Chris Campbell

      The View From This Hospital Window I admire an empty bench for hours – then a glum couple sit to share strawberries. A pensive man pats his Jack Russell. Yoghurt white sky; life’s brighter now. I slurp weak coffee, push away the lunch tray, read...

Kapka Nilan

      After the Tribe When she left, the winds picked up and the bloated sun filled the horizon with fire, the sky turning ochre. She hurried in the heat, leaving behind what she called a tribe, not a homeland.  She still remembers the scale of the...

Patrick Deeley

      The Speed of the Earth He sees a stainless-steel spoon burned off at the base, a bunch of wild flowers dropped, a builder’s padded glove plastered flat, a car slumped in black ashes and glass. He imagines his classmates singing out the bargain...
Jessamine O’Connor

Jessamine O’Connor

    Nerve Music Sometimes I’m jittery like this        jittering nervousness appears as a tremor from somewhere distant     far away     inside and I’m on edge but maybe on edge       is advantageous where things happen the best location for seeing each peak...

Eliot North

      Homunculus Explaining to my little man about proportion, he responds with feeling: a picture of daddy with thousands of fingers. Sensory and motor cortex guiding the felt-tip pen, big tongue lolling as he draws. A little man with huge hands,...