Hello

      Malt I was a sickly child and for my health Ma fed me Malt from a big brown jar. Glass, big bellied with a silvery lid that we used afterwards to hold a candle to light the cellar. Malt was thick. More gloopy than syrup or treacle and folded back...

      Mamgu   In the coal-dark kitchen of Mamgu’s house above the fireplace scratched with coal-dust, brief sunlight reflects in the miner’s lamp. Every morning Mamgu would polish it with Brasso and a red cotton cloth. Her thin hands handled...

      Deco In the elevator with your mother The first floor an apparition Your awareness expands with a pang in your diaphragm. She clothes you in the stall The lipsticked attendants buzz and hiss Spit purple refractions Of waists sliced in halves many...

      Farmer’s Piano Shop Plate Glass Window, Luton, 20th July 1919 I will tell you that after the jet of water lifted me and before it threw me through the plate glass window, I had time to notice a number of things, namely: that the window looked...

      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...

      Field Mouse He’d crouched and scragged loose aubrieta strands and flower-less leaves off the pond's low wall. Pause precedes recoil: for the thing is small and pretty, sleek as a conker. He jags back from it, stands. Some force lofts the spade...

      Clock At Carnac, lines of ancient stones stretch across fields, reach for the sun. I can almost hear them tick as they count the days to winter. I can almost hear them tock as they count the nights to summer. We take selfies among the stones....

      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...

    Join us for a live zoom reading from Julia Webb and George Szirtes with support from UEA poetry students Tristan Coleshaw ( 2020 recipient of the Ink, Sweat and Tears Poetry Writing Scholarship) and Eve Esfandiari Denney (the Birch Family Scholar for...

      Tomorrow  Tomorrow the birds reverse. Owls swing from branches, geese fly bellies to the sky, and  pigeons shuffle ‘round roads on their backs. Tomorrow twitter explodes. Soaring views on  videos. Televised debates. Think-pieces. Memes. Tomorrow...

      You, with the Lego Grip around your Pint We feel you overseeing, through the thrashing of the dancers – weighing, sizing, rating like a coil-sprung cat. From the comfort of your bar stool, your scalpel gaze dissects us, discards the parts deemed...

      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,...

      A night at St Thomas’ Church, Friarmere At first I’m afraid of the church’s dark eyes, thick leaded lines drawn chaotically in illegible strokes against dull brightness, darkness visible within and without. I can’t enter here— In daylight it’s no...

      Sunday Thunder Something is angry behind the blue sunlit sky a growl crows fluttering in confusion and the wind tugging at my heels The scowl overhead Night growl from the blackness beyond something is angry Something behind the sky is angry...

      Beside the Clun 10th March No bright sun this morning to paint the tops of the valley houses. The edges of the view blurred by the stagnant mist. Dawn is still recognised by birds, pheasants defining their territory, robin, blackbird, thrush...