Breathing after Song Dong Tiananmen Square, New Year’s Eve, sub-zero temperatures; he lies face-down, breathing gently for forty minutes while from a distance, Mao observes a few policemen on night watch and the lamp-posts fitted with video cameras. This is the gate of Heavenly Peace. Soon, a patch of frost thaws, just to freeze over again when he rises. In the morning, by the … Continue reading Two poems by Jennifer Lee Tsai
Inside the camphorwood chest – forgotten treasure: a pair of leather cowboy boots with metal toe caps. How they shone. As loud, proud and polished as the men they sparked a trail through. Three decades of dust can’t hide the cracks. A genie-rub conjures up swirls of dry ice, the wink of the glitter ball, and the Night Fever dance floor, a chequerboard where … Continue reading ‘High Society’ by Ian Humphreys
Bars Bars Bars how it was is half the fun. half the story. the grit underneath nails. the last bit of meat left on the bone. a clinging of years. yaa the years. softening like plastic. hoarded in narrowing closets in the coldest of spare rooms. mothball mama. all the how it could have beens. crates of apples & pears. flushing green as sickness. … Continue reading Two poems by Momtaza Mehri
Onlookers witnessed your wrath that night how your fist rose to the heavens, striking down as if Ṣango[1] lived within you. Thirty going on thirty-one. I wasn’t sure what to say. I’ve never been here. The papers described him as tall. They said his neck broke before he landed as if his body was a slinky, waiting for the rest of him to hit … Continue reading ‘The Outing’ by Yomi Sode
Blackface Live Theatre, Newcastle. 3 December 2016 It’s the sucker punch of an actor walking onstage wearing blackface; the roar from the audience as they piss themselves laughing. The vocabulary has shifted but the old problems remain. I was a fool to think that we’d been moving forward when we were only ever standing still. Weighing of the Heart When John Dark held … Continue reading Two poems by Degna Stone
for Phoebe Boswell The heart is circled by sorrows and bitter devotion – Derek Walcott Southbank’s Security guards wake anyone sleeping as if they don’t want us to miss who we might bump into like how I bumped into Phoebe today, sat at the tall window, drawing a man called Anwaar. I pull an extra chair and sit next to them and talk about maybe moving … Continue reading ‘Scratched Light’ by Raymond Antrobus
I’m bored by infinity. I want to sail a long time, paint my gums with lemon, sharpen my teeth on hard tack, slip over salted sheets of water, slide across mats of emerald algae, reach the edge of the earth’s table top and stop – to admire the thousand pounding waterfalls and the mouldy line of dragons employed as bouncers on the world’s rim, … Continue reading ‘Ode to a Flat Earth’ by NJ Hynes
What is the meaning of Legba’s red baritone saxophone in the Five Spot Café at midnight? On the cliff face of this wet indigo, he is the man who tied water. A trumpet sounds: the prince is in a hurry to dance in the street. Sometimes it sounds like the boom of the earth stretching and yawning. Sometimes it’s as erudite as a tabla. Most … Continue reading ‘The Counterplayer Gazes In and Lives to Play the Tale’ by Dzifa Benson
All day we lived with the thought of you, celeriac remoulade and Boeuf Bourguignon covered our plates as we lifted two glasses of sun and toasted your name. Later we wandered down Tottenham Court Road, stopping for love seats and dining room chairs. We sat on sofas and questioned the depth of shelves. We measured rugs with our feet and imagined them here and … Continue reading ‘Aquarius’ by Miranda Peake
icarus breathes flight is explosive breaking sound i trim my wings tight to this body. take it circling a world. i’ll skim waves & settle grow fins a while & fly with dolphins (previously unpublished) Reuben Woolley has been published in various magazines including Tears in the Fence, The Lighthouse Literary Journal, The Interpreter’s House, Domestic Cherry, The Stare’s … Continue reading ‘icarus breathes’ by Reuben Woolley
