The Pianist The pianist knows about knuckles. He knows about stones, about pebbles. He knows how to carry his bulk, how to move across shingle as if nothing could buckle his tread. Rings glint on three fingers; enough to stop questions or chip a tooth. The pianist’s suit is sharp, single-breasted; somewhere between charcoal … Continue reading Two poems by Hilaire
Author: And Other Poems
Three poems by Heidi Williamson
Sequence of three poems from Electric Shadow The duty of balance I Incendiary During the Blitz, he said, fire-raisers spat on his street. Aircraft freed their bomblets at altitude, blinding scraps of phosphorus that consumed oxygen to flare, grew as they fell, into scores of fires – beacons for incoming bombers, stowing their … Continue reading Three poems by Heidi Williamson
Two poems by Brian Johnstone
Gable Long gone, those derelict tenements, half-demolished, a row of parlour walls stacked up like sample cards for someone's granny's wallpaper. Their slivers, flapping in the wind, goodbyes. Unlaid, their fires all died, burned shadow black into the grates that stamped each wall with absence, empty as some broken jug which stood once – … Continue reading Two poems by Brian Johnstone
‘Fox on the garden shed roof’ by Fiona Moore
Fox on the garden shed roof Considering the insolence the bold-as-brass of you your burdening with cliché how your look is purpose clothed in sand-red fur (like grass discoloured, peed-on! when you took possession of my territory) I stand firm and watch. Which is like war between us, kitchen sink to roof and eye … Continue reading ‘Fox on the garden shed roof’ by Fiona Moore
Three poems by Clare Best
Three poems from Excisions (Waterloo Press 2011) Knowing the prognosis After the third pink gin, a glow like the aura of Christ fills his kitchen, his house. He lunches alone at the table, shrimps downed with Sauternes, but everything hammers and aches. Aspirin, codeine, valium, so beautiful these white stepping stones, the places … Continue reading Three poems by Clare Best
Three poems by Morgan Harlow
Starlings the bird of her life she realized now feeling déjà vu as she watched them chirp their way through the cattail marsh geese honking overhead. Overturning leaves with their dark pointed beaks their heads the iridescent blue of bottle flies their under feathers fan out almost adorably like a yellow Easter chick’s in … Continue reading Three poems by Morgan Harlow
A poem by Harry Man
Ultrasound The white artery of your spine hovers beneath a butterfly’s ghost; wings budding into flight twice a second, heartbeat by heartbeat. The isthmus of your foot kicks in the fluid – the pressure of the sensor is ticklish. With the end of his biro the doctor circles your magnified hand gloved in light … Continue reading A poem by Harry Man
‘Before Her Diagnosis’ by Marie Naughton
Before Her Diagnosis you didn’t know it, but you felt like that smug bastard, the biblical one who built the house on solid ground. Or that other, the bridegroom, blessed with the helpmeet who kept the lamp topped up with oil. You didn’t know it was possible to build a house in an hourglass, … Continue reading ‘Before Her Diagnosis’ by Marie Naughton
‘Picturehouse’ by Charlotte Gann
Picturehouse Darkness is the wave that carries us crashing, crashing onto this beach where scared young girls wander barefoot, dressed in pale vests, move like dancers with thumb-bruised arms. Darkness is the wave that plunges us, lank-haired and middle-parted, always staring straight ahead at a family man gone bad/ loner with a grudge/ blinds lit … Continue reading ‘Picturehouse’ by Charlotte Gann
A poem by David Pollard
Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) [With Bandaged Ear, Oil on Canvas, 1889, Courtauld Institute, London] The blue is in the eyes last white of seeing only no other world but those harsh swirls and me weighed down with all the long history of paint’s flight into the way the blood’s aorta … Continue reading A poem by David Pollard
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