by Helen Ivory | Dec 1, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Missive This is my dead letter my notebook of sifted seeds my kraken spilly of ghost thoughts In the middle of the night when it is soft and varnished as a boat’s hull, when the angels and dogs have gone to sleep I send you a grey gull to lick...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 30, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Cat Call At five a.m. or maybe earlier the cat scratches like a black wolf to get in. One of us climbs out of bed, sleep blustering us to automatic. He jumps aboard. We settle back. At five thirty or maybe slightly later, the cat scratches like a...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 29, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
On the Calendar The last job of the fading year is transferring the important dates of birthdays and anniversaries, policy renewals, the prompts to ‘save the day’, the cards to buy, parties we’ll plan, perhaps outdoors, if we get the weather....
by Helen Ivory | Nov 28, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
I Praise the Spider I At the web’s dead centre, a thumbprint smudge in your secret heaven tucked beneath an overhang of leaves and hung about with jewels and corpses baby-faced mummies, the empty sacks of your children, trembling as if with a...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 27, 2019 | Prose & Poetry
Thunder Under London It was there a silver stratocaster making no sound the air had a bleak purr I picked up the neck and plucked a shape Oh blare! the ringing sweet of that strung gap music meat to this hollow old world I played and I flung I...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 26, 2019 | 2019 poetry picks, prizes and awards, Prose & Poetry
End Forget you. The ash of bone. The uncradled heart, leaky valve long scorched. Forget the unthinking arm that fell on my shoulder, those times we crossed the M6 flyover and you drove with one hand on the wheel and I’d change gear, rather badly....
