The Ghost of Emily Hale Replies to T. S. Eliot ‘I see myself as a blood-sucker’– T. S. Eliot, in a letter to Emily Hale (2 August 1934) Our posthumous letters to the world hang oncurious computers everywhere, like Twitter statements.I was requested to write mine by Princetonwhen I gave them all your letters. It…

What the Arborist Saw A cat, among the finches, the sparrows and the wrens.A cat, stuck, in the highest fork of a sycamorethe afternoon he scooped her in one fluidmovement into his jacket and kept searching,calling down to the upturned faces of the boys,No sign of the rascal, must have done a runner. He feeds…

Ghost and Chrome I wanted a life like a burning comet, and got an engine fireon the Nullaboor Plain. I was riding at the heart of Australia,the red dirt towns and crocodile creeks, tin roof shacksand termite mounds. But I was doomed to expirein the middle of sand, a motorbike ditchedby the side of a…

Maria        Dear old man, why do you sit alonereflecting on a war fought long ago on the young girlwho spent with you those last few daysleaving you with the promise of a kisson your return. Did you not find solacein the woman who later bore your childrenas you scratch your head in grief… With a…

Arctic The first time you tasted chemotherapy,there were no side effects apart from an Arcticchill turning your lips blue like the wiryhospital blanket you wrapped yourself in. You shivered the troughs and peaksof the Cordillera range, mirroringthe echocardiogram to come. No snowfell in your cubicle, but it was cold enough to trace the outline of…

Football in the marshes Bright green from the black earthAs the teams in their primary coloursMove like tides across the luscious turfCries sharpen on the cold airAnd I pass, wishing each of them wellHoping the striker nods, judicious as Solomon,The midfielders organise and dissectAnd run themselves raggedThe goalies plug the open maw of the netLike…

The Little One is a madam, is more parrotthan fluffy bunny, more myselfclotted. Is the drink of the sky, thevisitor of my life. Wakes my metal heart withgaping cries and trancelike silence. Allair on my hips but she loves me darkto the bone. She stays close forlong, wet kisses warming me as I write this.Small…

The Ungodly Hour of the Morning …comes later now than then.When my mother hissed from the top of the stairs“I told you to be home by tenI’ve been worried sick”, I didn’t think I cared.Was ten a godly hour and midnight not?I never asked. I was red rag to a bull enoughWithout probing that inflammatory…

Worshipping at the Shrine of Artemis, the Hunter You kneel in the underbrush            clutching a knife in one hand, antler in the other,            sawing, blistering away in the frosted            throat of winter, mould-green algae leaping up the trees. God is felt in warm things, the altar of his sparkling eye cool as…

The poem below is taken from Rebecca Goss’ fourth collection, Latch, recently published by Carcanet. There will be an online launch for the book on the evening of Wednesday 7th June, hosted by Caroline Bird.  The Retired Agronomist Drives a Tractor in the Summer Because He Likes the Oily Smell of the Machine And how…

    Delivery Boy The rain has started bucketing down. As the delivery boy tries to find shelter his cellphone starts buzzing constantly; he picks it up with a heavy heart. Subsequently, a flashback evokes within as the raindrops touch him: the departure of his father way before time. He contemplates: how could he be…

Ted Bar On the down escalator at Tottenham Court Road after Stick in the Wheel’s gig at the 100 Club, I’m reckoning the last time I took those steps was back in the Eighties for Sonny Fortune, walking up from the Spanish Bar with Dave. I’m still riding the buzz of the gig as I…

‘The Zandvoort Fishergirl’ by Elizabeth Adela Forbes, 1884. Penlee Gallery  Zandvoort Fishergirl after the painting by Elizabeth Adela Forbes Left hand on her hip, her right hand balancing an earthenware platter against her blue apron, she stares at us, unsmiling. Her face is precise: jaw set, hair scraped back; there are touches of light down…

    Back to Life The pub was closed for Christ’s yearly dying. Good Friday — regulars filed in, prisoners who felt they were better off inside, claimed aptitudes for carpentry or wiring given the lie as the hours ticked on. All morning, hammers banging — lads nailing floorboards or knocking walls; spectres of dust rising…

Image © Cambridge Jones Below are four prose poems by Dan O’Brien from his new collection, Survivor’s Notebook, which chronicles the family life of two cancer survivors. The collection is forthcoming from Acre Books this September and can be pre-ordered here.

Image by Broadreach from Pixabay     Murky Waters On a field by a lake in Manitoba a woman presses her hand to the wind. She is learning to read a rivermap etched into the bark of an old birch tree while her husband raises a farmhouse and two barns from his handful of meagre…