by Helen Ivory | Oct 20, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
Roman curses Nobody knows what Cicero’s gardener whistled to his figs and olives, what the consul’s young wife hummed to herself while slaves combed beeswax and perfumed oils from Carthage into her hair. Did bawdy odes to Octavia’s backside (Ah,...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 19, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
Lighting the Strangers into the cave for Celia Fiennes, who rode 3000 miles around England on horseback in 1697 She hears the locals call it the Devil’s Arse. the hill on one End jutting out in two parts and joyns in one at ye top this Cleft...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 18, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
A moonless night when lanterns are shuttered The track leads through thickets, threaded with eyes. Elusive scraps of dreams, they gleam, flicker out. Long dead stars pierce the canopy with pinpricks of white, cold and exact. I stumble through...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 17, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
Elements On my son’s desk lies the periodic table of the elements. I look. Amongst the arcane names I recognise, easy as breathing, carbon, oxygen, gold, beloved of kings. He shows me how it’s laid out – from left to right by increasing atomic...
by Helen Ivory | Oct 16, 2025 | Featured, Poetry
Forty (for Maryna) The first three days of war have a surprising holiday feel. No deadlines, just the giddy gasp of shock. Ordinary life continues. The girl in white socks in the flat downstairs plays a prelude then turns, pleased, to an audience...
by Elontra Hall | Oct 15, 2025 | Featured, Poetry, Word & Image
A zuihitsu of strings A zuihitsu of strings for Ying A lacquer table, gloss under fingertips. A raised stage with dark linen. A young woman smiles with her hand-held harp, its nine strings glistening. The room swells with the cadence of her pearly...
