Water lilies We are watching the sun’s slow dive into the Wirral. You want to touch the water-stars of its last light. Soon it will be time for us to separate . Outside this frame of hush that weightless walk back from the Tate — where I had wanted to fall inside the green water … Continue reading Two poems by Michael Brown
Author: And Other Poems
Two poems by Maria Isakova Bennett
Adrift It’s November and half way through the Our Father when Richie lifts his head and slurs ‘Halloween be thy name.’ We serve plates of food – little rescue rafts on an uncertain sea. Even the homeless centre reminds me of you: the way you talked to the man on the street in Dublin, bought … Continue reading Two poems by Maria Isakova Bennett
‘We Prayed for a Man Without a Beard’ by Judy Brown
We Prayed for a Man Without a Beard ‘My Tooth broke today. They will soon be gone. Let that pass I shall be beloved—I want no more’ (Dorothy Wordsworth, Grasmere Journal, Monday 31st June 1802) As the hygienist scrimshaws round my gum I stretch my small mouth wide as horror. She learned on a metal … Continue reading ‘We Prayed for a Man Without a Beard’ by Judy Brown
Two poems by Sheenagh Pugh
Different Corridors A moment ago, while you still slept, they were all in the same story: the ship, your mother, that job you left. Now, as the room comes back, they are beginning to unravel: you catch at a fact, a face, but they slip by, each diminishing down a different corridor, calling round corners … Continue reading Two poems by Sheenagh Pugh
Two poems by Richard Price
A stepladder in a white room A stepladder in a white room – the beginning of an alphabet. That was… forty years ago. That was twenty years ago. That was tomorrow was it? … Continue reading Two poems by Richard Price
‘Clearing Out Mum’ by Julia Webb
Clearing Out Mum It’s like unreeling yards and yards of tangled wire, or finding mice in an attic you never even knew you had. It’s like the wash-off, run-through, bleed-right hours of sorting. It’s like squirreling backwards, or finding yourself back in the town that you spent years getting out of. It’s like a thousand … Continue reading ‘Clearing Out Mum’ by Julia Webb
‘The Cord’ by Maggie Sawkins
The Cord When I thought of what she was carrying I imagined it the colour of silt, and if it had eyes then they were the eyes of a fish long out of water. I imagined it soulless, like a stone (a stone cannot haunt one’s dreams), so that if it was taken from us, … Continue reading ‘The Cord’ by Maggie Sawkins
‘Another box of nipples arrived today’ by Char March
Another box of nipples arrived today The hospital computer’s gone mad – that’s the third box this week. You stick them on the fridge door, the phone, the handle of the kettle. And we laugh. Then you are sick again. This evening you sit in your usual chair in the bloat of chemo, your breath … Continue reading ‘Another box of nipples arrived today’ by Char March
A poem from ‘Sunspots’ by Simon Barraclough
Violet violent as an 'ultra' or inviolate as a saint? The reverbs from a viola playing purple passages. A Parma Violet on your tongue, like the contents of your grandma’s handbag, reminding you that childhood is neither sweet nor sour and never tastes quite right; the elusive umami of mommy and daddy. A triolet … Continue reading A poem from ‘Sunspots’ by Simon Barraclough
Three collage poems by Helen Ivory
Helen Ivory is a poet and assemblage artist. Her fourth Bloodaxe Books collection is the semi-autobiographical Waiting for Bluebeard (May 2013). She has co-edited with George Szirtes In Their Own Words: Contemporary Poets on their Poetry (Salt 2012). She edits the webzine Ink Sweat and Tears and is tutor and Course … Continue reading Three collage poems by Helen Ivory
andotherpoems.com 