Hello

      The News is in The news is in. Grey fears can go away now. These flames are black and green, the colours of disease. It isn’t true! But only because I keep my eyes closed. If I open them, the wall offers an Arctic ferment of blues, the ceiling is...

Join us for a live zoom reading from Stuart Ross and Bloodaxe poet Clare Shaw 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 28th June, 4pm GMT, 11am EDT.  Please...

      Fin The first bars are the seeds from which the music grows, but even the music’s surprised when it flowers; by what it knows. The first snow lands; each further flake that falls is laid on the flake before, and turns the world to white and shade:...

    Country Train of My Country I see from a distance, its metal backbones disappearing into the blue haze of our day. It moans and vomit its human snort into the silent heat. Kacha kuchu ka……cha Kuchu……uuu Kachaaa Kuchuuu. Kweeeeeeeeee.
The sound steps...

      how to lose your mind at the end of the world (an instruction manual) step one: stare out the window for hours on end. pretend you’re making eye contact with someone. step two: envision a post-apocalyptic future, where you only eat canned beans,...

      Unravelling Fields like tapestry   Fields like patchwork quilt   Fields like ripples over water    Fields like sunspots on lens Fields floating clouds  shifting with wind   shapes always changing   an old stone wall  diced onion in a frying pan ...

      Untitled / Villanelle I have often longed to see my mother in the doorway.’- Grace Paley Because having a father made me want a father. - Sandra Newman I have often longed to see my mother tap-dance in a top hat like she did before he died –...

      Void It was before dawn when I saw him hurtle behind an asteroid illuminating my telescope with the flash of a cheap bathroom bulb too hot and burst under stress. And you can flip the switch but the cosmos told him to hide so he’ll nick himself...

      Blue Light A pain in my leg wakes me at 4. I stand to stretch out the cramp. Blue light pulses on the ceiling. I part the drapes. Across the street an ambulance ticks. In a pool of light from a street lamp, an old man is trundled out, an oxygen...

      If You / Then We If you are leaving Mohr and Mohme for Brighton then we are iron and steam and if you are walking alone at night then we are moon and Dog Star and if you are suffering with first-night nerves then we are Hamlet and Ophelia and if...

      Home to the Hebrides Where are you running to what are you looking for rooting in other people’s abandonments scraping time off the earth into spoil for stone some sign of burning a flicker of bone someone’s life to ponder their gut to digest...

      medusa the narcissist self-preservation is really something ongoing and terminal they loved taxes they loved death certain things create an emotional reaction self-contemplation is coldly detached apparently the inevitable end of introspection led...

      Tell me again in this ragged midnight that intimacy will endure waters aren't rising and tomorrow the fritillary butterfly will graze my garden tell me that passion is not merely nocturnal but a tsunami of connection    no stormy tea-cup but the...

      Birds Everyone held a bird, except you. A policeman eyed you suspiciously. You followed the crowd into the square. When the clock struck noon, everyone lifted their bird aloft. Some snapped necks and wings, or let their bird fly. A wife watched...

      Smickling I am as useless as a coronet, have lost a shoal of bloodied runts. Who shall assist me? Perhaps a ripe and red-faced peasant with more brats than she can raise. I need her shoes, I need a charm to stick what quickens to its cage. Perhaps...