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 […]

Fútbol Sala ¡A un solo toque! ¡Más rápido!¡Acho, Maciu! ¡Más rápido, coño! They’re taking it in turns to yell at meevery time a neat pass avoids my bootand cannons off […]

Vivien Leigh’s negligee A caliginous enchantress from the start.Beguiling vision. A flash. Flutter of soot eyelashes,eyes that looked violet, gray, blue, tan and nearly every other colour in the   […]

Tree in the Rain Go in peace,go with joy into the soft rainwhich never ends.Rain without end.Go in peaceunder the rainthe Liffey Arms, O’Rourke’s,the horses.Sundays without end.Rain without end. Some […]

Beg Your Neighbour She pushes back her sleeves,cuts a piece of bread,dreads the cold, lonely day ahead. Could she pluck up courageto ask her neighbour for milk?He won’t look at […]

Below is an extract from Greencombe by Ella Duffy, recently published by Hazel Press. Greencombe consists of twenty-nine interlinked poems which walk the paths through the titular woodland garden in […]