UNDERLAND (after that man ‘Lewis’) Towards winter solstice, Alice can no longer cope with groping down blind alleys, being groped by creatures she doesn’t comprehend, in places obscure to her. She has issues with size, this human yoyo, no permanence and issues between her thighs, no liniments. No malice. Just a sweet intrinsic no to everything. A refusal to go along. This … Continue reading Three poems by Geraldine Clarkson
Fourteen Mistakes ‘You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes’ Razumikhin, drunk in Crime and Punishment How we learned to create a thunderclap in a lab with dust and mirrors How we designed a clap to blast away every echo How we moved to … Continue reading Two poems by Alice Miller
We walked back and forth from the library, preparing for some high leap: sunlight catching the tallest spume of the shopping centre fountain. Something we owe to the past made our elders stand, kneel and then sit in buildings warmed by a hope for something better. That monogrammed leather trunk we use to keep the dresses you can’t throw away came ahead of … Continue reading ‘February’ by Tim Dooley
Mal Them dogs won’t touch us three. On Pendle Hill, no wind can whip us, no brack of clouds from Chorley pall us. Look. Dogs here are bogbounce happy, kiddies snuffing balls and whatnot near Malkin, families tripping from the corrugated towns. They skirl around me, my own dog Whistler: springer spaniels, border collies, Sunday walkers flush-cheeked fed. Proud marchers in their slimy wellies, clodding … Continue reading ‘Mal’ by Anita Pati
The Water-Carrier I want to be the worst of this profession, the one who makes it home half-empty, tipping more air than water from the ringing pot, and so late back the town’s already dark; Oh no, they’ll say, that’s not the way of it, and I’ll know their heaven’s brimful and undrunk, their lips parched. What do they … Continue reading Two poems by Niall Campbell
Half the Story Franz Kafka, the story goes, encountered a little girl in the park where he walked regularly. She was crying. She’d lost her doll. Kafka helped the girl search for the doll, but they couldn’t find it. They arranged to meet there next day to look again for her doll, but still they could not find it. When they met for the third … Continue reading Half the Story by Ian Duhig
GaZeBo Muggy afternoon in class, a word, an inky beetle that scuttles across my open book. I come to with a slap across the page. The teacher squints at it, sari bristling, then sends me out of class, to the principal for doodling dirty words in geography. Booby-trapped, it rolls off my tongue in triple beat; Ga Ze Bo. It’s the Ze that did … Continue reading Two poems by Amali Rodrigo
