Louise Peterkin
The King who ate himself to death But it was Fat Wednesday and soon to be Lent. But the blowhard lobster was centrepiece; his magnanimous...
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ONE HAND CLAPPING
Elodie Rose Barnes: a poem
Poem I know where you are, poem. The language that folds itself around my tongue, a parasite of ivy on the oak tree. The waves that lick...
Claire Hughes: a poem
First Sight Pushed by the white knuckle of the moon, we fell. We tumbled and rolled, our arms and legs making a lustrous beast. Past...
Sarah Connor: a poem
This Stubborn Land This is a stubborn place, I'd say. Old names live on here. Bits of wild cling to steep hillsides, linger in forgotten...
Ben Morgan: a poem
Author's note Baba Yaga is a witch from Slavic folktale. Sometimes seen as dangerous and violent, she is also a healer and a wise woman,...
Naima Rashid: a poem
Plasma Sundown is litmus, the cruellest hour to bear. "The silence is too loud." "The TV will drown the silence." The way light fell, it...
Steve Shepherd: a poem
lenny's last christmas I. lenny might have made an effort for his daughter but it's as likely (legal papers; heroin) that christmas '65...
Uma-Thandeka Muhwati: a poem
He whispered so the bathroom walls carry the scent of decaying argwood and burnt sage/ the perfume of a lover who plants kisses on your...
Maggie Sawkins: a poem
Zones of Avoidance I'm reading The Confessions of an English Opium Eater – I want to understand what drove my daughter out in the snow...
Lawrence Wilson: a poem
Empurpled the first poppies have opened dark murex purple greying lavender fragile as mourning silk with bumblebees drunk on nectar I...
Agnes Marton: a poem
There Was A Maskmaker I Called Corazoncito …before COVID he carved beaked masks – apropos of nothing, or to warn what we humans step on...
Julie-ann Rowell: a poem
Dressing gown My grey dressing gown hangs on a peg in the bathroom, with its imprint of me. I bought it in M&S for the hospital, plain...
Kyla Houbolt: a poem
Does he read his reviews? Even though they're not all ripe 6.79 is not a bad price for a pound of cherries. I make a note to add this to...
Staying Human: new poems for Staying Alive #3
The trouble between mothers and daughters is how to forgive the one to whom you owe too much what you see when you look in the mirror how...
Cynthia Manick: a poem
When You Learn to Be a Lady On summer mornings you crave: blackened foot heels and backyard lakes, water shrinking barrettes to an...
Louise Peterkin: a poem
Jaws Nothing's too strong for me to get through: iron chains, barbed wire, I gnaw bullets like al dente pasta, munch on jugulars; a...
Yvonne Reddick: a poem
Waterland There are still pike in Jesus Ditch. The length of three finger-joints, quicker than dactyls. Gone before you can say "Jack...
Mehvash Amin: a poem
At the Traffic Lights The whole town is being turned over like a barren field. Patches of routed macadam turn their glistening...
Nkateko Masinga: two poems
Nkateko Masinga is a South African poet. She is the author of a digital chapbook titled the heart is a caged animal, published by Praxis...
Alan Humm: a poem
Photograph by Richard Hillier Whale-watching Like thumbs, at first, testing the water. Swimming so fluently that they are pencil lines,...
Zita Izso: a poem
Photograph by Laura Veres Like Mouthbrooders What I remember best is the snow. We were elbowing on the ledge, watching the never-ending...
Richard Skinner: a poem
Sky with Four Suns The first sun – a time bomb – was sucked into a black bucket and then – boom. Its igneous nodes touched and sparked a...
James W. Wood: a poem
About a Span To Daniel, Emily and Edmund The year of our Lord Of the Flies. The year of Waiting For Godot. That time when Ike (Turner not...
Maggie Sawkins: a poem
Pleasure The knife handle was antique bone; I waited until I was alone, then peeled an apple in my head: the flesh stark white, the skin...
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