Peter Devonald 

      Father He is sulphur, he is fire and brimstone, he is deep shame, the colour of night, sound of slamming doors. He is bitterest regrets, dark chocolate, olives and kale, The Telegraph and Magritte’s pipe, the treachery of images. Moments...

Anne Ryland

      Self-Portrait as an Old Schoolhouse Restless two-hundred-year-old village elder, a ragged playground of words, or is it weeds – fragments of chant to slaps of skipping rope. Sash windows, shoothered open, once shed ample light through dreich...

Colin Dardis

      Mausoleum A house is a machine for living in.- Le Corbusier I have never climbed a tree, never broken a bone and will never walk on water. I open my little window and worry about possibilities: imprudent intruders of bird or cat, the wind, the...

May Garner

      The House Keeps Score The house keeps score in places no one checks any longer. A hairline crack behind the fridge. The soft dip in the hallway floor where grief learned how to pace. We didn’t mark the days after you left. We measured time by...

Surmaya Talyarkhan

      No mental image I have a friend who designs cards for friends every Christmas. She carves the pattern into lino, maybe a robin, or a heart shaped a bit like a beetroot. I often feel like a lino tile someone has hollowed – not in a violent...