Karen Downs Barton

    Paper Doll The woman practised control on paper dolls, renditions of perfection in children seen but not heard. She bound their chests in liberty bodices attached with tabs, displayed them in dioramas of salvaged boxes. She wished they had more...

Aidan Semmens

      From The Jazz Age The man in the high castle In his elegant turret attic, Tycho Brahe turns the page, turns it back, then back again. No matter how closely he peers at the drawings, or how intently he attempts to recreate in his mind’s eye every...

Jonathan Rosen

      Dog In the dog days of this dog’s breakfast world, you remain dogged in your doggy ways; face licker, arse sniffer, purveyor of fetid breath, oblivious to squalor, fantastically lavish with  affection. Incapable of guile or guilt, your...

Praniti Gulyani

      A Slice of Sonnet Go out with your fishing-net, and sit by the brook, the brook which holds a whisper of moon. Tell them that you’re going out to catch some stray salmon. Then, they won’t smell a rat. Ensure that it isn’t the complete, full moon...

Jack McGrath

      (Untitled) just for now (and I doubt persistence) the rubble of my mind is whipped up draftily in a flurry quivers with new direction with something like optimism     Jack McGrath is a 23 year old writer living in Manchester. He tends to...

Michael Burton

      Rest Assured You won’t be there tonight sagged upon the stool of an emptying bar the same corner where you and Frank used to sit as weekends blurred by. Nor will you stumble into a club after hours to mumble your age, name and how this isn’t your...