by Helen Ivory | Aug 9, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Coleopteran Mum and Dad are in the living room, discussing, and I’m sitting across from them at the dining room table with the white, knitted tablecloth on. I’m painting a mandala, round with concentric circles of plaits, triangles along the...
by Helen Ivory | Aug 8, 2019 | 2019 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Perfume Stranger, you smell like my dead dad. I have a cloud of weepy nostalgia for whatever perfume you have bought and wear. Stranger, what is this scent called? If I’d had to guess I would say it smells of lilies, but I don’t know what lilies...
by Helen Ivory | Aug 7, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Your Words linger with gossips, checkers of contracts, play golf with accountants of happiness. They never express an adoration. They never extravagantly bless. Their toenails never overgrow. They floss. They sleep far, far too well. ...
by Helen Ivory | Aug 6, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Snake Arriving in my garden at noon, Uncoiling it settled to catch the sun, I opened the veranda door and stared motionless At it, afraid. Flicking its tongue out towards me as a warning It lifted its head and spat Challenging me to step out, step...
by Helen Ivory | Aug 5, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Late Birth Two thousand years’ wait in the cold soil, stones and worms my friends. Some kind of tremor hurts me into movement – I fight the heavy clay. One hand grasps fibres, roots of grass, dead leaves, as I pull my body up into staring light...
by Helen Ivory | Aug 4, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Stars and Flags ‘It’s old light, and there’s not much of it. But it’s enough to see by’ Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye Sandstone walls erected in water borders at night flags flapping above squares, stripes and triangles in bright colours combined to separate, mark...
