A Pool of Dark in his Hands
The shadows that he’d seen didn’t darken the years that he helped with our wellies, lifted us up over dykes and stiles and carried doll's...
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JOHN SAYS HE'D DRIVE...
In Gillingham Park, nothing is really wrong. There is a slow dance of sycamore leaves in burnt orange and falling greens. Even the dog...
THE BRONZE CHRYSANTHEMUM
Metallic bonding occurs between the atoms of metal elements. The outer electrons are free to move. This produces an electrostatic force...
VICTORIA
trouble travels on many winds and snags itself in sunshine hair This morning, after the phone call from my mum, I try to reach the girl,...
THE DROWNING OF CHARLOTTE ANSELL
I didn’t know her long - met her first in Chatham Library, pleased to be paid as poets, with ten minutes, supporting John McCullough. The...
HOW NOT TO PAPER OVER THE CRACKS
My grandad (on my mum’s side): 1. puked on my grandma, sat beside him on The Speedway, rising and falling in stomach-churning...
GOING OUTSIDE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT
Log Pile oak and silver birch Feet bare Fig Tree unplanted...
LOBSTER SEASON
This is not the job she dreamt of: boiling lobsters in pots for the loud-mouthed elite - the bigoted champagne strawberry crowd. She...
TWO NIGHTS IN SLOVENIA
Do you have to go? Elsie asks. Iris is sat, not nibbling on marmite toast. It’s good for us. It’s good for you that we’re in love. No,...
DEPARTURE LOUNGE
You suck in smoke like something beautiful is trapped and then released. I want that part of you. I want the tobacco kiss that stirs...
ANGELS OF THE NORTH
Take a slice of cereal box and rust brown paint, sloshed on ridged white. Take clay and slip and a sharpish knife. Blend the Medway sound...
ONLY FORTY MINUTES FROM LONDON
We’re not panicking, she whispers, though a sheen of sweat passes cold across her high forehead. Under the non-London streets, her feet...
FIRST
There is carbon and protein and the harsh taste of iron, the push and the pull of the spinning electrons to get to the core with the...
AND STILL IT RAINS
Three hundred children, brim full of poetry’ are shuffled from the library: a whispered threat to their security (just enough to suggest...
FOR MY VALENTINE
Just left of darkness, our soon sleeping shapes are licked by night’s blank face.
CIRCLE OF PENS
Suddenly, seemingly wide awake, he shot upright, indignant and demanding to know where I had hidden them. “I know you know where they...
GIRL
I’m waking up early but want to keep sleeping, to stop the sun rising, to wave away leaving: to not say goodbye and feel my heart...
WHEAT BEER AND BURNT BARLEY
Through the fog, she reached forward, unembroidered his brocade- gold against black- and picked him apart. With fingers deft, she drew...
THE MOTHERS-IN-LAW
They come armed with bulbs: it’s not too late they say though the wind blows cold across the Shannon and the ground is frostbitten. I...
ONYX FROM PEJA
Peć to rhyme with deck of cards, stacked against a hand shaking, stacked against a trembling, laid beside the mountain stone: ruled like...
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