by Helen Ivory | Dec 23, 2024 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
Poplars in the Mist A crow’s eye weighs the view: poplars and their spiky layers, mist – all froth & pomp & wisp. I am more poplar than mist. I am there in each defiant branch: stalky, not willowy, standing my ground. I am always reaching...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 22, 2024 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
The Christmas Market Her mother doesn’t want to linger here – cheap stuff from South America at cruelly inflated prices. Disgrace. But Nuala won’t be dragged away. There are wooden frogs that sing an ugly croaking song. Their coats are...
by Helen Ivory | Dec 21, 2024 | Featured, Poetry, Twelve Days of Christmas
The Solstice Turn Happiness starts coming back with winter chill. The cold raises the hairs on the back of our necks the way honesty does. The sky opens its arms to clouds and the setting sun paints them gradually into shadow. We hold back from...
by Fathima Zahra | Dec 20, 2024 | Featured, Poetry
Holly Queen She curled emerald tights about the core of an oak slumbering with thick bare limbs. He had lost his hair she noticed a vast shock of lemon green let fall to a muddy mulch below. Ivy’s agile twitches hugged tight twisting,...
by Fathima Zahra | Dec 19, 2024 | Featured, Poetry
On Stage in a home-made model theatre, c.1967 Glued to your block, in paint and ink you wait for Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life to stop. Smell of hardboard and hot bakelite. The lino curtain’s ready to go up. At which, the straightened coat hanger is shoved and on you...
by Fathima Zahra | Dec 18, 2024 | Featured, Poetry
Airplane Mode Nothing bad can happen on a plane. Engine fires, earache, hijackers; but no new grief. The heart is contained. Cupped in the silence, sorrow makes truce with the green lands below. In the regulate hum of the aircon, the news...
