One afternoon for Chris One afternoon he actually died during one of his anecdotes, one which he’d started in one village, and had persisted in so that by the time they’d reached the next one he was still going, having taken a tangent at some crossroads and kept on with the tale, so that … Continue reading A poem by Bill Greenwell
Author: And Other Poems
Two poems by Ailsa Holland
English Fern You are coiled like an easy spring, like a wild green tongue. Your roots are strong and deeper than winter. Has anything changed? My eyes are still bluebells. Here is this mossy place. Most Foul Licking her lips, she drips the pearls of poison in and fills my ear. We … Continue reading Two poems by Ailsa Holland
A poem by Katrina Naomi
Lunchtime Recital, with Animals It wasn’t just the elephant in the Chamber of Deptford Town Hall, there were three brown horses too. None of us noticed, at first, as we studied the pianist’s fierce contemplation, how she scorched the score with her gaze; as we studied the violinists’ lumpy cheeks, as if each suffered … Continue reading A poem by Katrina Naomi
Three poems by Kate Noakes
Fête de la musique A capella on the metro Maria hesi- tates into song, her voice broken; she eases her throat open till the notes come clean and clear as wind over ice-fields; she melts ipods, floods the carriage with pure sound, drowns station announcers, and overwhelms the under-breath hymns of my neighbour. I … Continue reading Three poems by Kate Noakes
Two poems by Nuala Ní Chonchúir
The Lunar Spread On Half Moon Street we eat Tunisian orange cake, under a painting of a melon that spills seeds like love. Over Notre Dame the moon is a plate, tossed by a Greek waiter from rue Hachette. Clear of Galway’s rooftops the full moon – bald as a skull – crowns the … Continue reading Two poems by Nuala Ní Chonchúir
‘Baby in a jar’ by Tania Hershman
Baby in a jar There was just one left, And the shelf seemed so bare and lonely. I took her home. Instructions showed me how to put on nappies; the jar was large and my hands are small. She didn't cry. She never cries. And like a butterfly flapping its wings somewhere across the world … Continue reading ‘Baby in a jar’ by Tania Hershman
Two poems by Emma Lee
Photographing a Ghost Our daughter angles the camera lens to get the whole house in the shot. Fourteen years ago, I took the same photo, ignoring your focus on the experience rather than the need to record it. Now you’re unable to watch her look at the photos her mother took, reach out and … Continue reading Two poems by Emma Lee
‘A Lady Cyclist Learns to Cycle (England, 1917)’ by Jonathan Davidson
They led it round the garden and yard on a long rein. They fed it oil. It was black as my jet black boots, heavy as a gate. It ticked, shone. Climbing on it, I felt it shy, lunge beneath me, clatter to earth. They held me up, the men, laughing, shouldered me … Continue reading ‘A Lady Cyclist Learns to Cycle (England, 1917)’ by Jonathan Davidson
A poem by Brian Johnstone
The Commonplace The jar will long retain the fragrance of what it was steeped in when new. Horace They're there in every shipwreck, every trench, stacked in serried ranks or shattered by some trauma in the past that whispers in the ear, the way the thumb prints round the rim speak volumes lost but … Continue reading A poem by Brian Johnstone
‘Koi Pond’ by Robert Peake
Koi Pond in memoriam K.J. I went to pay a visit to the koi, to see what they thought of my life, and how I had been living it. Beneath the imperturbable surface, they mouthed the words, saying "bleb" and "bleb" and "bleb." Some torpedoed, others swung a lazy fin, like an oarsman, turning … Continue reading ‘Koi Pond’ by Robert Peake
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