Damson Cheese I watched you stir a jam potwhen I came up to oven height.An alchemist’s work stationwould not have held more wonder.Testing to see if it was set, a hot droppedglob was a molten jewel. Your stern warnings not to touchcharged the air with a compulsionto touch, the way a museum sign does. The…

  Below are two poems from Divided Tongues, the new collection from Patrick Davidson Roberts, published this month by Broken Sleep Books. Patrick will be part of Broken Sleep’s forthcoming online launch reading event on 2nd January. Details here. Aphrodite I am comforted by couples composed of people younger than mewho seem to be on…

Sick Day in the still working hours, this place satin its own plasma hustling its rentedland to no one, silence on crunchy roads mostly up to theirelbows in racket and blaring commotion, people and dogs and metal stirring.starved hills, stairway carcases, seized up cars. it pined, held its fire& was itself completely on earth’s shallow…

Below is a poem from Gregory Leadbetter’s new collection The Infernal Garden, recently published by Nine Arches Press. Comet C/2023 A3 The watchers called, all world wide, for whathad not been seen since human firesburned so low they let the nightetch the mind with all its stars. I heard, and wanted that cold touch.I saw…

Monbazillac We know she’s going to die soon,so we’ve started clearing out her house. We spend our evenings sorting throughGranny’s photos: Mum throws all the albums from her trips with her club into the binbecause none of her friends have visited her since she’s been in the nursing home.We find a cardboard folder on which…

If Only I Moved by Instinct Life has been a grand migrationto where you are today!— well-known wisdom I didn’t know! Otherwise,when those raggedy squadronsclamored overhead last evening— three V’s disarrayedlike frayed arrow feathers, their leaders insistent as clownswith braying horns, honkingfor plane geometry— I would have taxied, sprinted,lifted arthriticlyfrom water’s edge (granted more dodo…

Beethoven’s Sonata in C Minor It was the way he touched his mother’s neckthat first gave him the idea. Her vocal cordstrembled under his yet-delicate fingers,& he thought of that warmth when he fastenedan iron rod to the piano chords & bit it until he could feel the first few notes of his sonatareverberating in…

Deceit I talk to you now more than I ever did;long chats about zen, or work, or musicwhile I walk the dog around Torside.Pausing we watch a deceit of lapwings,newly arrived from France or Spain,as they plummet towards unsteadylambs, then wheel away laughing. Hard to believe this time last yearwe were barrelling down the M1to…

Ash Wednesday The smudge of ashfrom a priest’s thumbmarked us. As we stepped awayfrom the altar steps,the forty days to come a test of our selected abstinence,giving up sweet thingsfor the pleasure of denial. Once it was sugarto mortify the soul;decades on, I raise my hand when tea is offered,blocking the sweetnessthey would impose. My…

  Below are two poems from Compass Light, the new collection from Hilary Davies, recently published by Renard Press. River People Some of them – have you noticed? – hardly everset foot on land; the chug and wash to themare sweet as lullabies rocking cradles;I saw one once step up onto a quay, staggertwo long…

Audition I got my booster shot. The roostertrots out into the yard and throats a shout.Some huge truck beep-whines its lorry line of code.I’m about to compose an odefrom bedfast leaning on the other armto bird feel of Midwestern cloudwith plane moan and car door closings sifted throughthe open window with staccato promptsin counterpoint with…

Below are two poems from William Wootten’s new collection, Landline, forthcoming from Worple Press this October. Landline is Wootten’s first full-length collection in almost a decade, since You Have a Visitor (Worple) in 2016. This Summer I want something as wonderful as living in this summerWith cat’s ear and hawkbit both out-yellowing a grass,Which is…

Lisa writes: The Scavenger project relies on the acrostic form to record my regular walks around the Darlands Nature Reserve near where I live in north London. The garden centre I pass on the two-hour circuit occasionally fills a crate with unwanted plants to ‘take for free’ – what I find, I plant. Sometimes there…

Not before time will I climb the hillup to the Acropolis        then climb down again to sit about at a bar in Psyrilistening to jazz and sipping        prosecco not before time. I’ll ask for crisps not before timeand when the bowl is empty,        more crisps not…

For Takamura Kotaro When the Bombs fall, and you listento the Emperor’s speech(almost opaquely formal,about “bearing the unbearable”),you think again of Chieko –now seven years dead –and certain phrases(perhaps from her feminist, radical youth)with which, from the roof,she insulted your neighbors,or you when she threw pots and pans(still at home, before the asylum).And remember how…

In 1977 Sam Peckinpah, the writer and director, bought a plot of land in a remote part of Montana and had a cabin constructed. It was more a dream than a practical place for him to live, and he spent most of his Montana years, especially after his heart attack, at the Murray Hotel in…

Window Her hand reaches through a slim shaft ofmorning sunlight falling across a goldsmith’swindow on the corner of a 1930s blockin the centre of town eighteen monthsinto the war, double prams crammed on busesbuckling under the press of human flesh,passengers peeling off and climbing on,skirting that one couple pressed to the glassof a goldsmith’s window…

Meeting Olivia de Havilland On a perfect summer morning,Aunt Olive died. Age 96.She said her happiest daywas meeting Olivia de Havillandin 1964, “a peach.” Not her wedding to Uncle Sal,the cad. Divorcesounded luscious,but she claimed she’dstick it outlike a snowed-in car,wheels spinning. The snow never melts, even in summerwhen buds surgeinto bloom, hungrydeer nearby. The…

Piano tuner Your hands were the lastto stroke the dustfrom my yellowing keys,to lift my inlaid panels withlong-fingered practised ease.In dreams I feel your palms slide downmy scarred and creaking walnut sides— and so I plot to loosenstrings, unwind my hair,let slack wires call you backbefore your neatly lettered time,bringing your case of instrumentsto tweak…