The poet in Samos Here are the things you left behind: an old bus ticket to a place with an illegible name, a stack of government files from distinct regimes, a pile of rocks, a copy of Cavafy, well-thumbed. I don’t know how many meals you ate here, by the seaward window. I don’t know … Continue reading ‘The poet in Samos’ by Richard Gwyn
Tag: Seren
‘We Prayed for a Man Without a Beard’ by Judy Brown
We Prayed for a Man Without a Beard ‘My Tooth broke today. They will soon be gone. Let that pass I shall be beloved—I want no more’ (Dorothy Wordsworth, Grasmere Journal, Monday 31st June 1802) As the hygienist scrimshaws round my gum I stretch my small mouth wide as horror. She learned on a metal … Continue reading ‘We Prayed for a Man Without a Beard’ by Judy Brown
Two poems by Sheenagh Pugh
Different Corridors A moment ago, while you still slept, they were all in the same story: the ship, your mother, that job you left. Now, as the room comes back, they are beginning to unravel: you catch at a fact, a face, but they slip by, each diminishing down a different corridor, calling round corners … Continue reading Two poems by Sheenagh Pugh
‘How I Abandoned My Body To His Keeping’ by Kim Moore
What happened sits in my heart like a stone. You told me I’d be writing about it all my life, when I asked how to stop saying these things to the moon. I told you how writing it makes the dark lift and then settle again like a flock of birds. You said … Continue reading ‘How I Abandoned My Body To His Keeping’ by Kim Moore
Three poems by Carrie Etter
Conception There was a canoe missing an oar. There was a stretch of pristine shore. Colour broke into sound, one mindless gasp predicated on so much prior consciousness. Daughter of my daughter yet to be— a glint on a distant wave, a window without a wall— O hovering cab, O sureshot marble— (previously published in … Continue reading Three poems by Carrie Etter
Three poems by Carrie Etter
Three poems from Imagined Sons A Birthmother’s Catechism (September 11, 1986) What is the anniversary of loss? A national day of mourning Really now, what is the anniversary of loss? My mother and I watch TV well past her usual bedtime What is the anniversary of loss? Where the swan’s nest had been, … Continue reading Three poems by Carrie Etter
‘Will You Be My Friend, Kate Moss?’ by Kathryn Maris
Will You Be My Friend, Kate Moss? My daughter’s in your daughter’s ballet class. I sat beside you at the Christmas show? I really loved the outfit you had on! Three years ago I tried to emulate your look in Grazia: you can’t believe how hard it was to find some knee-high boots, a … Continue reading ‘Will You Be My Friend, Kate Moss?’ by Kathryn Maris
Two poems by Polly Atkin
In the Stairwell In the stairwell the air is wood where wood is a dark mass hungry for memory and dust. It is shiny with taking, with touch. In the garden wall, a door, half-way up. In the door, fifteen etched lenses. Twelve steps to the top. The shutters are open. Cold light slips … Continue reading Two poems by Polly Atkin
Three poems by Kathryn Gray
Nostalgia If I could tell now just how that grass felt – itchy, summer wet – as we rolled the incline, raced each other down, bad-landed in a heap; if I could pull from my pocket the chalk dust from shattered Parma Violets and blow this from my palm like so, then I’d be … Continue reading Three poems by Kathryn Gray
A poem by Graham Clifford
Shorn Despite photos, up close you are not taking care of yourself: hair greasy as barbed-wire wool. Your once skinny frame is bulky at the shoulders end, and lugworm veins bulge on the backs of your hands. What a thud you would make, falling down now. I feed the Wahl trimmer, mow a broadening … Continue reading A poem by Graham Clifford
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