Uprooted There was the garden the old ladies had, I used to walk past in the afternoon. Even to think of it revived the day, as if, through rain, a light crept round a room. I could not tell the two of them apart. But they would bend to cyclamen, the heart- shaped leaves, … Continue reading ‘Uprooted’ by Alison Brackenbury
Author: And Other Poems
‘Chez Marianne’ by Cliff Yates
In the next apartment the children are quieter, soon they’ll run a bath and one of them will lie in it, moving. She comes out of the bathroom, her hair standing, shaped to a point like an alien. Are you cold? No, I’m airing the towels. That’s a good idea, here, which of … Continue reading ‘Chez Marianne’ by Cliff Yates
‘Her story’ by Abegail Morley
Her story I. Inside where the darkness stops, her bones are soft, pliable, her head half her weight. She curls in the curve of the crescent moon. Week 28, she feels pain. Inhales, exhales; downy hair covers her skin, like his. Waters break. II. Her room’s changed shape, dimension. No longer measured crown to … Continue reading ‘Her story’ by Abegail Morley
‘Toad gives a lecture’ by Rishi Dastidar
Toad gives a lecture I vaulted the proscenium arch last night, a one-act show-stopper of my own stealing, featuring a throne of cool wrapped in chocolate velvet, the devastating transparency of Wilde translated by a firebrand Marxist with a fondness for the glottal stop, and a servant whose trousers fall down. That the room … Continue reading ‘Toad gives a lecture’ by Rishi Dastidar
‘Internet Shopping’ by Jacqueline Saphra
Uncle Ted and I are window-shopping on the internet. I say there's nothing you can't buy remotely and suggest Costco, send him the link. I tell him that the padding’s good, point out it's comforting and solid; for him, only the best. He sends me a link to Amazon: a pine affair, plain … Continue reading ‘Internet Shopping’ by Jacqueline Saphra
‘The Babies’ by Bill Herbert
The Babies I’m driving at night through the countryside trying to decide what it is the countryside is to the side of. Since we all already share a perfectly good roadside – perhaps it’s beside this. Certainly there is more to it than verge: it also has an underneath of sexton beetle, a canopy of … Continue reading ‘The Babies’ by Bill Herbert
‘Leather-Bound Road’ by Luke Kennard
Leather-Bound Road Should anybody ask me how we met I’ll read them Ansel Adams on photography and say it’s in the way the artist brings out of the landscape what the frame brings out of the painting. Which is to say you bring out the best in me, but not the way the Maillard … Continue reading ‘Leather-Bound Road’ by Luke Kennard
‘nothing’ by Andrew McMillan
nothing which is really the sound of everything slowly if you write poetry and are even passably handsome my heart will pretend it loves you for a while all I know is the first empty bed for weeks the first tea of morning the man who was scared of paper was papyrophobic … Continue reading ‘nothing’ by Andrew McMillan
A poem by Agnes Marton
Furaibo, Parting Nothing stays still, nobody stays. Fluffing feathers restless for the take-off, I'm just laughing, sad: love changes its wings too often, too soon. Unveiled cathedral of your face is getting new tulle layers impossible to fly through, blurred vision and slurred speech. But in thought I'm there, woven in that shroud to … Continue reading A poem by Agnes Marton
A poem by Julian Turner
The Seal People I had watched them far off in the rough skerries, their long cries carried to land on spindrift, their bodies slipping like silk between the white knuckles of waves, vanishing in the spray for dives of joy into the great grey acres. It was luck itself to find them there … Continue reading A poem by Julian Turner
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