this is a true story: they said you’re not a real boy until you cut the wizard out of the tree, it’s a question of which tree: real boys might pick oak, birch or beech, and then boys that pick alder, elm or hawthorn are unreal, unreal boys hold the axe and … Continue reading ‘real boy’ by Thomas Stewart
Tag: Poetry
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
Three poems by Geraldine Clarkson
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 … Continue reading Three poems by Geraldine Clarkson
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
‘The Mermaid Aquarium’ by Cheryl Pearson
A month or two at most, I told myself; a place to catch my breath. The long, dry haul of my body’s bulk along the shingle, up the beach, the dragged slug of my tail a mess of scrapes. A wake of salt and scale all the way to the waterline. I can’t complain; it’s … Continue reading ‘The Mermaid Aquarium’ by Cheryl Pearson
Two poems by Christina Thatcher
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
‘Changing Room’ by Rebecca Parfitt
At the photo-automat, I exchanged 24 selves for 24 frames. It started with a beret, then sunglasses, then I thought, what-the-hell, and started shedding. At the Saigon Street cafe I sat on someone else’s table and peeled the skin off a summer roll. Inside an abandoned margarine factory in Kreuzberg I pondered the face of … Continue reading ‘Changing Room’ by Rebecca Parfitt
Two Poems by Marc Brightside
Still Wait for 2 a.m. and count to three. Listen for the waveform pulse, a dripping tap, bodies curdling metallic juices. Take a shot. Imagine thunder, jazzmen pounding, horseshoes running into drum kits, every ripple flicking beads away from skin. Wait until it slows. Allow the image to kaleidoscope: steam trains chugging, ancient metronomes, … Continue reading Two Poems by Marc Brightside
Two poems by Romalyn Ante
Destined On their last holiday, they sat on a reed mat laid with local delicacies: a bowl of somtam, a plate of tilapia, cups of khaw, mud-dark, fish-pickle sauce, and a basket of freshly-picked greens from his auntie’s garden. This is how we roll in the province, no need for table or chairs. No need … Continue reading Two poems by Romalyn Ante
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