Friday Poems
Swimmers
by William Thompson — Next time you dive / into a public swimming pool / think of the taxes, / the architects, the builders, // the water gushing
Dog-walking in a Cemetery
by Helen Kay — The older headstones, snug in lichen / shawls, lean towards me, console. / Do they scent my old friend’s death? // The dog
Insomnia
by James Nixon — How did I ever fall to sleep easy as pressing the basement button / in an elevator sinking through the floors of my mind / and coming to rest
Collateral
by Helen Evans — And if you let go, for a while, / of whatever is damaging you, / and head for a good place // like this woodland, whose heart / was ripped out by bombs / dropped
Holy
by Serena Alagappan — Holy those colors in rain / after drought, a puddled vow, / iris damp and aching. // Holy the indigo aura / that casts doubt on a landscape’s / verity.
Giving my ex-boss a hand job for £20 (mates rates)
by Jane Ayres — His request took me by surprise / since I’d only invited him round for coffee // making it clear there was to be no more sex
Trial and Error
by Josh Geffin — Sitting cross-legged in a small room / opposite a Zen Master – no shit – / I say I’m not sure what I should be doing, / I don’t know what my calling is. // Smiling
we hope to have sand in our shoes
by Rose Rouse — my friend’s crystal-studded sunglasses match the station / pan-asian cafes and tattoo parlours have moved into public houses
Homage to Avram
by Mark McDonnell — Avram Stencl (1897-1983). // Why this writing, writing? / Why, for example, is Avram Stencl sitting in a cafe in Whitechapel - / one tea, the rental for the table - / writing poetry in Yiddish on the back of a shopping list? // Would he
Dead Letters (xi)
by Carole Coates — Dear J, // Did we ever talk about papier mache? No? / Not in fifty years? Not in all our conversations? / Maybe not. But I did mention Mr Cuthbert surely, / once Lance-Corporal, teaching forty eight-year-olds / after the one year
frog
by Laura Theis — you are walking down the road / at night // out alone with / only a medium size poodle cross for protection // you’re holding a filched branch of spring / blossoms in one hand // a bag with dog poo in the other / just wondering if
Fox
by Rachel Spence — A fox on a wet autumn night outside the British Museum / fleeing into a gas pipe as I chivvy you out of the building / into the rush-hour rainshine of car metal, headlights, // trampled leaves. I’m several steps ahead when / you