Wild Court

For the fifth event in the Wild Court Reading Series, we are delighted to welcome acclaimed poet Sascha A. Akhtar. Sascha is the author of seven metaphysical poetry collections, a […]

Flute Lesson Played with real feeling,my examiner wrote. I envied cellists and pianists –they didn’t require one breath to flowfrom their lungs, up tremulous throat, to mouth,through neatly-aligned embouchure to […]

Unfulfilled Playlist Inside the algorithm,no ratty-looking bloke hogs the ‘just-in’ section.Index finger flicking past clear plastic-coatedLPs, one album at a time. Animated mouthexpressing experienced appraisal of eachand every record he […]

The Mountain The mountain is a hostage-taker.By the time you reach the summit it may already be too late.When the path forks follow the stones and the moss,but listen to […]

Delphi

Lent It can be as simple as this: the sound of someone hooveringmakes you turn around from your desk to look, and thereon your bedroom wall is an impossible sunlit […]

Undertow Eyes wide in the dark, I listen. A thud upon the hull,drumming, like a cold caller stoic at a bolted door.I lift the hatch and go outside. Bright starsdulled […]

These poems were originally published on Wild Court in March 2022. Susumu The sun beat down on Tokyo intensely:Forty-five in the shade. The matsu treeStretched out across Susumu’s back garden,Providing […]

  Visiting Mary I visit the place I imagine her in.I practice walking the tall grassto the stony house,the bit of rock they’ve left, a candleto mark she was there,that […]

  Marginal for Michael Brown And let us not dispraise the quiet manwho on a hundred acres sets back tenfor voles to tunnel in, finches to congregate,for beasts too slender […]

Three Silences Bone dust and cold thick haunting silence restswhere pews and people creak and break the peaceand echo of my prayer, the echo of the priestdark wood pervades. Dark […]

For the fourth event in the Wild Court Reading Series, we are delighted to welcome celebrated US-based poet, translator and literary critic Kimberly Johnson. Kimberly will be reading and in […]

New Year Doors are locked to neighbours nowat midnight on Hogmanay,the ‘first-fit’ a thing of the past:my grandparents’ house heaving with guests,the coal fire crackling, the craicmixing with smoke in […]

  Death Still Walks In ‘In the old days news of it traveled by foot.’— Billy Collins, ‘Death’ Here’s how to miss the deathof a friend whose houseyou glide by […]

Every Particle Attracts Another Dear (if I may) young Sperm Whale I recently received a letter beginning with‘Dear’. Four letters transforming a letter,travelling beyond a formal beginning to years of […]

Red Check Shacket I’d heard the stories: the timeon Cromer beach, some oozinghallucinated morning, whereamongst the bladder wrackand shreds of net, he founda jetsam blister pack of pillsand snorted every […]

Yakov in Space Stalin sent his eldest son from his first marriage to fight on the front lines during World War Two. Yakov was captured by the Germans. Despite three […]