Religion by Alvin Pang It's always the Big Ideas that get personified: Death, Wisdom, Eternity, their capital letters lining up in the cold marble halls of the unconscious. You can tell by the flowing beard and grand costumed gestures; the banners and fanfare in stanza after stanza of classical poetry, centuries of … Continue reading ‘Religion’ by Alvin Pang
Author: And Other Poems
A poem by Clifford Forde
Sunday Afternoon at the Pictures I remember that beginning in the darkening hall: we country boys, breathless, horses held on a tight rein, those hard-edged chairs in rows and our elbows tucked in; pockets bulging with small apples from the field, our knuckles whitening - ready for the off. The usher with his … Continue reading A poem by Clifford Forde
A poem by Harry Man
Re-entry of the First American in Space Flight of Mercury-Redstone 3, Callsign Freedom 7 Command Pilot: Alan B. Shepherd Jr, May 5th 1961 The poets were wrong: the ocean is not unkillable, the snow is not eternal. The Earth turns in the depths like a cat’s eye limned by a distant headlight. … Continue reading A poem by Harry Man
A poem by Imogen Forster
Damascus, August 2013 The dead lie in neat rows, each wrapped in a shroud bunched above the head, tied with a thick cord, their faces exposed like old John Donne’s in the engraving made for his monument. It’s easy to slide away from the cold fact, mind-wandering in sudden recognition, seeing them as … Continue reading A poem by Imogen Forster
RIP Seamus Heaney 1939 – 2013
Final Wave of Holiday Poems
Swimming Lessons by Allison McVety It rained the whole fortnight, so my father got it into his head to teach me something useful, like how to stretch my body out to crawl from doggy paddle, how to cleave then palm the water, how to skim, how to drive from the shoulder, the chest, the diaphragm, … Continue reading Final Wave of Holiday Poems
New Wave of Poems
24 rue Carnot by Martin Malone This house lolls in a droiling back street. The army-issue blanket of working week sleep is rolled aside for a thousand-egg omelette that duvets dreams of fish and strange meetings. In this bed I drive to Lagrasse to chat to a long dead friend in some doorway; him blue-eyed … Continue reading New Wave of Poems
Another Wave of Holiday Poems
Django Fontina by Rebecca Perry I saw rain in Galilee. I saw rain in Lauterbrunnen. In the Black Forest I saw apple-sized hailstones smash through the windscreens of abandoned cars. In Egypt, from a hot air balloon, I saw a funeral – a body in a white sheet lowered into the sand. In Hong Kong, … Continue reading Another Wave of Holiday Poems
First Wave of Holiday Poems
Manifesto for the First Day of British Summer Time by Anna Kisby Open up like a nest-bird for cherry ice-cream. Wear a pink moustache. Make love to an ant. Dismay at the smudge it becomes. Remember the tree-house. Sweep it of muck. Arrange leaves in size order; weight each one with a squirrel dropping. This … Continue reading First Wave of Holiday Poems
Two poems by Richard O’Brien
National Moth Night The story goes: I’m six or so and stamping on endangered moths, to your embarrassment and the shock of members of the Wildlife Watch. Before or afterwards we stayed up late for badgers, and you picked me up from parties where I drank too much and kept you up past twelve, … Continue reading Two poems by Richard O’Brien
