The Chest of Drawers I ran along the lilac path to go and see her in the darkened room where, dressed in black, she sat with two alsatians at her feet. She showed me how to dust between the rungs of a wooden chair – you held the duster at either end, then pulled … Continue reading ‘The Chest of Drawers’ by Maitreyabandhu
Author: And Other Poems
‘Woodbine’ by Jo Haslam
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
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
