by Helen Ivory | Apr 20, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
The Dulcimer-girls (for Coleridge) (Oh, and the Dulcimer-boys) they’re the ones making the bloody noise banging on those lovely instruments on an Autumn night at 3 A.M and it’s so nice – and, yes, I guess it’s Leeds –...
by Helen Ivory | Apr 19, 2019 | 2019 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Therapy Take thistledown, hold it in the bowl of your palms. Feel it tingle like Spumante. No, it can’t mend your heart, but it will float you to the surface of your skin. A cure for that dull ache under the ribs, that beats each time you long for...
by Helen Ivory | Apr 18, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
A Strange Case There’s something floating in the Brayford Pool. Two swans, raw recruits, investigate. As a sub-plot, one showboats the other. The pen ignores him. Two high-viz guys in a high-viz launch circle, decide it’s possibly wood, not a...
by Helen Ivory | Apr 17, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
To Essex Worn stones lean toward the train, where blue lichens graze on lost nouns, passengers stuck still waiting for a service. In Leyton, four men carry one bouquet, dark lilies and chrysanthemums, extras from Brueghel’s Triumph, their...
by Helen Ivory | Apr 16, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Walking I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least…sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields – Henry David Thoreau i’m sorry Mr Henry David Thoreau it wasn’t Nature’s subtle...
by Helen Ivory | Apr 15, 2019 | 2019 poetry picks, Prose & Poetry
Vital Signs We laughed, in spite of the darkness, at the circles around your eyes. and you rolled them over hand-knitted hats in the chemo ward, to cover things we tried to hide. when I shaved your head and the last of your hair fell in your lap, you...
