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  *   The syringe should never vacate The arm it pierces Growing into white blossom, tied around A finger, it displays its own idleness A presentiment Pulling up a fruity plasma Of the unhomely     John Vickers has published over 60 poems in...

      Bed Blocker ~ 8/7 An early morning call summons me north to your death-bed. Delayed by London’s chaos after yesterday’s bombs I arrive too late. Mary has kept vigil through the night, soothed and reassured you, arranged for Mum, also in-patient,...

      When I become a Rhino I’ll fill out twenty-fold, grow solid as an anvil. The horizon of me will cross the far savannah, My mouth will grow wyd, keratin thicken upward. I’ll develop rough-bark, tarmac dermal armour to deflect the sharpest barbs,...

          Kandinsky called me from an opalescent sky   I’ve cracked the space      he said so you can read it   like a poem or the transcript of a lie.     Calvin Holder lives in Gloucestershire where he is much affected by...

      Last Thursday in November Together Since 1957 Four newest mangy old dogs, done being punished for yesterday’s quasi-traditional jockeying to grab what they may have thought of as their fair share, one of several home-grown free range cooked...

      The Crossing Isn’t it too late? I couldn’t help asking myself time and again. It was too late: the sun was gone, my chance had left; there was only one way, and I’d have no say. I washed my hands in the stream and warmed them with my breath; I saw...

    January January’s a recent graduate: cheap suit, polyester or nylon, some shiny fabric. New to the team. Golden handshake. Keen to get its teeth into something. Loads of ideas how to improve things, make the place run more smoothly. Has an eye on...

      Song for a yellow star belt In the square they are beating men to classical music last year they danced in this spot, the same children watched. In the square a local orchestra kneels before its composer he is made to throttle the defiant celloist...

      It’s the way the garden clouds over of a sudden clouds returning confuse the situation picking petals off the roses breezing turning a sunny day mute as birds get sleepy fade from thinking slim like a silver birch sapling thin    light of petunias...

      Excerpt from a free Amazon murder mystery Her violet eyes flashed like shocked blown bulbs as the truth hit her like an intangible sock. The dinnerplate of her delusions had been shattered by the weight of a big helping of realisation. How could...

      Chablis in Pyjamas Order placed, we counted from four weeks ‘til the eve before. Excited, we planned our seven-day lay in. Then it came. Memory foam and micro pockets plus the base. Bliss! We dressed it in white Egyptian cotton And placed padded...

      Going South To Morden There’s a doll’s house-sized grief when I read a book and add a character to my list of favourite names, then remember that I’ll never need it now. I’m as eggless as a vegan cooked breakfast, I’m a photocopier out of toner,...

      Peach For Anne Boleyn My velvet skin turns gold to blush. He waits till just before my flesh turns sour, falls, reveals the stone beneath. He rips each layer with his teeth and I can feel him tasting me, licking round the edges so he doesn’t waste...

      Crocodile in the Underground A skein of children in neatly matched pairs, name-tagged, wearing luminous baldrics and carrying shiny identical satchels, tittup side by side behind their class teacher, overseen by a motherly rearguard. A lag-behind...

      Weatherproof In the weeks before the windows arrive from northern Norway, where they really understand triple glazing, the house is porous. Puddles form and evaporate on the flagstones, laundry is trailed straight through casements, clouds are...

      Weather Gods Winter arrived early in 1443. Prickling air laden with ice needles sweeping down the lagoon snow blankets shutting out light. Galleys half-finished abandoned. I fled from noise of cracking timber hulls my eyelashes matted with snow. I...