Ophelia You write your name on water and then you sink. A wet halo shrinks around your face and you sink lips last. Ophelia why didn’t you float like the others? Why didn’t you drift downstream with a glut of Pre-Raphaelite flowers? I’m terrified that you’ve stopped breathing or that you gulp the dim, death-gladdening … Continue reading ‘Ophelia’ by Peter Kenny
Tag: Poetry
‘Sibling Love’ by Kate Hendry
Sibling Love It's always when my back is turned. I'm at my desk – a hollow thump, palm on back, her echoing rib cage. I turn, grab my son's arms. I want him to confess. 'It was an accident,' he pleads. Always too late. I drag him down the hall, he's not yet dressed. 'I … Continue reading ‘Sibling Love’ by Kate Hendry
‘Still’ by Marie Naughton
Still On the third day I woke to his weary face, watching from an armchair by the hospital bed. You know how dreams have boldness that melts to uncertainty, the minute you put words to them? I blurted my epiphany –– we’ve fallen through a gap in the language –– as if that was that, … Continue reading ‘Still’ by Marie Naughton
‘Snow Country’ by Dom Bury
Snow Country Natquik Dawn over a white field. A fresh mantle of foot deep snow and two greying silhouettes talking haltingly, moving haltingly against the tree-line against the … Continue reading ‘Snow Country’ by Dom Bury
‘February’ by Boris Pasternak translated by Sasha Dugdale
February. Get out the ink and weep! Sob in February, sob and sing While the wet snow rumbles in the street And burns with the black spring. Take a cab. For a coin Be carried through church bells, the chirp of tyres To a place where the torrential rain Is louder still than ink or … Continue reading ‘February’ by Boris Pasternak translated by Sasha Dugdale
Poetry in Horses
The Night Horses are stalled between sleep and dreaming. In the steading they lower their massive heads to the earth’s nod. In darkness white-faced Clydesdales lip at nothing. Below a halo of bats they rest their load of feather and bone and horn. They hear, don’t hear, the scrape of shoes, as a gelding shunts … Continue reading Poetry in Horses
Two poems by Wendy Pratt
Haunted For eight nights you haunt me- more than just the echo of your loss – I dream my body is your vessel, again. I am earthy and taut, my skin the drum on which you beat a reassuring prattle of small limbs: an elbow, a heel, the hard pressure of your head pressed up … Continue reading Two poems by Wendy Pratt
Poems by Jo Bell
A sequence of seven 14-lined poems by Jo Bell, written during her residency at Royal Derby Hospitals in 2010. Each poem originates in a particular location in the hospital complex. I Waiting They’re behind. This waiting – it’s another day on wipe-clean chairs for me. A bit of peace. I wouldn’t be here … Continue reading Poems by Jo Bell
‘To the Ghost of Sylvia Plath’ by Nikki Magennis
Don't get up so early, my love. I am not your mother but I will take you by the hand and undo you. Unwet the towel. Unroll it and leave it hanging by the sink. Let them all sleep, with their sickle moon eyelids, with their small collections of newly formed thoughts. Drop … Continue reading ‘To the Ghost of Sylvia Plath’ by Nikki Magennis
Two poems by Moniza Alvi
Two extracts from At the Time of Partition 17 And Where? Pakistan! the crowd roared. Pakistan Zindabad! Long live Pakistan! This country – her country. A nation in its instability, one that could change lives with the suddenness of a blow to the head. And Jinnah – his photograph was everywhere, … Continue reading Two poems by Moniza Alvi
