Angels and Dogs Poetry Project Series (Part 1)

After announcing and publishing the three winning poems that were rewarded with a special recorded video by Matthew MC Smith, we are keen to begin sharing with you some of the other outstanding work that was submitted to us, and forced us us to reconsider our video competition and create this Angels and Dogs Poetry Project. This post is the first in a series that will be shared over the next month showcasing that work.

Again, No Reason – Becki Hawkes

I like your tattoo I tell the girl in the coffee shop as she makes my third oat
latte of the day. I swear all the young people today have such beautiful tattoos:
intricate briars and black-and-white roses, curled across bodies like shaded
web-fine maps. My own arm has a wonky nautical star that I got for no reason
when I was 18, a bad cover-up of the name Ryan (we were together five months;
haven’t spoken in a decade) and at least fifty criss-crossing ugly scars. People
still stare. I got a butterfly on my left hand when I was 22. Again, no reason. Real
butterflies land on it sometimes. Snatched pools of sun on scissored city scraps
of unmown grass. They lick the salt from my skin, their feet so light I have to hold
my breath, lock my eyes to their patterns, keep checking that they are really there.

Preface to Winter – Gail Thomas

After
kneeling          to plant
fifty     daffodil bulbs
I find them      dug up            scattered
but still           intact
Some critter
mocks my       aching knees   and     lust
for       yellow

Thursday night at the tapas bar – Roger Patulny

Desks and tables pushed away
rumpled jackets pile up
untucked shirts flap staccato

shiny heels stab prosecco into dark colonial floorboards
I watch you shut-eyed, forearms raised
tilting into the guitar

I’m coming sideways my love
down last drinks rolling skins
suck in smoke and bellies for
thirteen minutes of spin

Imaginary Light – Regine Ebner

I find my way home by dust
falling on eaves

lakes of imaginary light and
the shine of starving mountains

I reach for the rattle of thunder
and wild things hiding in weeds

I settle inside the grinning canyon and
squirrel away hope in seamless shafts of daybreak

waiting for the savage morning
to whisper its promises