Hello

      and so it goes… two boys neck-deep in a boiling argument talking about which album is best Made In Lagos or A Better Time a man calls beer the devil’s urine you do not swallow poison and expect to blossom a boy regurgitates the faces of exes...

      In the form of a joke After Steven Wright I got a humidifier and a dehumidifier put them in the same room let them fight it out now my house is all shiny a confusion of moisture finding holes in the walls I watch the neighbours cooking eggs...

      Because a forest After Joe Cottonwood Because there’s a pandemic on and you should treat yourself to good air Because the height makes you look up and looking up feels good in your spine Because the air is fresh and you breath more consciously,...

      Brush-tailed landlords In Australia, we shared our house with possums who lived in the space above the ceiling. They had been there long before we moved in and likely regarded us as their tenants. We kept daylight hours that didn’t bother them and...

    CARRIE (With reference to the Stephen King novel of the same title) I learn about the shame of a woman’s body from my mother’s handwritten notes. The ones I pass, red-faced, to my teacher that excuse me from showers and swimming. I stand at the edge of...

      Grooming My brain was full of hair that you wanted to brush, style like a dolly. Good dolly. You worked your way up to stroking it, as if I were fleshy, jellyfish tendrils, that I might sting you if I wasn’t ready. You gathered the threads of my...

      I’m pulling my hair out again and I worry that this is how the children will remember me. As balls of tangled fluff, that roll lazily under the sofa, to snag later in the hoover.  Will they curse me every time they have to empty the bag?  Take it...

      Gone The tap is not dripping. I check the windows and leave. The doors are all locked. I sit on the bus and wait for a thought. Nothing comes. The tap is not dripping. I look out at the muddy fields and write a note to myself. The doors are all...

      Start With The Thing That Can Fly Away It was a goldfinch balancing on a teezle, she’d planted it for this very reason, and to see a tall hat of snow. The custard yellow flashes, the head dipped in red, the white apostrophes on black wings. But...

      Alley Cat The dark never knew such corridors, The evening gallant upon its fur.     Jason Visconti has attended both group and private poetry workshops. His work has appeared in various journals, including Literary Yard, Indigo Rising,...

      Bowled Over As I walk them home from school Sneaky Camouflage and Brave Barry train for The Big Fight, dangling from fence railings and fake-kicking brick walls in their black Mary Janes. They’re going to swap summer uniforms for shorts and...

    Birding at dusk On the shores of Mangalajodi: one of Chilika’s few undiscovered corners, the boatman welcomed me with warmth in his eyes. As these wetlands happen to be the turf of these poachers turned naturalists who know it like the back of their...

      Visit Your building is an early 2000’s monstrosity. Mini palm trees and cultivated grass embedded in studded concrete, sweat stained balconies a spit away from the diamond exchange where night brings out prowlers in business suits and lambs paling...

      because I’m a car mechanic’s son When Ed who’s a doctor’s son couldn’t start his car in the snow outside Salzburg after The Magic Flute, I got out to push saying “Pop the clutch Eddie after I get her rolling” which I knew how to do – * because you...

      And sit with the dark In response to Stand in the Light by Elizabeth Rimmer And sit with the dark, when it comes. Smell the wax and the wick – watch its small orange tip glow brighter then fade into black. See the ghost of its flame on your...

  Please join us on zoom for live readings from Carole Bromely, Raymond Antrobus and Catherine Woodward on Sunday 5th September  at 4pm GMT. This is part of  our monthly award-winning  ‘Live from the Butchery’ series, hosted by Helen Ivory and Martin Figura from...

      Water & Mud   The water in its lonely bowl beneath your bed, drawn from where? You were drawn from the mud in January. From the mud.     Robert Hirschfield is a New York-based poet and writer about poetry. He has been widely...