Gale Acuff One day you wake up dead in Heaven for God's judgment, it's either Heaven or Helland I'm pulling for Heaven but I'll takewhat I can get, I guess eternal painis better than no feeling at all butdon't quote me, I might find out one day I'mwrong and then spend Eternity suffer-ing like nobody's … Continue reading Two Sonnets

            Imogen Osborne The first weapon was the fist,solemn, purple, stuffed with bright  berries sweating againstthe boy, who is the second weapon, he picked them on his way to me.Like a poem, a date requires a central image. Even the worstencounter can be redeemed by this. And he delivered — opening his hand at the bar like … Continue reading Mulberries

            John Osborne 'Half price for sad people,' says the sign on the windowand the queue goes all the way down Unthank Road. To make their money back the florist charges doublefor happy people and the happy people don’t mind, they haven’t really noticed. They are too busylooking forward to yet more beautiful moments. 'I don't … Continue reading Flowers are so expensive

            John Osborne We used to go round for Sunday lunch with a man who collected weather vanes. He always ate at 3 pm which my mum hated but I always liked how dangerous it felt and afterwards we'd go out into the garden and he'd show us his latest weather vane. 'This one’s called The Running Soldier,' he'd tell us, lighting up a … Continue reading Weather vanes

            Rowan Lyster I am having a flare-up of brain fog. In the heat,the nurse said many patients report feeling a weighted blanket on their limbs. There is no timeline for recovery.Everything is always the hardest thing.I am having a bit of trouble with my breathing.  A flare up of weighted blankets and elephants standing on my head. … Continue reading It can help to know that others are experiencing something similar

            Rebecca Tamás 1 Two ghosts accompany you to the edge of the wood. How do you tell them about your recent purchase of premier delivery? How do you explain to them that there’s a pair of printed trousers that have been in your online basket for weeks, blinking? It is impossible. You come from a … Continue reading Dreams in Hungarian

            Yago Soto Somewhere in a forest, a glass leaf curlsinto its frost. Like someone trying to sayimportant things underwater. Or a loose hairlearning to swim in a sink.Selfhood is just another kind of bonethat needs sharpening. A spider resting on your chinwhile you sleep. You can hearsome career deity burningyour resume to stay warm. By morning, small … Continue reading Patient

            Lydia Unsworth  Nothing we do is right but nothing we do is wrong either. We trust the leaves to perform new vines all over our spread-about carapaces. We’ve never seen the sea. Twice a year it comes in. I am under the skylight. There is sun on my limbs. Even though I have no sky … Continue reading There’s a Calmness, Isn’t There

            Mims Sully I received a single artificial red rose,its knobbly green stem stuckinside a vase of frosted glass.I liked to stroke my nose against the velvet petals, take a deep breathand pretend it smelled like the flower.It came with a heart-shaped card:Because you look like my mumwhen she was younger. Be mine?I thought of his mum … Continue reading Valentine’s Day, Age 6 and a Quarter

            Ben Verinder Winter carried ice oncethe small concerns of frost, a clear sky’sslender furies.                           Fields collected the sound of uscrossing.                 Feather, pellet, spike… many forms of pause now melted midgey and loose, ravenous wavesinfesting our shores. A childI walked a frozen harbour. Ice boomed                                               the way whales sang. Ben Verinder lives in rural Hertfordshire. His poems have been … Continue reading Ice