Heat
In these heat days
when the sun displays a fiery godhead
and ordains the liquefaction of Tarmac
and the deadest of nights bring a crackle of crickets
and all the bedrooms burn in airless struggle
to turn the pillow then and face its coolness
is like the ocean’s hand upon your cheek
and is the sweetest saviour after love.
Jody Porter is poetry editor of The Morning Star. His work has appeared in Magma, Best British Poetry (Salt) and elsewhere. Originally from Essex, he now lives in London and runs events at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival.
Windfall
I watch the shallow rise
and fall of your chest
as you sip thimblefuls
of air. Listen to the clock
move on the day, the tea trolley
come and go. I tidy your bottles,
touch your face. Tidy them again.
I pour water, wind your watch.
Open the blind; a windfall
of sunlight drops around your bed.
I gather it up.
Stephen Bone‘s work has appeared in various journals in the U.K. and U.S. First collection In The Cinema, available from www.playdeadpress.com and from Amazon.
Morning
Dawn rises slowly over the Straits,
creeping light slips through the mist.
The pines observe like sage old men.
Across the water, mountains
keep fast their secrets. I would
bring you a morning such as this
to walk through woods in, our skin
turning from blue to ivory as broad day
replaces the shreds of night.
Angela Topping has published seven full collections and three chapbooks, all with reputable publishers. In 2013 she held a writer’s residency at Gladstone’s Library and won first prize in the Buzzwords competition judged by David Morley Her poems have appeared in over 50 anthologies and many magazines such as Poetry Review and London Magazine.
From The Way We Came (bluechrome 2007)