Hello

      How to Escape and Other Theories For Mary My sister sings me to sleep from half a world beyond, and I sink into the pool of night with an earful of song. Outside, this foreign city closes and I travel to Dundalk – the Green Church, Castletown Road...

      Holy Days I took you to see churches in hot countries. You admired the architecture, peeked inside the giant ribcage but found no heart, only empty pews for empty people. Sometimes, you strolled majestically up the spine towards the altar, like a...

      Quite Contrary This was the only place she felt at peace, our Mary, in her haphazard back garden. She loved to tend it, plant things to grow, fashioned a path like rosary from stones. She rubbed slate together trying for sparks but found instead...

      Tri Jablana There’s a walk I do alongside a bank of the Kupa from Dubovac to Gaza then curve out into open country where before you get to the mental health institution there are three poplars - tri jablana - three poplars in a field in a lot of...

      Taxi i need t hustle i need t score i need a drink & then a few more i need a hand t get t my feet i need an elbow t cross th street i need a hug baby i need a kiss i need t skip th preliminaries i need a proxy an adult toy i need a girl...

      Night Owl In the worrisome hours before dawn you’d be up quartering the house for silent chores. Never an easy relationship, you’d send letters or cards I treasured. Four-thirty, I’ve just finished ironing. You hated fluorescent tubes, preferred...

      The Bones Since no one’s left to pad out the story, these are the bones of it: Saturday evening, an RAF base (south Yorkshire, most likely), the last weeks of World War Two. The lads fix to meet at a hotel in town – they might not be here next...

      Eagle After Kathryn O’ Driscoll Wasn’t my heart a finch bird? Wasn’t it the yellow-joy chirp overheard on the dawn walk to work –a reminder of the things in this life that are delicate and made of more than the hollow-boned expanses between their...

      On the edge of the Arctic If the light were to leave our world, what of it? We would gather with fire under sturdy roof. We would share spirits and stories, songs, laughter. We would sleep soft in warmth of ourselves. If the light stuck up above,...

      Full Sail She feels like a ship in a bottle, its sails pulled erect, through its neck by a man with a string. He sighs with pleasure, as he seals it with a cork. Placing her on an ornate shelf, he can keep an eye on her, admire her graceful lines....

Join us for a live zoom reading from Ron Egatz and Matthew Caley in our new occasional 'Live from the Butchery' series, hosted by Helen Ivory and Martin Figura from their home.  The reading will take place on Sunday 26th July, 4pm GMT, 11am EDT. (Email Kate at...

      Crowdsourced doctor said the signs were exit car park X-ray and Costa an extra shot stay strong anyway that blood's gone off to Glasgow wasn’t very old googled it nervous of course not sure which floor we’re on the road to cappuccino yes it’s...

      Home Comfort The village now has broadband: it’s easy to work from home, to cut and paste a spreadsheet, play with the Xbox, reel in, on a short cyber-thread a boxvan from the nearest town laden with super-fruit and exotic bread. Some still walk...

      Vertigo Approaching midnight and the gouges of a mountain lean over us, weeping boulders. Each bend is a hook, hauling us higher. The car howls like a colicky child. I grip the door, you tug at the wheel, a cracked silence thrumming about whose...

      Our Stories Have Been Told To Us Our stories have been told to us, worse we told them, wove them in and out our lives, back and forth and last and first our stories have been told to us, worse to pull them out leaves an absence, a curse, though...

      When I had a mental illness I just can’t beat it (Quote from Manchester by the Sea) In the unaccounted hours I used to wake up awake. One night I awoke with semen all over my legs I dreamt that I was sexual and wished, and wished, in the glue of...