by Helen Ivory | Jul 24, 2016 | Prose & Poetry
Dancing with a Bonzo Will you do me the honour? says a man with long hair, mottled amber and silver, pink-rimmed glasses round as free-range eggcups, wispy beard like a question mark on a face pale as oats, and what’s this he’s wearing? A Chinese...
by Helen Ivory | Jul 23, 2016 | Prose & Poetry
Partners in Sadness I cut our white sheets into rabbits. Your mother was terrified. You laughed. Saw only the hopeful and misplaced talent. I tried to make breakfast in bed but you started kissing me and I forgot. You put it out. Didn’t say...
by Helen Ivory | Jul 22, 2016 | Prose & Poetry
Damascus: Narrow gauge The Ottoman train Swiss made (1905) on its narrow mountain gauge drifts away from the main Hejaz line, smoking, laying smoke wreaths for the city. We twist through the suburbs, stop for rubbish dumped on the tracks, stop...
by Helen Ivory | Jul 21, 2016 | 2016 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Someone Else The quilt still smells of you, but your bedroom walls are pocked with blu-tack, football teams all gone. They say you crossed the border, walked into Syria. You will head home, I tell them. As you used to come back from parties, drunk on...
by Helen Ivory | Jul 20, 2016 | Prose & Poetry
Glad To Be A Dalek I’m not your average Dalek, You know the sort I mean, All bent on domination; Giving vent to all that spleen. I like to think I’m different From other Dalek crew, Who keep emotions hidden While exterminating...
by Helen Ivory | Jul 19, 2016 | Prose & Poetry
The Paper-Wasp I tracked her by the sound her mouthparts made: rasp, rasp, on a dry stick. She straddled it and worked her jaws, reviving something dead, collecting shreds of fibre. Once, in Egypt, strips of plant stem, pressed in crisscross...
