by Kate Birch | Nov 4, 2020 | Pick of the month shortlist
Angel of Fear He turns up at night, when clocks stop, parading his wings like a white peacock. Shh! I say, It’s late and I cannot sleep. But he is just there spinning the News. He does not drink, puffs menthols sadly and scuffles around like an...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 4, 2020 | Featured, Pick of the month shortlist, Poetry
In the first days of lockdown At the edge of the tilled field two hares draw an arc towards the riverbank where long luxurious tongues of wild garlic are coated with thick frost. I can’t smell or taste a thing. I pledge myself to this field to the...
by Helen Ivory | Nov 1, 2020 | Featured, Pick of the month shortlist, Poetry
The new doctor With every new doctor, I start again. Trying to explain my condition to him, or her. Trying to explain my level of cognition; the drugs I’ve had; the therapists I’ve listened patiently to; the vocabulary acquired and absorbed, like...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 27, 2020 | Featured, Pick of the month shortlist, Poetry
Dressed For hundreds of years I’ve been trying to get out That door. The front door. The one onto the High Street. At the end of the Dark Ages I make my first attempt. But Gilded net cauls, caging my ears, Catch on the door frame. I try again,...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 18, 2020 | Featured, Pick of the month shortlist, Poetry
The Incident The general mood was optimistic precisely because everything had been prepared to go wrong, and when the performance was unexpectedly beset by several predictable problems, the general mood became even more optimistic. The incident...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 10, 2020 | Featured, Pick of the month shortlist, Poetry
Here Come the Crows I drew a sudden dark line under it all. Emphatically, and with the fulsome flourish of a full stop dot. Knowing that this was not what I wanted: the rows of chimney pots, red-rouged and boring in the dreich, mossed and...
