Today’s choice
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Sigune Schnabel tr. Simon Lèbe
Mother
She cut letters out of me,
which quietly and unnoticed
danced red poems.
In the autumn wind, they fell at her feet
and rustled decay.
Since then, my name wears holes.
I counted myself off on five fingers
and planted my remains in the flowerbed.
Sometimes, she sprinkles water into it,
while from her mouth the snow quietly trickles:
frozen and laid under ice,
I linger,
rootless;
all the while, she only wanted
to breathe growth into me.
Sigune Schnabel (b. 1981) studied literary translation in Düsseldorf, Germany. Her poetry, featured in anthologies and journals, has earned awards in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. Between 2017 and 2023, she published four poetry collections.
Translator Simon Lèbe was born in London in 1961 and spent a large part of his childhood in France and Switzerland. He completed a degree in Fine Art in London in the early 1980s. Self-taught, he has worked professionally in various fields of translation.
Morag Smith
When the waters broke we were
out there, borderless, with just
a view of bloodshot sky from
the labour suite
Gordon Scapens
Stripping wallpaper
leaves naked the scrawls
of yesteryear’s children,
small forecasts of flights
that are inevitable.
Chrissy Banks and Antony Owen (from the IS&T archives) for Holocaust Memorial Day
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep Goodnight moon, goodnight stars, goodnight cherry, pear, apple tree. Goodnight pond, stop wriggling, newts, stop zipping the water, water-boatmen. Goodnight, glossy horses on the hill, rabbits in the field, white...
Clare Bryden
how do I begin?
Yvonne Baker
an etherial whiteness
that covers and disguises
as a strip of white frosted glass
Hilary Thompson
Ambling up North Street
on a Saturday afternoon
at the end of a long Winter,
I am stopped by two women
Irene Cunningham
Lavender seeps. I expect my limbs to leaden, lead the body down through sheet, mattress-cover, into the machinery of sleep where other lives exist.
Graham Clifford
The Still Face Experiment
You must have seen that Youtube clip
where a mother lets her face go dead.
Her toddler carries on burbling for twenty to thirty seconds until she realises there is nothing coming back to her.
Susan Jane Sims
After you died,
someone asked:
What was it like
in those final sixteen days
waiting for your son to die?