Monthly Archives: May 2017
Sonja Benskin Mesher
hospital pyjamas I come here late, hospital pyjamas, was it body or brain paralysis that kept me there, tired lace curtains drawn. I lay as a child, arm high tracing patterns and bows, thinking in the wind, when there is … Continue reading
Beate Sigriddaughter: five poems
(1) DETACHMENT yellow flower close to the ground detaches breathless butterfly wings flutter off my yearning for certainty of petal or wing and applause (2) DIANE WITH A CAT IN HER ARMS IN THE SHADOW You might want to know … Continue reading
Frank Gillougley: Three poems
STRATHAVEN A window shutter opens onto a fleeting sight of a child’s yellow dimpled ball kicked up a hill – of a father and his brother, their wives and kids, in a municipal Sunday park, just as if it were … Continue reading
Sam Payne
My Botanist, aged three In the garden where a mother can find peace in the shade of a magnolia tree, I watched my botanist, aged three, study the molecular structure of a leaf. Her tiny fingers held it up to … Continue reading
Phil Wood: Two poems
Cafe The bowl of cawl warming your chat, but through the glass Castell Harlech sits squat and broods. The stone fed fat on local blood must grip the land – for here, both you and I, say ‘diolch’. We walk … Continue reading
Judith Taylor
Abbeyhill I haven’t been anywhere, or done anything. When I had falling dreams, I fell out of some bright fairground ride towards this corner of the grass beside the toolshed. And there’s the wall with the honeysuckle gatepost I was … Continue reading
Mike Ferguson
Reasons for Going to War Speaking of shins, mine are whores with enticing come-ons to any accidental knocks or scuffs or outright attacks as long as new scabs and then scarring can be added to the existing mass destruction after … Continue reading
Stefanie Bennett
APOLOGUE Since there’s the scarcity Of timbre to it, what Is it that’s Been fleeced From me? Separate tables! A bogus Wine waiter! And The tuning-fork Of a sublet Indefinable Symphonic Score! Be quick. Either way The minions Play; and … Continue reading
Mark Farley
Smallangry On my way to the classroom I passed the smallangry – the smallangry fourth year I’d seen hitting a bush. The bush had done nothing. It just sat there – bushing. But the boy was smallangry. He took it … Continue reading
The Open Mouse 