Etching Even now she says the family moved because of me: my plump young needs, the better schools. I had to learn to read. She left Palisades the year they started selling horse meat in the cafeteria. I would have made the honor roll, she says, if it weren’t for that, and if I hadn’t … Continue reading Two poems by Christina Thatcher
Tag: New poems
Two poems by Khairani Barokka
medusozoa, neuropathic pain in kalimantan, a lake so inland in exile that jellyfish there have no sense of sting; divers swim at ease, brushing legs against ghosts. evolving out of our sense of poisoning tentacles is possibility; breathe this. the world is dying, yet holds both my enduring corpus and animals whose limbs have wept … Continue reading Two poems by Khairani Barokka
‘The One in Which…’ by Marvin Thompson
The One in Which… 2. The one in which I contemplate The Handmaid’s Tale TV series whilst exiting the cinema’s Art Deco doors In pick-n-mix dispensers, fudge shines like the 30-year-old scar on my knee. To reach an anthology with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Anansi, I tiptoed on a wooden box and wobbled. My slip was bloody. … Continue reading ‘The One in Which…’ by Marvin Thompson
Two poems by Ben Bransfield
Dorothy Gale The weather man loves clouds and has wanted to be cirrus since he could coil the garden hose without a hand from his mother. Worried by his hours at their barometer, she’d cook her son a storm from tins, give him the lion’s share to munch for brain and heart. Faggots and mash. … Continue reading Two poems by Ben Bransfield
Two poems by Chloe Balcomb
My Son the Cockroach has always had an eye for the ladies. I told him, ‘They’re not screaming at you, at least not in the way you seem to imagine.’ He’s the colouring of Achilles and his daftness too. They say those copper curls stood out in battle, that and his swingeing blade. My … Continue reading Two poems by Chloe Balcomb
‘Manger’ by Leonardo Boix
Manger After The Adoration of the Magi This ramshackle hut I was born had neither thatch, roof nor ceiling A hovel with a hundred o holes, having no walls nor windows, not even an exit. Cows, horses, flies slept all within, barely room for a time, Father built chimneys and Mother had sweetbread and kidneys … Continue reading ‘Manger’ by Leonardo Boix
Two poems by Will Harris
Eyewitness Travel In Shepherds Bush library, now an annex of Westfield, a man in a corner seat leans over two Dorling Kindersley books —Eyewitness Travel—and with near-complete, near-sighted reverence (the kind you’d give to something rare or precious) turns and scans each glossy page. I’m trying to believe it’s for a trip he’s planning, but … Continue reading Two poems by Will Harris
‘High Society’ by Ian Humphreys
Inside the camphorwood chest – forgotten treasure: a pair of leather cowboy boots with metal toe caps. How they shone. As loud, proud and polished as the men they sparked a trail through. Three decades of dust can’t hide the cracks. A genie-rub conjures up swirls of dry ice, the wink of the glitter ball, … Continue reading ‘High Society’ by Ian Humphreys
Two poems by Momtaza Mehri
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
Two poems by Nancy Campbell
Sonnet Fatigue Six months on, I don’t know when you were born nor what you’ve been writing, though you tell me when you’ve been writing. I’ve been writing sonnets again, but this once fail-safe form dismays me now. A/B/B/A/: I forge the chain – or force it. The closing couplet seems too slight to hold … Continue reading Two poems by Nancy Campbell
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