by Helen Ivory | Nov 20, 2016 | 2016 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Sloth on Fine Dining Sloth’s favoured position for eating is legs above head – not his own legs, of course – and being the slothiest of sloths he’ll lunch at the laziest of leisure; a real underachiever. Accomplishing more than fool-sloths,...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 19, 2016 | Prose & Poetry
Proximity At night we hear him. Behind the wall behind our headboard our neighbour is trying to clear his lungs. Sometimes he calls for his wife. We lie awake, silent and inert. I recall, as a child, not daring to move, hearing my grandfather calling my...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 18, 2016 | Prose & Poetry
Summerlands Willow man farms the summerlands, tends black maul in its bed of clay. At leaf fall he harvests young stems by machine. His father’s billhook rusts unused. At home his wife dusts the crib great-grandmother wove from withies, stripped...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 17, 2016 | Prose & Poetry
We should have cleaned-up sooner Leave. Take your rust speckled distance with you. I won’t pull your crumbling hand and plead for you to stay. I’ll ignore the broken holes you left when I prised you. I don’t want to walk out and see nails,...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 15, 2016 | Prose & Poetry
Crabbing The technique for the life skill my father taught me, like shaving correctly or changing a tire quickly, ran through my mind. ‘Don’t go too close to the rocks’ I stood close ‘Find a nice alcove and dangle it in the middle’ lowered the...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 14, 2016 | Prose & Poetry
Fashioned I have been made and fashioned out of old drapes and spit and polish, out of daddy’s booth leather and the stuff at the bottom of whiskey glasses after a long evening I have been made from the matter on the bottom of boots mingled...
