Nadia de Vries And I paint him taupeBecause he’s not my favorite How does it feel, being plain? I paint him taupe. Make him say hiTo orange, blue and green I want to see taupe cry I know that taupe knowsThat he’s nothingWithout grey and brown Nadia de Vries is a poet from Amsterdam, the … Continue reading Misery’s Garnet

            Toby Campion cher coming last in a cher look-alike competition squatting beside a ford fiesta outside the auditorium berating her hairline in the wing-mirror someone who’s never met cher presenting cher with an A3 poster of her face and a permanent marker cher flossing cher missing a bus someone who’s never met cher telling cher that’s so cher a man putting … Continue reading sheesh—

            Gennna Gardini I wake up and there is a woman at the foot of my bed, waiting. I blink and she is gone. Do you believe in ghosts? you’ll ask. I believe in everything. Once, someone pointed to a badge on my fanny-pack and whispered it was haunted. Once, someone told me my soul is … Continue reading Ghost

            Rachel Burns It’s no joke. I’m still drunk.Slicing a sack of onions at 7 a.m. with a hangover. The dinner ladies hiss,don’t let Cook see you minging. By lunchtime, my skull feels like a cracked egg. The kids a year abovewolf whistle me in the dinner queue.I slop mince & onion onto their dinner trays. … Continue reading School Placement

            Mark Granier How many times can I praisesunlight on water, on stone,tiny or great absences andthe modest elbow room a poemmakes for itself? SometimesI wonder if I fell into the wrongpreoccupation, being moredaydreamer than thinker,a tinkerer of thoughtsslipping their own knots,a boy halfway up the stairs,stopped by an odd cloudin the landing window,who has long … Continue reading The Themes

            Ellora Sutton The dirt track is coughing up horses,making sunsets of their steaming bodies. I scuff a nectarine on my brown jacket.  I have failed in my errand to fetch milk but this doesn’t taste like failure.  I have a papercut so devout, it could be a miniature of Christ’s side-wound. Nectarine juice glazes over it like … Continue reading Like Jack Sent to Sell His Cow, I Got Distracted by Something Better or the Promise of Something Better

            Adam Panichi Take a look at a Michelangelo, the one with God in a bath,God letting the water out, or putting the plug back in, God in a bathhouse with hot bathmates.We shared a room once.  Five years ago, when I slept in your bed with your husband,kissed him first, I didn’t mean to stay, I promiseas if … Continue reading God in a Bathhouse

            Mary Ford Neal I. Day One She goes straight from the balcony to the Curia offices and dismisses all the men. She calls in the decorators and gives them carte blanche – they paint the Sistine ceiling in vivid stripes, and she says it’s ADORABLE. She sells the Pièta and the rest of the treasures … Continue reading Triptych

            Clare Martin When my friend buried her husband, she placed the sheet musicfor Debussey’s Suite Bergamesque in the coffin and tilted a takeaway cup of flat white beside the headstone.When the Egyptians buried their dead, they painted the tomb walls  with mounds of figs, fish, terra cotta jars of beer.Vikings lined their graves with knives, spindle whorls, … Continue reading The Talisman

            Billie Manning Skin cold, then hot, then icy again.Hairline wet as a licked kit.She considers screaming a long scream into her mother’s face.She considers the sparrowhawk, its eyes green and then yellow.She should write down the routine, how to keep out the lynx.You are a staircase turned the wrong way, her mother said once.White marble … Continue reading In this version Iphigenia touches herself