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. … Continue reading Two poems by Momtaza Mehri
Author: Rish
Restless, nervous, hyper
‘The Outing’ by Yomi Sode
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 … Continue reading ‘The Outing’ by Yomi Sode
Two poems by Degna Stone
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. … Continue reading Two poems by Degna Stone
‘Scratched Light’ by Raymond Antrobus
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 … Continue reading ‘Scratched Light’ by Raymond Antrobus
‘Ode to a Flat Earth’ by NJ Hynes
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 … Continue reading ‘Ode to a Flat Earth’ by NJ Hynes
‘The Counterplayer Gazes In and Lives to Play the Tale’ by Dzifa Benson
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 … Continue reading ‘The Counterplayer Gazes In and Lives to Play the Tale’ by Dzifa Benson
‘Aquarius’ by Miranda Peake
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 … Continue reading ‘Aquarius’ by Miranda Peake
‘icarus breathes’ by Reuben Woolley
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 … Continue reading ‘icarus breathes’ by Reuben Woolley
‘Churchyard’ by Sue Hubbard
Churchyard Maybe this wind knows something we don’t, daddy; a secret it hugs close and won’t share as it blows across the village churchyard and the vicar firms the edge of the freshly dug hole with her wellington boot, opens the labelled canister and tips you in. It’s the plastic Evian bottle that throws … Continue reading ‘Churchyard’ by Sue Hubbard
‘At the Station’ by Imogen Forster
At the Station For a moment, the sharp smell of roasting coffee is like tobacco, a time when the air in public places floated carcinogenic blue and men in overalls, forebears of the two who are passing me now, would give off a dark industrial reek, as if they were fume-pickled. One of them could … Continue reading ‘At the Station’ by Imogen Forster
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