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 proposed deals to release him, Stalin left him in the camp where Yakov eventually died. Father, it is cold abovethe Earth, in the vacuumof your…

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 my ankle into touch.They zip the ball across the parquet floor,drawing triangle after triangle. Sunday league at the Rec in Dockenfielddidn’t exactly ready me for…

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         spectrum. Her cryptic smile, expressing an alchemy of emotions.See her wearing this diaphanous garment made of sheer white nylon chiffon, edgedwith lace…

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 of us make our wayto the memory tree.Desmond has a list of the deadand he says a few wordsabout each onethough even as he speaksthe…

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 her, let alone smile. How hungry she is for a smile,not church, trees, river in his eyes.She watches him: he pushes back his hair, abashed.She…

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 Exmoor. from Greencombe: A poem in paths – – – – – – – – main path You’ve walked through gardenswhere a bench is an…

My aunts had names like sugar and spice Maybe they started in a doll’s house,where the world was rainbows and unicorns.Their lives changed colours,but their names stayed the same. Pinky stayed Pinkythrough the heartache of two divorcesand several betrayals,the palette her name evokedstayed Hello Kittyeven when the skies in her life turned grey. The cancer…

Night Hunt i.m. Michael Jones Like hunters entering the wood we have cometo the duty-free halls, the perfumes of small flowers –jasmine, Joy – first steps on our journey to find you again. So weeks become months on planes and buses and pathsas together we traverse the nocturnal landscapewith one united heart, your band of…

For the third event in the Wild Court Reading Series, we are delighted to welcome award-winning poet and editor Sarah Howe. Sarah will be reading and in conversation with poet and playwright Suji Kwock Kim. The event takes place on KCL’s Strand Campus, London, from 6.30pm on Wednesday 16th October. Click here for more details and to…

July 15th, 2022 I’m wearing a wedding ring. youput it on. and I did for you –think of squeezing it overthe knuckle. and there is a feeling –a hard one to sculpt. not love,which we both know the shape of.I’d guess it’s a flavour of comfort –an isotope. like putting on shoesin the morning. like…

Tide and Tidings at the Equinox Concrete curve is lashed in swirls of spray      from gun-metal grey —a liturgy for loss for one snatched off      mysteriously,a man of song and subtle smile whose paintings      bring the outside in,reflective pools with scumbled bladderwrack,      impasto sensuousnessof sea and sky…

 Artwork by the poet On the Hudson In times like these I turn from the world      that cannot be the world, because it does not know meas the stag on the heights,as the eagle delighting in the ruffle of the sun-raised winds,as the frog in its evening song,does not know me as itself;…

Piking i. The wind plays a low notethrough the one bar gate onto the bridleway.I tick the code into the lock. It clicks open. Once our car has passed, the gate fastenslike a set of chimes. Back in the car,it’s a short, choppy drive up to the copse. Then we’re outside, booting up,putting on layers,…

Image: michael clarke stuff on Flickr Seaweed Herbarium Mermaid hairisn’t rare, but it’s worthpreserving for its hue: dark greenat the root of every lock,brighter near the ends, which splitinto finer and finerwavy tendrils bleeding greenpigment. Each tress is likea barium flame that stains but doesn’tburn the folio page – labeled,signed, and dated by the mermaid-hair…

  In Memory of Robert Burns   I The ghosts of all past members of the Dumfries and Galloway Town Council gather for a resource management meeting in perpetuity. In their enthusiasm, they interrupt one another constantly. Look, he lived here in this house a time;let’s put up the largest sign –      …

Five Breaths were needed to extinguish the flameand now a red wick leans into the melt, diving into a quarried lakehigh in the mountains to find mouthfulsof salt in the freshwater under the slate. Here, dust edges the decorations. The holly wreath curls, browns,is a woodland floor alongside a streamwhich pours towards the quarry. Inside…

Photo by Thomas Verbruggen on Unsplash A Short History of Greenhouses In the end, my father’s greenhouse was shipwreckedBy ivy, which spiralled round bamboo canes, stuckLike octopus suckers glued to a crab-shell, cracked The last surviving glass and snaked through holesAt the bottom of terracotta plastic pots. An oddballNurseryman, a character actor throwing colourful Shade,…

Below is a poem from Rory Waterman’s fourth collection, Come Here to This Gate, published by Carcanet on 25th April. Until that date, the Carcanet website is offering a 25% discount on the collection, and free UK postage, with the pre-order code RWGATE25 at checkout. There will be an online launch, hosted by Declan Ryan,…

Below is a poem from Nicola Healey’s debut pamphlet, A Newer Wilderness, published by Dare-Gale Press this month. Summer/Winter This brazen blue day is a dangerous scene.My mind clashes like a dropped cymbal.My skin, like all my clothes,doesn’t fit well. I go indoors but I can’t shake myselfand the sun still glowers:Enjoy me, make the…

Below is a poem from the Selected Poems of the late Paul McLoughlin (1947-2021), recently published by Shoestring Press and edited with an introduction by John Forth. Mother in Murreigh You wanted to be seventyhere – despite your brotherbeing the most contrary manever to put shoes on his two feet. You spent the morning up…