by Memoona Zahid | Apr 22, 2021 | Featured, Poetry
The Cost of Living after Deborah Levy His hair was not silver and not pinned into a bun. I’ve been reading it over and over. Obsession over something harmless must be a good thing. It’s a book, safe, I’ve been told. A woman saying things I like to hear,...
by Memoona Zahid | Apr 21, 2021 | Featured, Poetry
Homing I My mum used to say that when she died she wanted to come back as a well looked after cat. Two weeks before, for Christmas, I bought her a cat onesie. We assumed she would be spending plenty of time on the sofa with our tabbies – enough for the...
by Helen Ivory | Apr 19, 2021 | Featured, Poetry
Shadowtime Romney Marsh, Kent, February, 1287 That night a slice of moon rose, mottled red like a scratched wound. The sea was torched, wind-charged. We heard the tide roar twice across the Marsh and knew it was here, the hour of the dead. Hulls...
by Helen Ivory | Apr 18, 2021 | Featured, Poetry
from: Seize i. I fear my poor old soul may be a fixer upper. I strive to find out – it’s that forensic streak I have, I suppose – by too often drinking on an empty stomach. There’s a view afoot, I think, that a proper soul needs proper seasoning....
by Helen Ivory | Apr 17, 2021 | Featured, Poetry
Home Front For days after the children leave for their homes in the South we discover unexcavated battlefields, nonsensical as Towton. Small formations of infantrymen guard the lower book-case shelves, lone snipers lurk behind the curtains, and...
by Helen Ivory | Apr 16, 2021 | Featured, Poetry
Roses The postman was my friend, rang the bell, wouldn’t leave until he’d reached me, handed me broken stems of roses — thorny with their heads at crooked angles, buds that tried but only turned to rusty paper. They’d found you by the postbox...
