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Poetry
A space for poems, spoken pieces, and collections shaped by pressure, memory, fracture, and feeling.
Browse by collection, spoken work, theme, or recency.
Poems that walk the fault lines: grief, rupture, war, urban grit, and the mythic underbelly of the everyday. Expect charged images, stark music, and hard turns that don’t tidy the mess so much as name it.
A surreal speculative poem about a child, erased play, and a bureaucratic world that turns memory, language, and belonging into terms of service.
An image-led poem of a central figure, raised phones and a warm bulb, where the room resists becoming only a collection of frames.
An urban dusk poem where rain, glass and reflected fire turn ordinary office windows into an omen.
A dark free-verse poem about staged emergencies, the need to be needed, and the dangerous intimacy between rescue and control.
A surreal domestic weather poem about inherited damage, damp rooms, and a wall admitting a little sky.
A surreal poem of a woman and a serpent-knot, where darkness becomes a measure of perception, pressure, and withheld light.
A delicate poem of bandaging and shared care, where gauze, blood, roses, and two hands make repair without naming the wound.
A firelit poem of horses, smoke and stone, where riders move through brutal heat and turn spectacle into a hard-earned act of passage.
An electric spiritual poem of a body folded into light, where fear, hurt and repetition are held inside a dark closeness that feels almost like mercy.
A stark poem of hooks, scales and cold witness, where ruin hangs in pale light and survival remains visible even inside brutality.
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A dark flood poem of running ink, drowned stacks and breaking restraint, where withheld grief finally takes up its full weather.
A dark poem of matches, ash and a half-burned ladder, where self-destruction falters long enough to sketch the outline of a door.
A dark speculative poem of rented bodies, cached feeling and a hard reset button, where identity clings after the self is meant to log out.
A contemporary grief poem of parcel lockers, memorial AI messages and a cracked enamel mug, where mourning becomes a ledger of promises, error and release.
A short poem of unplugged silence, shelter light and a pulse returning under dead air, where quiet sparks back into feeling.
A dark poem of bargain, light, and without, holding fear, fracture and survival in view.
A dark poem of paint, lipstick, and red wash, holding fear, fracture and survival in view.
A dark poem of wounded, bells, and cigarettes, holding fear, fracture and survival in view.
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A dark poem of habit, clears, and throat, holding fear, fracture and survival in view.
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A dark poem of phone, face down, and louder, holding fear, fracture and survival in view.
A dark poem of waiting, relearn, and word, holding fear, fracture and survival in view.
A dark poem of ticket, bore, and timings, holding fear, fracture and survival in view.
A dark poem of bikes, howl, and past, holding fear, fracture and survival in view.
A dark poem of barbs, skin, and volunteer, holding fear, fracture and survival in view.
Poetry themes
Each stream gathers poems by mood, music, pressure, and the kind of attention the piece asks for.
Poems that walk the fault lines: grief, rupture, war, urban grit, and the mythic underbelly of the everyday. Expect charged images, stark music, and hard turns that don’t tidy the mess so much as name it.
Editor’s picks and special spotlights: the poems, sequences, and craft notes we think deserve your front-row gaze. Rotating highlights, seasonal themes, and one-off gems that show the range of our community.
Poems grouped by this theme.
Where verse meets melody. Poems arranged as songs, chants, and soundscapes—complete with audio players, lyric sheets, and credits for collaborators. Expect live takes, studio mixes, and experiments that let the poem sing in new registers.
Field notes of the inner and outer world: weather, seasons, land, and the quiet revolutions of thought. Lyrical attention, ecological awareness, and a contemplative pace define this stream.
Wit with teeth. Irony, parody, and mischief aimed at power, pretence, and the status quo. Formal play and punchy line breaks welcome; the laugh should leave a bruise.
Work of resilience and renewal: poems about survival, kinship, faith (in any form), and the long arc of becoming. Clear cadence, steady light, and endings that open rather than preach.
Dream-logic, fabulism, and mythic visitations. Reality bends, symbols speak, and images carry more than one meaning. The goal is wonder and unease in equal measure.
Poetry in isiZulu, alongside careful translations where offered. A home for imagery, izibongo (praise poetry), and contemporary voices that carry rhythm and story. Submissions may appear bilingual to welcome wider readers.
65 entries across poetry.
23 entries across poetry.
1 entries across poetry.
1 entries across poetry.
2 entries across poetry.
1 entries across poetry.
Poetry began here as play with words, fragments, and unlikely connections. Over time it became a record of feeling, then a way of making sense without forcing neat explanations too early.
Some pieces are more instinctive. Some are more controlled. None of them are interested in pretending the human experience arrives tidy.
These poems are not written to hand over a single fixed meaning. They are written to hold image, pressure, contradiction, and the parts of experience that resist summary.
Read them slowly or read them in a rush. Read them in sequence if you want to notice how the voice shifts over time. Read them out of order if you want the cleaner shock of recognition.
If a poem leaves you with a clearer feeling rather than a cleaner answer, it has done its job.
Some poems also live in voice.
Where a spoken version exists, it should feel like an extension of the page rather than a separate performance layer. The voice is there to carry the pressure of the line, not distract from it.
Collections gather poems by atmosphere, season, pressure, or recurring thread.
Enter a collection when you want a more sustained mood than the main archive offers, or when you want to stay with a particular register a little longer.