by Helen Ivory | Jan 25, 2017 | Prose & Poetry
One last goodbye to start You board a plane set into a bevel-edged hum of concrete; it has spread its enormous metal wings into the inkspill of this, your last English night: damp chill and dryskin hands like rustle-paper, now you ‘taxi’ (how...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 24, 2017 | Prose & Poetry
Bare I can’t bear the way she looks at you. The hold of her petalled lips, curled into a plea- -ease me tonight, pout. And her horn-ed trimmed eyes, all plucked slices of honey this, excreting crème patisserie. Icing, sweet violet tip – flicks of...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 23, 2017 | Prose & Poetry
Seagulls When I phoned her last week she said the weekdays were OK, but the weekends were tough, especially Sunday, Sundays were the worst. She said Sundays were an empty day if you had no God to fill it. She said people kept telling her to keep...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 22, 2017 | Prose & Poetry
Exile Foolish: to not know how to work your own wings. On the ground, people stare, they can see them protruding. You keep them concealed, as best you can, but now and then a feather falls, almost giving the game away. It’s not that they’ve never...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 21, 2017 | Prose & Poetry
Clifford’s Tower for the Jews of York Have we forgotten the astringent voice of Silkin, on frigid conscience stupefied? Its queue-badgering ghost must shake the iron-ribbed ceiling of Leeds train station, the student dives, places words...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 20, 2017 | Prose & Poetry
Aquarius, letting go on the surface, sea melts the horizon. light blinding as grief – the mind blanks at the glare. this is the inbetween place. the space between sky and base. a bottle afloat, bereft of miniature vessel. the ship long adrift, sunken and...
