by Helen Ivory | Jan 8, 2013 | Prose & Poetry
Legacies My father died and my mother, Made tea. We ate Dundee cake, And sliced a life, Into jobs and hobbies, While the minister took notes, And declined sugar lumps. We invented a man, Recognisable only to strangers. Loving father,...
by Helen Ivory | Jan 7, 2013 | Prose & Poetry
The World of “Absolutely” – and Other Clichés In the surprisingly hermetic world of Anglophone communication, original language is as rare as a horned toad in the Antarctic. Ralph Nader once observed that clichés stop people from thinking. Not...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 24, 2012 | Prose & Poetry
Mothers know the mercurial properties of time Frail baby bird in your incubator, arms bent like wings, unfledged and translucent, your face foreshadows old age, as if time must run backwards for you to catch up. Suspended, we hold our breath, look...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 22, 2012 | Prose & Poetry
Death and sunflowers. A tattoo of sunflowers around a baby’s face brings up thoughts of godlessness and anarchy from my stomach as each day wished away remains unformatted a broken line of roots a tree branch a stand-alone synapse gradually diminishing reaching...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 21, 2012 | Prose & Poetry
Wanting Out The rare sunshine of a stormy summer. Greta, Gwenda, leave their checkouts, slink from their supervisors, for a tea break fag. By the pathway’s bench, they watch a cat in sun. Basking, she’s found a cardboard carton, 16 by 4-ounce packs,...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 19, 2012 | Prose & Poetry
I Never Fancied Forever You with all your black hatred You with your endless lips Hard as rock Soft as earth Your sound a hiss a whisper Is silence forever? You know I never fancied eternity A promise not a threat A reward perhaps? But you always know me...
