by Helen Ivory | Jul 4, 2012 | Prose & Poetry
A Poet Rehearses her Rejection of a Novelist’s proposal My dear… friend (keep it impersonal) it would be quite impossible. (Impossible? Never mind, carry on.) I know what you want, what you meant (Know? Presumptuous, but I do know.) But it wouldn’t work....
by Helen Ivory | Jul 3, 2012 | Prose & Poetry
Please, tell me of the smell of the moon What does it smell like, she asks, when the moon is full? Do you know first hiss of batter hitting groundnut oil in a shallow pan, I ask, on a morning after a long, dream-ridden sleep? The night when you walked...
by Helen Ivory | Jul 1, 2012 | Prose & Poetry
Double Shift now she sleeps under him so used to armpit exhale she double-breaths her dreams he sleeps now without thinking heated roving palm tectonics burn these damp and jutted joints killing nerves to wake up numb, dead-handed and unable to soothe...
by Helen Ivory | Jun 30, 2012 | Prose & Poetry
Primrose We used to keep the goats for milk and meat, but now they’re mostly pets. Mum says she has got too old to take the billy kids to slaughter. I never realised it was such a big deal, but maybe I’d feel different now. We’ve all got older. It was Mum who...
by Helen Ivory | Jun 29, 2012 | Prose & Poetry
Broken Children I went looking for them In the empty room Where the sad music was playing And a woman’s voice was singing Of the deaths of children. There’s a single window Hung with cobwebs Where half sketched faces Look in through the...
by Kate Birch | Jun 28, 2012 | Prose & Poetry
Helping My Son With His GCSE Poetry Homework Built like a flanker, swearing like a football-dad it’s four Weetabix to a bowl, Fifa scores with strangers and show-me-the-money demands while I search for his hoodie. Any excuse for some joshing, he’s...
