Poetry 2/26

Wendy Pratt: four pantoums

The Boulders Dream I now it's to be moved and given its story back not just a boulder in the form of an iron plaque but a Shap granite ...

Steve Shepherd: a poem

what talking was the lights dipped three times that winter afternoon and with darkness falling outside we looked to the fittings. ...

Pratibha Castle: a poem

Lemons are tears gilded with sunlight, face-pucker odium a child might feel on witnessing its parents kiss. What I mean to say is not...

Jackie Kay: a poem

My Grandmother's Houses 1 She is on the second floor of a tenement. From her front room window you see the cemetery. Her bedroom is my...

Alan Humm: a poem

Summer, newly over It was like staring into a full glass but then the sun went in. Each leaf has passed through glory to something like...

Bob Beagrie: a poem

Photograph by Kev Howard Hamsa The girl is a grim priestess, a thaumaturge, devotee of Kali. The incessant croaks of courting marsh frogs...

Jo Balmer: a poem

Make Nothing Happen Outside Athens, 404 BCE As the Spartans celebrated hard-fought victory one of their youths sung a song by Euripides -...

Louise Peterkin: a poem

Photograph by Scott Barron Photography A Day in the Life • O larceny of Tupperware! • This is my home: gothic, chaotic • ...

Richard Skinner: two cut-ups

The Only Living Boy in Aja after Simon & Garfunkel & Steely Dan Here at the dude ranch above the sea I get the news I need on the weather...

Mark Russell: four poems

Poor Weather When Suki said Paul Weller was on his way and would be in Glasgow tonight, we rushed out to buy tickets. "Paul Weller is...

Owen Gallagher: a poem

Assembling Blackbirds After a day on the assembly line my fingers stalk the black and white keys, a conveyer belt of minims and crotchets...

Lawrence Wilson: a poem

November Song taking the trash down to the wheelie bin I feel the frost, the first, upon my skin the cold descends, a kiss, and overnight...

Jane Zwart: a poem

Dysthymia Rightly, wrongly, some things I hang on my father: a sarcophagus locket, token of a museum draped in borrowed winding sheets...

Madeleine Bazil: a poem

A Misunderstanding My lips catch on the glass mouth of a Coca Coca bottle: sweet carbonated transubstantiation. I hear cowbells on the...

Daragh Byrne: a poem

Beach Scene I chanced upon him on an empty beach: his elbow bent, shading his eyes as he stared out to sea, his back to me. A puckish...

Michelle Diaz: a poem

Something Shaky in the Frontal Fairground Is it normal to wake at 3 a.m. with a craving for waltzers? Is it safe to leave home at...

Hannah Linden: a poem

Journeying I watch by the window as the pigeon eats the lettuce seeds. I should shoo it away and, if I had planted them, I would but...

Julie Stevens: a poem

Sky Fish They're dropping fish from the sky − wet bulging bodies that have forgotten how to swim. How they electrify my shirt, these...

Ben Schroeder: a poem

Song Wind only sounds when there is something to sound against. What I meant when I said in the thistle patch catching fireflies there's...

Zoë Green: a poem

Bowl In Feng Shui, they say that chipped crockery attracts bad qi. My mother is a broken bowl, early twentieth century, provenance...

P.W. Bridgman: a poem

A Pie in the Face for the Betrayed “I think I need some space”, he says. He's not the be-cruel-to-be-kind type. He's the...

Evie Calver: a poem

methods of self-transfiguration (to satisfy a craving) 1. each stitch unpicked, fingertip needles, fur peels like fruit skin; scraped...

HLR: a poem

Worried to Death There was an inexplicable period when we'd always drink a bottle of champagne before bed, sometimes two. A ludicrous...

José-Flore Tappy: two poems