Jean Atkin

      Grass Verge Near Soissons Under wheels, leaves flash a fallen sunlight in the lanes.  Cold farms are hung with hoarfrost and stiff sheets.  We stop for water by an orchard, pinch two pears from over the ditch. Their skins are bronze, a little...

Stuart Pickford

    Amniocentesis As the receptionist studies our insurance details, the gynaecologist appears from behind a curtain; needle long and thick. I stroke your arm. The syringe angles into the sponge of womb, pierces the wet image, feet webbed in shadow. She...

Michael Oliver-Semenov

      Before today, the last open smile in Russia was in a Yevtushenko Poem In Russia, a smile is like an invitation, for murder, or worse. Waiting for the bus with one hand in pocket, like some mobster; Like the men on the stairs of the hospital in The...

Beth Phillips

Beth Phillips is an emerging writer who dabbles in documentary, illustration, poetry and short prose. Keen to expose her work to a hungry audience she explores and examines themes of older age, decay and the beauty within these. Twitter: Beth...

Ian Clarke

      Widow Thunder stumbles, rain blind as sleet litters the wind, and behind the door the dark where silence ticks and her face grief frail watching the sky’s tree of stars, listening to the street’s cobbled skulls washed bright with laughter. And...