on Young Poets Network in 2023.
) ) [21] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24544 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2023-12-06 17:11:05 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-06 17:11:05 [post_content] =>Josh invites me for dinner at his house
and the first thing i notice at the end of the sandalwood table is an antiqued crimson
bowl shedding from its coat.
silence attracts the grotesque bowl and erases its presence amidst the echoes of hollow laughters.
no one wants to touch, pour, sip, wash, rinse from the rusted bowl
laying on the corner of the satin-lace-covered dinner table.
we all know what is inside the bowl.
we all know that graveyards may hide the skeleton, but the epitaphs
engraved on the tombstone is all the autopsy we need to recreate the dead.
i stare at white Josh and back at the pigment of my forearm.
silence continues to stalk the disgusting bowl,
so i also pretend like it’s not there and
enjoy dinner.
Thato is the second-prize winner in the Peace and Quiet Challenge on Young Poets Network in 2023.
) ) [22] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24545 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2023-12-06 17:08:02 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-06 17:08:02 [post_content] =>I silently appear
before the noisy morning,
a time of my devotion.
I count it ahead
to calm my head,
before the noisy morning.
I tap my back
and strengthen my neck
before the noisy morning.
I bend my will
towards a higher me,
before the noisy morning.
I whisper a song
to my vision board,
before the noisy morning.
I’m well within my rights
to do what pleases my sight,
before the noisy morning.
I am made,
I become,
before the noisy morning.
Sonelise is the third-prize winner in the Peace and Quiet Challenge on Young Poets Network in 2023.
) ) [23] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24553 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2023-12-06 12:27:50 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-06 12:27:50 [post_content] =>A hole in language, through which I fell.
Under the slick back sky of a gutter hole,
a sundered plushie carrot, red as a traffic light.
Stop. Stay here. Don’t go. Snow-cuddle fur
slipping through my calloused fingers,
your eyes round and unblinking against
the roar of time. Leech sucking on the warmth
of your fur, your eyes closing, closing. Shut,
like the gaping mouth of my suitcase, this carrier
of words, tripping down the gravel path
to my uni dorm room. Bloodied knees,
my nose buried in the emptiness that I imagine
to be you. A hole in my sky— the moon.
Its headlight flashing. My parents’ car hurtling
away into the dark. The soft caress of your damp paws—
light from a world another. The past’s cold arms
wrapped around lonely chrysalis bodies, stilling, stilling,
still.
A winner of The Adorable Animals Challenge on Young Poets Network, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore in 2023.
) ) [24] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24528 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2023-12-06 12:26:40 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-06 12:26:40 [post_content] => When I was a baby, I could disappear into his caramel fur like an ice cube on a Summer’s day. There are photos of my chubby arms wrapped around his wide legs, smiling, he uses up most of the cot, but I imagine that made me feel safe. My fuzzy sentinel. But when I grew bigger, I realised he was not cute at all. His glassy eyes, black as burnt toast, were part obscured by his fur, as though he could not even look me in the eye. No shy smile like my zebra, no candy cane tail like my dog that I could suck like a third thumb. And he was too big. Maybe if he was shrunk down to the size of my penguin, with the baby-fist-sized face and the tic tac beak, I would find him much more appealing, but at his scale he felt like another child, maybe one year below me in kinder, none of which were cute. Yuck. And then there was his name. My mum had named him before I could. Willard was cold and colourless like raw meat in the fridge, it did not inspire wild tales of animal quests like Ziggy or exotic weddings like those between Ruff and Pennalina or make me feel warm and cuddly inside like Keffa the kitten and Kimmy the kiwi bird, names that felt like candy in my mouth, sounding as sweet as a rose smells. Willard was displeasing in name and in nature and so, I ignored him for years, well supplied with alternatives until one day, I, now triple his size, found him in a photo, then in a box in the garage, clothed quietly in dust, and I brought him to the kitchen table. Why did you name him Willard? I asked my mum. It was the last name of the lady who had gifted him to me, she had been pregnant alongside my mum but her baby never grew big enough. I wondered whether Willard was meant to be for them. Maybe they would have loved him longer and I think his blackberry eyes would have sparkled and his big marshmallow face would have smiled and his name have been something entirely different if he had been given the chance to safeguard them, Earth-side. [post_title] => Willard [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => willard [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-12 16:05:37 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-12 16:05:37 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=24528 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => poems [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [meta_data] => stdClass Object ( [wpcf-published-in] => [wpcf-date-published] => 2023 [wpcf-summary-description] => This poem is a winner in the Adorable Animals Challenge on Young Poets Network, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore. [wpcf-rights-information] => [wpcf-poem-award] => Winner, The Adorable Animals Challenge [wpcf_pr_belongs] => ) [poet_data] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24506 [forename] => [surname] => [title] => Ashleigh Dowling [slug] => ashleigh-dowling [content] =>A winner of The Adorable Animals Challenge on Young Poets Network, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore in 2023.
) ) [25] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24527 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2023-12-06 12:25:20 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-06 12:25:20 [post_content] =>i plough pathways in the dirt, and i
i braid breath into the soil, and i
i massage the mud and loosen its muscles, and i
i feed and repair and rear the earth.
but because i don’t have orb-shaped eyes, and i
i don’t have fluff and fur and fuzz, and i
i can’t squeak or squeal or mew, and i
i can’t roll around on my velvet chubby back
no one asks about the earthworms, and no one
no one worries if enough of us are left, and no one
no one smiles at our mention, and no one
most of all, no one thinks of how powerfully we safeguard
the gilded clay we swim in beneath your violent feet.
Rohana is the second-prize winner in the Pantun challenge on Young Poets Network, and an overall winner of The Adorable Animals Challenge on YPN, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore in 2023.
) ) [26] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24525 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2023-12-06 12:24:33 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-06 12:24:33 [post_content] => Are you a meteor, tail of rock and ice? Is your heart in your head, little one? A speech bubble darting through green. First words, first steps - you will ink-black your way out soon. Soon, you will leap. But, for now, let your top-heavy love keep you small, here and now. [post_title] => tadpole [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => tadpole [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-12 16:06:44 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-12 16:06:44 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=24525 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => poems [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [meta_data] => stdClass Object ( [wpcf-published-in] => [wpcf-date-published] => 2023 [wpcf-summary-description] => This poem is a winner in the Adorable Animals Challenge on Young Poets Network, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore. [wpcf-rights-information] => [wpcf-poem-award] => Winner, The Adorable Animals Challenge [wpcf_pr_belongs] => ) [poet_data] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 19955 [forename] => [surname] => [title] => Aliyah Begum [slug] => aliyah-begum [content] => Aliyah is commended in the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2017. She is also commended in the Poems to Solve the Climate Crisis Challenge on Young Poets Network, created in partnership with People Need Nature and judged by Louisa Adjoa Parker; the nonsense poetry challenge, in partnership with Little Angel Theatre, London; and the Pantun challenge, which was set and judged by members of the Borneo Bengkel and Wordsmiths of Kuching collectives. Aliyah was the Birmingham Young Poet Laureate 2018-20. She is also an overall winner of The Adorable Animals Challenge on Young Poets Network, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore in 2023. ) ) [27] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24524 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2023-12-06 12:24:02 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-06 12:24:02 [post_content] => He sits on the bed, with huge glittery eyes always staring straight ahead. His fluffy white body is filled with soft cotton, and so are his short hands and legs. In the aquarium, the two strangers cross paths. He observes the real-life version of himself, through a thin piece of glass. It waddles about, black round little eyes so unlike his own. It flaps its flippers and he looks at his own. He knows he cannot move his flippers, for they are stitched in place, bound together by hundreds of stitches. He watches it open its beak to catch fish with grace, yet he stares at his own reflection through the glass in the same space. His own bright yellow beak remains shut, held together by stitches, a fate he cannot evade. He wishes those stitches would have been used to heal his heart’s strife, instead of becoming a symbol of his apathetic, manufactured life. To all who meet him, he is deemed “adorable” without doubt. Yet, he longs for more than mere affection, his true desire lying in freedom’s grace. He wants to break free from the stitches, to waddle to the sea and catch fish, just like all penguins do. [post_title] => Stitches of Longing [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => stitches-of-longing [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2024-01-12 16:07:03 [post_modified_gmt] => 2024-01-12 16:07:03 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=24524 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => poems [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [meta_data] => stdClass Object ( [wpcf-published-in] => [wpcf-date-published] => 2023 [wpcf-summary-description] => This poem is commended in the Adorable Animals Challenge on Young Poets Network, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore. [wpcf-rights-information] => [wpcf-poem-award] => Commended, The Adorable Animals Challenge [wpcf_pr_belongs] => ) [poet_data] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24508 [forename] => [surname] => [title] => Yun Ye Koo [slug] => yun-ye-koo [content] =>A commended poet in The Adorable Animals Challenge on Young Poets Network, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore in 2023.
) ) [28] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24523 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2023-12-06 12:23:04 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-06 12:23:04 [post_content] =>When it passes beneath your feet,
a fragile flicker of life yet lived,
you’ll skip criss-cross on the concrete.
No song sung for silence, no years guaranteed,
a home alight, shell crushed at night, a small thing limp
when it passes beneath your feet.
Sticky trails on bedroom carpets left unaccompanied
by a snail with a home at its back, death only just steered
you’ll skip criss-cross on the concrete.
Men in fields render killing obsolete
gunfire, shellshock, red tender bullets, and your shoe smeared
when it passes beneath your feet.
Read once that snails can be smaller than an inch on a sheet,
on your finger like a freckle, a tiny speck of ink, to treat the dark like silk,
you’ll skip criss-cross on the concrete
and end a life so small and sweet, you promise that next time
when it passes beneath your feet,
you’ll skip criss-cross on the concrete.
A commended poet in The Adorable Animals Challenge on Young Poets Network, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore in 2023.
) ) [29] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24521 [post_author] => 40 [post_date] => 2023-12-06 12:22:32 [post_date_gmt] => 2023-12-06 12:22:32 [post_content] => Pale pink nose peeks out from a hole quivering whiskers follow. Paw steps out in exaggerated slow ness. Then another- Sleek body appears still matt. Another- Bits of fuzz specks of dust paint its waistcoat black. And the last. Sitting primly lifted chin nose in the air smirking softly. Little muffin top perches on leather-brown claws shined till gleaming. Cravat of white fluff overflows his lapels. Head tilts. Ears perk. Nose sniffs. Black-diamond eyes shine bright move from side to side. Long lashes blink blink blink the surprise away. Pouts. Turns tail. Darts back ------- Pink inch left outside ---- -- now out of sight. And from the corner - footsteps - - ~miaow [post_title] => Gentle-mouse [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => closed [post_password] => [post_name] => gentle-mouse [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2023-12-06 12:37:43 [post_modified_gmt] => 2023-12-06 12:37:43 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/?post_type=poems&p=24521 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => poems [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw [meta_data] => stdClass Object ( [wpcf-published-in] => [wpcf-date-published] => 2023 [wpcf-summary-description] => This poem is commended in the Adorable Animals Challenge on Young Poets Network, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore. [wpcf-rights-information] => [wpcf-poem-award] => Commended, The Adorable Animals Challenge [wpcf_pr_belongs] => ) [poet_data] => stdClass Object ( [ID] => 24513 [forename] => [surname] => [title] => Cherie Khoo [slug] => cherie-khoo [content] =>Cherie is commended in The Adorable Animals Challenge on Young Poets Network, set and judged by ecopoet Isabel Galleymore in 2023.
) ) [found_posts] => 1039 )Daisies
By Harper Walton
You’re six and you’ve forgotten your PE kit. You know what this means. Everyone does. You must do the class wearing your vest and no trousers. Just your small white briefs. Looking around the sports hall at thirty other kids in their shorts and trainers, you feel like ______. Everyone’s looking at you. Some seem […]
Turn the Pages
By Michelle Attafi
Aunties aging while midnight working, it’s unfathomableYet Lily May’s resting up in Milan ‘cos it’s fashionable. Brown skin, hard work – that’s just the way it goesBut certain complexions have nepo money at their toes. It’s a legacy, a history, a circus, a mystery“Yes, I speak English fluently.”They want to see the worst in me. […]
The One Where I Definitely Don’t Get Drunk
By Jenna Hunt
Cough in an antique shop sort of way –Determine that despite the coconut fumesVaping is like snorting a line of old clocks – slows time too much – Like inhaling carpet debris as a childBecause Christmas wasn’t for another 7 doorsAnd you’d done everything there was to do – thrice over the quality street –– […]
The Troubles Belong To My Da
By Kaila Patterson
The Troubles are no longer a lingering darknessOnly historic shadows cast along the pathDays of bombs crackling against tired earsAges when orange and emerald blood splattered shattered glass shardsYet stained clarity with one single crimsonThose are the histories belonging to my DaSqueezed inside twisted rubber bullet woundsRivers of tragedy run through my born-shaky veinsYet the […]
Here, Now and Nowhere Else
By Regina Ruggiero
I come from where buildings have egos hiding behind wicked deedsWhere if in every house there is a trade, then there is a pupil: My mother slowly withering away where any relief was futile; At twenty-four on his arms, my father had at least seven mouths to feed: He had no time for […]
Be
By Albert Li
Contains strong language and adult themes
Longing fi romance
By Aphra Le Levier-Bennett
Me darlin love, me lickle dove,Me dumplin, me gizada,The roses long for sunshineAnd rain and cooling dew,flies goes fa sugarAnd love, I goes fa you I long to have you near me,To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,See how me draw de two face-demScented and warm against my beating breast To see your […]
fig.1
By Eva Woolven
why do i love you, sir? / wholly to be a fool / you paint yourself white / you’ll go to hell / ( rave on, darling )/you go off the rails/ . my syntax / my system / i shall be homesick for you even in heaven / and i think […]
Anniversary-Dream
By Kayleigh Jayshree
Clouds are flowering oversea caves made of saltand gold. The stars have wingslike everything else.A marriage unimaginedclose as we’d ever got.We are all afraidyou say. Lovingwhat is easythree white butterfliesstarved flags of surrender. Sources Sylvia Plath ‘The Moon and the Yew Tree’ in Ariel, The Restored EditionNina Mingya Powles ‘Last summer we were underwater’ in Magnolia 木蘭Nina Mingya […]
Fallows
By Sylvie Jane Lewis
after Emily Dickinson’s “A Wounded Deer Leaps Highest”and Sappho’s “Fragment 96” You’re hectic with ecstasy.She eats the stars,the seas. Her bloodis blossom. Often herthoughts… pour in gushes,the smitten redder cheek.The wounded deer flowersand unfurls; flower-rich anguish,she is inconstant grace;fallows surrounding the hunter Download a colour-coded PDF showing the source authors here.
Portrait of two lovers as poems we have shared
By Caleb Simon
The first lighthouse is you. A head crowned in the lightness, you, the beginning of spring, now living incessantly, living and loving unashamed. As I focus on ignoring my body in the changing rooms, a starling- blue towel draped over an unlicked wound, the second lighthouse is you […]
Self-portrait as a sky that does not know you
By Amelie Simon
What are you? Burning up, moon-faced scar, tucked into the folded corners of the 6 o’clock sky. Little hailstorm, packaged up in a jacket with bleeding roll-up sleeves. You do not belong here. Not with your soft hands covered with roosting moths, their frayed cotton wings […]
A Horse Swaps Bodies With His Rider, and Goes Home to Her Childhood Bedroom
By Beth Simcock
My new face is wide open like a bucket; Like the flat half of a cut apple. Broad shoulders for a girl, crescents of sweat in the folds of a Hollister t-shirt. The hands that pick sawdust from my jodhpurs are mealy and pink, with glitter polish on only some fingers. Ropeburn between the right […]
self-portrait as “grwm: 5 am morning routine”
By Chelsea Zhu
Content warning: disordered eating so tell me about getting ready / about daisy chokers / jade rollers / silk pillows / button nose / proportional lips / glossy skin / text message: how can I look photogenic / inspections in the mirror / tighten the necklace clasp / red etched on the neck / a […]
Okay, If You Really Want to Know
By Harper Walton
I’m curing my dysphoriaby drawing little heartsinstead of dotting every i my gender is a fire-resistant pillow casefairy lights strung up in a windowless rooma graphic novel translated into braille I’m a synth arpeggiocovered by a string quartethorsehair stroking catgut earwig-made holes on a chard leafin a free box of vegetablesfrom a community centre my […]
Self-portrait with you
By Ez Heller
Holidays to Cornwall, holding handson hot metal benches. You cartwheelingaround me. Me watching in awe. And when you tell me it’s easy, I falland you lie with me in the cool, long grass,and silent, we watch the clouds drift over us. We graffiti our names togetherin the powdery sand, forgetting the inevitable tidewill take our […]
Makeup
By Sophie Sutherland
Tonight my mother took off my makeup.She sat me down, pulled out a makeup wipe,And tilted my chin towards the light—I pulled my head back. She began to wipe away myConcealer, mascara, eyeliner, my lipstick.She revealed my dark circles, burgundy bruisesThat bled out across my orbital bones. Matching eye bagsWith my mother, we both carry […]
self-portrait with a confession
By Jack Turner
that i don’t know what i’m writing.self-portrait aware that nobody hereknows what i’m spilling on my pageis nonsense. self-portrait with mescribbing faster and faster to purgean inner sea-sickness, like the climaxof beethoven’s pathétique sonata, whichdoesn’t feel pathetic at all while i’m dramaticallydoodling into white space. self portraitwhere i remember why i started, my wristbeginning to […]
Self-portrait as City Lanternfly
By Kyla Guimaraes
[This poem is a concrete poem that, in the second half, becomes a contrapuntal and thus can be read either as one whole poem or in two separate columns.]
Not Sonnet 23
By Deity Ajna
Nature is a mother indeed. How else could I begin to explain her warm embrace? She takes me into her arms and carefully places me onto her lap.. She rocks her antique stool gently, so as to put me to sleep. Her parted lips concoct a breeze so soft, it caresses what’s left of my […]
Unwelcome Guest
By Thato Tshukudu
Josh invites me for dinner at his houseand the first thing i notice at the end of the sandalwood table is an antiqued crimsonbowl shedding from its coat. silence attracts the grotesque bowl and erases its presence amidst the echoes of hollow laughters.no one wants to touch, pour, sip, wash, rinse from the rusted bowllaying […]
Before the Noisy Morning
By Sonelise Jonginamba
I silently appearbefore the noisy morning,a time of my devotion. I count it aheadto calm my head,before the noisy morning. I tap my backand strengthen my neckbefore the noisy morning. I bend my willtowards a higher me,before the noisy morning. I whisper a songto my vision board,before the noisy morning. I’m well within my rightsto […]
Bunny
By Rucha Virmani
A hole in language, through which I fell.Under the slick back sky of a gutter hole,a sundered plushie carrot, red as a traffic light.Stop. Stay here. Don’t go. Snow-cuddle furslipping through my calloused fingers,your eyes round and unblinking againstthe roar of time. Leech sucking on the warmthof your fur, your eyes closing, closing. Shut,like the […]
Willard
By Ashleigh Dowling
When I was a baby, I could disappear into his caramel fur like an ice cube on a Summer’s day. There are photos of my chubby arms wrapped around his wide legs, smiling, he uses up most of the cot, but I imagine that made me feel safe. My fuzzy sentinel. But when I grew […]
lowly organised creatures
By Rohana Khattak
i plough pathways in the dirt, and ii braid breath into the soil, and ii massage the mud and loosen its muscles, and ii feed and repair and rear the earth. but because i don’t have orb-shaped eyes, and ii don’t have fluff and fur and fuzz, and ii can’t squeak or squeal or mew, […]
tadpole
By Aliyah Begum
Are you a meteor, tail of rock and ice? Is your heart in your head, little one? A speech bubble darting through green. First words, first steps – you will ink-black your way out soon. Soon, you will leap. But, for now, let your top-heavy […]
Stitches of Longing
By Yun Ye Koo
He sits on the bed, with huge glittery eyes always staring straight ahead. His fluffy white body is filled with soft cotton, and so are his short hands and legs. In the aquarium, the two strangers cross paths. He observes the real-life version of himself, through a thin piece of glass. It waddles about, black […]
Elegy for a Snail
By Chloe England
When it passes beneath your feet,a fragile flicker of life yet lived,you’ll skip criss-cross on the concrete. No song sung for silence, no years guaranteed,a home alight, shell crushed at night, a small thing limpwhen it passes beneath your feet. Sticky trails on bedroom carpets left unaccompaniedby a snail with a home at its back, […]
Gentle-mouse
By Cherie Khoo
Pale pink nose peeks out from a hole quivering whiskers follow. Paw steps out in exaggerated […]