Woodbine Our honeysuckle’s broken loose, hangs free of the wall, sends out suckers and side shoots rooting itself where it chooses; lonicera, common woodbine, no-one knows why it twines clockwise; but cut back hard to the woody stem its questing tips probe out again spiral round a fence or gate;of all our plants the most … Continue reading ‘Woodbine’ by Jo Haslam
Author: And Other Poems
A poem by Andrew F Giles
Astrology You’d ordered it, the sky – unpacked it at dawn, decanted the moon into your hipflask: the things we are led to believe stars grown in sleeves like flowers, signs in a scrapbook, as in science. The stratosphere arches its humpback, that much is true, yawns massively … Continue reading A poem by Andrew F Giles
‘Seven and Ten’ by Carrie Etter
Seven and Ten My sister, seven, lay awake in the weeds. The fallow field near our house had reached a height of three feet, a haven for grasshoppers and mice. She wore a yellow cotton dress and once-white sandals; the weeds ensconced her. Running with a flimsy net after a butterfly, I tripped over … Continue reading ‘Seven and Ten’ by Carrie Etter
A poem by Bill Greenwell
Scold for Chris She put his tongue in a mousetrap once, without the cheese. It wriggled a bit, and the vowels vanished. They were stacking shelves, and he’d been delving into the pockets of his past for an hour and a half, no pause. ‘Will you shut up shop?’ she asked, a bit … Continue reading A poem by Bill Greenwell
‘Hunting Elmer Fudd’ by Angela Readman
Hunting Elmer Fudd I loaded both barrels like slotting light behind an eye, and I put on a deerstalker to hunt Elmer; it was time. Frosty tongues, grass asked no questions. Inklings of snow swept a mess of footprints leading to the woods. All around me deer moved the trees. Antlers hung sky from a … Continue reading ‘Hunting Elmer Fudd’ by Angela Readman
A poem by Michelle McGrane
Things that a Bond Girl should never leave home without A double entendre, a steady gun-arm, a failproof recipe for Béarnaise sauce, a kick-ass lipstick, 'Five of a Kind'. Contortionist training, a reservation at Maxim's, a magnum of Taittinger Blanc de Brut 1943 and twenty Morland Specials. A stolen copy of Hogan's Power Golf, … Continue reading A poem by Michelle McGrane
A poem by Anthony Wilson
Borderline for and after Lawrence Sail the sump-life of the place - Seamus Heaney These are the flatlands stitched between flood-plain and ditch, everything provisional, ooze and sluice. The estuary looks walkable, spines of red clay rising from slate water with flanks of weeping slip which shimmer mother-of-pearl, silver, molten. A … Continue reading A poem by Anthony Wilson
A poem by Sarah James
The Un-Niceness of Nice Caved four weeks into the hills with her, her son, his woman, beans barely boiled, steak sizzled, skins singed; juiced red like the sun. I scooped dust from melons, swept flesh from floors, rectangled beds, while the sun shook off the sweet shade of trees; rained insects and figs. One … Continue reading A poem by Sarah James
‘Embrace of the Electric Eel’ by Pascale Petit
Embrace of the Electric Eel For thirty-five years, Father, you were a numb-fish, I couldn’t quite remember what it felt like that last time you hugged me when I was eight, just before you went away. But when you summon me to your stagnant pool, Dad, Papa, whatever I should call the creature that you … Continue reading ‘Embrace of the Electric Eel’ by Pascale Petit
‘Hunger’ by George Szirtes
Hunger I have made my piece with hunger. It’s a flea behind my ear. I scratch it on demand. I am all soft landings, quizzical windings, but hunger is what winds in me. I watch it, sharp as that beam of light stuck fast in the glass. It seems to point to a speck … Continue reading ‘Hunger’ by George Szirtes
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