A Beginner’s Guide to the Formal and Informal Use of ‘You’ When asking strangers for directions, use the formal form of ‘you’. Use the familiar form with fishmongers and greengrocers, but the polite form with bakers and haberdashers. With any other shopkeeper use the familiar, unless you’ve already seen them that day and they … Continue reading Three poems by Rosie Blagg
Category: Poetry
Two poems by Eleanor Hooker
Mirrored She visited again last night, no pike this time. She was singing too. Her song is the sound of a heavy body Dragging itself, deadly, up the stairs. Her malady not too dissimilar to that thud-thump heartbeat In my ears. She brought mirrors into my mind and in my mind she filled the … Continue reading Two poems by Eleanor Hooker
Two poems by Claire Dyer
French Lessons I started talking to the cats in French today, because the silence in the house is astonishing. Not like the gone-out-back-soon quiet of before but something that’s yellow and flat and has no doors in it. And your keys are gone from the shelf in the hall, the fridge has begun to … Continue reading Two poems by Claire Dyer
Two poems by C. Murray
Lilies of the Field Plump nipple blossoms more like - neatly sewn onto a blue bodice. Virgin surprise! One wink and they’re blown confetti on wet ground. Unrelated Images Sequence Those images I had trashed sing now their separation. I. An arch forms beneath the new forsythia leaf enter the moorhen in … Continue reading Two poems by C. Murray
Five poems by David Morley
Five poems from The Gypsy and The Poet by David Morley Finished planting my ariculas——went a botanising after ferns and orchises and caught a cold in the wet grass which has made me as bad as ever——got the tune of “highland Mary” from Wisdom Smith a gipsey and pricked another sweet tune without name … Continue reading Five poems by David Morley
Two poems by Kate Dempsey
Mash I was at a village fete with you in the sunshine, hand in hand bouncy castle, tombola, homemade jam I judged the mashed potato contest giving marks for presentation, flavour, consistency. The winner, a dimpled woman of Amish appearance. What’s your secret? I asked before I woke. It’s about love, she said, all … Continue reading Two poems by Kate Dempsey
‘Falling down, falling down’ by Alison Brackenbury
Falling down, falling down If I ate no cake, if I ate two cakes, if I lingered by biscuits, disdained cauliflower, if I had not turned my face to the sun if the man had not rushed from the petrol station dodging before me, like you, a dancer, if I had glanced down- Is that … Continue reading ‘Falling down, falling down’ by Alison Brackenbury
Three poems by Marilyn Francis
Tilford I spent all afternoon watching (and not watching) from the shade of a Chinese parasol. My view of the spaced out white-on-green obscured by Riders of the Purple Sage. Lost in the Wild West, I missed the tip-toe run the fingertip fling, the smack of the ball into the blue, the backward leap, … Continue reading Three poems by Marilyn Francis
Three poems by Stephen Bone
Pedicurist Textbook arches to calloused toes gnarled as root ginger come my way - scholar of the lotus foot, the hennaed sole - to be soaked in basins of salted water. Pumiced, clipped; anointed with lavender or bergamot. My head bowed low to my work. A connoisseur; hands awake to each detail. Come bedtime, … Continue reading Three poems by Stephen Bone
A poem by Angela France
The Visit Brown is the colour of waiting; a wainscot in a dingy room, straight-backed chairs against the wall, tweed coats on old women whose felt hats nod in approval and tilt towards each other. They lean together to whisper lineage, connections; which daughter, whose son, what cousin is parent to the child who … Continue reading A poem by Angela France
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