Wild Court

Église Notre-Dame-de-l’Assomption Surely Isaac must have held some kind of grudge?Perhaps that’s why he does not meet the weary gazeHis greying father shoots across the vaulted nave,Where the plaster peels, […]

At the Coffee Shop Their hands on the small round glass tableTwo stiff-backed snakes on frosted grass –Yearning to relearn the cursive of slack and slither.How they measure the nothing […]

The Heat and the Names In memory of the Bayham Abbey rioters, who, in 1525, protested against its closure Augustine Percyvall bites his lipand in the dark a star is […]

Cuboid for Láďa In a dark little cube that passes for an office,cluttered with the dismantled hardware of surveillance,four large screens on the wall display in sequencelive snippets of tired […]

A Pilot Came Knocking A pilot came knocking on our doorone summer, holding a photographof our house that he took from his plane.The house was a custom-built colonialwith a painted […]

Four Number Cloggers Versus Me, Their Dog We were alone in the basement. He was grip-filling noggin, me up a laddercable tying festoons; when his admission camebeneath the roar of […]

Parecoxib after Levinas Mum’s face, almost completely other now.High cheekbones she would have loved,pale skin she would have rouged.Our loved ones: my godparents holding hands,my dad – become her husband […]

‘Start seeing everything as God but keep it a secret’ – Hafez No-one else is willing to nursemy tea-light spirituality – not you at leastand I am easily overpowered – […]

Hand in Hand When we approached the pelican crossing,your hand unexpectedly grabbed at minefor the first time in over forty years,your palm shocking me with its snug smoothness as if […]

Taotie’s Mouth Everyone is searching,yet forgets their own guilt.We gorge ourselves on desire,yet fear we will fall into its endless cycle. In the distant East,饕餮 (Taotie) is a monster of […]

Midway […] griefwolfed my heart and all that had stitched me into this lifecame undone that day. – Susan Musgrave, ‘The Broken Hieroglyphs of the Stars’ I am returning to […]

Sir Duke (i.m. Stevie Boucher) I. The first time I met you, you welcomed melike a hearth without guard or grate.You handed me a plate – but first, whiskey glass.We […]

  From The Garden of Eternal Poets i.m. Fleur Adcock 1934-2024 Woke up with a sore head. Much drinking on Po Toi Island. After the Exhibition of Lingering FragranceI picked […]

For the sixth event in the Wild Court Reading Series, and the first of 2026, we are delighted to welcome acclaimed poet, editor, translator and activist Stephen Watts. Stephen will […]

Against Which The mantel is already awake. Carved oak takes the light first,
an old brown intelligence.
A grain like worn scripture,
every vein a sentence that forgot its verb.Someone’s hand once worried […]

I suggest we go see home. time reaches first,preserves the house—changing it. my old banyan treehe’s elephantine, uncompliant.fleshy overweight branches hurt his back now,they hurt the floor. the guava treepeeps […]

‘A Bar at the Folies-Bergère’ by Édouard Manet, 1882 She has no hat upon her head, no smileupon her face as she leans slightly forward,hands pressed against the slab set […]

A Heron in Eastville Park, 2021 As shadowsscour the surface of the parkthe shiver of minnowskeeps him waiting by the municipal lake, austerein tufted grey and white.Swans steerin twos, then […]