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      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...

      Holiday Cottage Remember I sat on the grass and sobbed, dust coating the shack’s three rooms, its festering rugs? Dishes not done. A valley view? All we could see was the wood and a lav in a hut fifty yards off. Water fetched from a stream and...

      Hanging with a Baby Serpent I’d like to believe my first dream was mystic I’d like to believe I was born good though naked Like the slimy baby serpent Slithering and hissing just to know himself Cracking and coiling in monsoon muds No pretence for...

      Snake I took a photo of a small snake on a path. Printed it in black and white to know its hexagons to understand its head, its tail. To conjure the moment when maybe I could hear it breathe, could have followed it into the smooth undertow of the...

      Ice aging Look sometimes I just want to lick ice cubes and eat jam straight from the jar and not even bother if the toast is too burnt we all deserve to be seen for what we could have been but this is not about us— Look I’m just saying wouldn’t it...

      The Incident The general mood was optimistic precisely because everything had been prepared to go wrong, and when the performance was unexpectedly beset by several predictable problems, the general mood became even more optimistic. The incident...

      You Were And she could hear the highway breathing And she could see a nearby factory She's making sure she is not dreaming (Talking Heads, She Was) Out past the peeling smokestacks In a blurring frame of mind You healed me, in the name of A dab of...

      Otter in shadows You can see where he is, little seeker, by the sparkle of bubbles escaping from his fur, a surface shiver fizzing among bladderwrack. When he starts rummaging in nests on the skerry, the heron flaps off, a flag signalling end of...