Perfection B.C. (Before Cancer): SATURDAY, 1ST AUGUST Graceful necks of wilting gold, Dry grass sleeps upon the breeze; My daughters fine white hair, Like cotton thread, lifts, A cube of hissing morning Bleeding through us. In this field I invented summer When I was cotton like her, And from here all ensuing summers broke, Perfected … Continue reading Extract from a sequence by Greg Gilbert
Tag: New poems
Two poems by Richard Skinner
The Cloud of Unknowing There, it is done. We have built squarely in the dross of the land a place of worship for our Lord. It took years to sand the stone, make flush the lines. But, really, we were shaping our own misshapen lives. Scrape mud before you enter, be clean. Embolden yourself—look up, … Continue reading Two poems by Richard Skinner
Two poems by Tristram Fane Saunders
Poem in which there are hooves Greg, gently mashing the keys of a Steinway. Or Greg, brow furrowed, struggling to grasp a toothbrush, album, cup. Now Greg in bed: listen for the unconsolable clop that comes each night before his prayers. Unhappy Greg, remembering the touch of things, people. His mother's face. Has he not … Continue reading Two poems by Tristram Fane Saunders
Three poems by Jean Atkin
Not there, nearly This cream blackthorn warm of morning is the hour to be patching the cattle trailer with squint squares of corrugated tin and new rivets. The air is lamb-bleat soft. Away up the lane go steady hoofbeats, clip of iron to stone, the horse-pace laid in layers over the land. A tawny owl … Continue reading Three poems by Jean Atkin
Two poems by Holly Singlehurst
Witch Burning After Sylvia Plath ‘My ankles brighten. Brightness ascends my thighs. I am lost, I am lost, in the robes of all this light.’ – Sylvia Plath Her mouth makes the sound of a kettle whistle – high, sharp, spinning into air like smoke. I watch. Everyone around her watches. Her body peeling … Continue reading Two poems by Holly Singlehurst
Two poems by Joe Carrick-Varty
Tree Shaping In our alphabet of trees you chose the first. Apple, a gravel path leading through a garden crunched over, turned left down a lonning the previous tenant never knew existed. Then Ash. 1928 we chased helicopter seeds through summer and fields backed onto by suburban patios with children playing and the … Continue reading Two poems by Joe Carrick-Varty
Two poems by Lizzy Turner
Waiting for the thing to lift It's like the weird pink in a painting of Nordic dusk, which to anyone would look like daylight but because of you I know it is the night. There is so much stillness in something held down in an image, the weight of distress is not always … Continue reading Two poems by Lizzy Turner
Two poems by Mel Pettitt
Mermaid There was a time when I did not live like this. There was a time when I was the ocean’s whore. Now I am a hopeless man-pleaser, kissing those small rubbery toes, arching my back to let them stroke me. Some of them want to ride me around in the chlorinated water, buttocks up, … Continue reading Two poems by Mel Pettitt
Two poems by Rhiannon Auriol
Pink Cream he baked pink cream pies, down in Cornwall, summer of ’05 with the brushed milk sky and their shouts in my eyes. this was the last year, the last of all time, and he made a batch of nine while I burned on the side: the fruit came apart like a … Continue reading Two poems by Rhiannon Auriol
Two poems by Alasdair Paterson
Two poems from Silent Years Bleak House Dickens was in the house. Bleak to me, we’d say, jostling for bed space, warming up, while fog roiled off the monotype. Bleak to me. Whose turn is it anyway? I think it might be yours. I’d thought the sound of you hardly existed now, except … Continue reading Two poems by Alasdair Paterson
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