Category: Poetry

By Ashley Zhou

we sit with folded arms and wonder about eternity.
must be god, you say, convincing;
convinced, i say, and he’s in the coffee.
it’s bitter today; they ran out of sugar.
god wouldn’t make shit coffee, i joke,
ah, the recession’s hit heaven. ah!
the angels are haloed by overhead lighting, ah!
arms sometimes unfold to reach for a sip,
bitter, ah, now cold as well, mh.
heaven is a place on earth, somewhere blasts,
carlisle from tinny cafe speakers.
we disagree respectfully.
las vegas is on earth, not possible!
a woman behind us pipes in.
her chair drags over, it scrapes the tiles.
seats shuffle, arms fold.
heaven’s in the ground, she begins;
words steam over her cup.
you sip from yours and grimace.
i sip from mine and one acrid drop reaches my tongue.
ah, empty. i’ll have another, then. 
Featured Image: Lübna Abdullah

By Saoirse Pira

I want to tell you how winter stayed too long
sealed the world into its endless night;
we forgot that we had ever known
a morning not this shade of white.

I won’t pretend the season was a gift.
The birds left and I understood
But something in the air has shifted—
The light does what the light does: good.

There’s spring in my step, and it’s summer again,
and we’re anchored in that warm delight.
It’s a prayer I say before I sleep, then
wake to find the world remade in light.

You see, the earth does this. It always will.
It breaks, it opens. It opens, still.

Featured Image: Toby Dossett

By Robin Reinders

The engines wind down real slow –
Each cylinder kicking once or twice more –
Reluctant machine, spooked like some creature.
The airfield lies under an anaemic morning light –
Mist clinging dim and dewy along the perimeter markers –
And the lamps beside the runway burning weak and washy –
Like tired, winking moons.

Inside the cockpit of the fortress
The air is cloyed with cold and damp –
Spent warmth and breath gone sour under rubber.
The gunners –
Both young bucks from Tennessee –
Eagerly out the rear door.
Your hands are still fixed on the throttles
Though the engines have been quiet
Nearly a minute-and-a-half now.
‘You can let go’, I say –
Unhelpful.
You do not look at me.
Tighten your jaw –
‘Thought of that.’
But the leather of your gloves is still wrapped
Tight around the metal –
Creaking like skin
Stretched across the white bone
Of a palsied hand –
Or the cracking leather of an
Old Midwestern diner booth.

Your shoulders ache –
I see it in the way they sit too high –
Tell it by the faint tremor
That runs through the
Strong line of your forearm.
You finally pull your hands back –
And the gloves do not follow suit.
They stay hooked on the controls –
The mould hugging your fingers
To the metal –
As though the cold
Has nailed them there.
You stare at them.
At me.

‘Don’t start’, you warn –
I haven’t spoken.

The frost at elevation has worked its way
Into the seams of the leather –
The hardened grip of wool and hide
Holding them fast.
The glove lacquered with altitude –
A fine rime worked into the stitching –
White crust clinging to edged thread –
To the stitching across the knuckles.
They have stiffened
Into the exact shape
Of your stolid, icicled grip.

You wrench your wrist in small,
Sharp motions –
Breathe out
Through your nose –
And in
Through your teeth.

I lean across the narrow space
With the same slow cadence as a horsemaster –
Feel bile at the back of my throat –
Note the swallow inside yours –
Your keyed-up caballine kick inevitable.
Our knees interfere under the instrument panel.
The smell of you is richer now –
Fuller, more animal –
Sweat,
Sheepskin,
The bitter ghost of oxygen.
My thumb presses along the seam of the glove –
The leather rigid as bark.
‘Don’t make a business of it’, you mutter.
‘Not a chance, pilot’, I defend –
Business-like.

Frost breaks
Under the pressure
Of the pad of my finger
With a brittle crackle of protest –
A small granular fracture,
Like biting soft and sweet into glacé.
Your idle attention flares in my periphery.
‘You always do that’, you whinge –
And it sounds like you have nine cylinders behind your ribs.
I can hum at the bait.
You clarify –
‘Act like you’re the only one
Who knows how to use your hands.’
And that throws me a bit –
Makes me take a hard look at you.
‘That so.’
‘You fuss’ –
Snarled from your shark-mouth.
‘I told you to wear your electric gloves.’
‘And you enjoy being right.’
‘And I enjoy you being wrong more.’
It seems to ease you out of your mood –
The mouthy play-fighting.
Eight months from now
I won’t be able to get a word out of you.

When I work the seam open
It feels like a part of you goes with it.
It yields by degrees –
Each finger released in phases –
The glove stubborn in its claim
On your extremities.
Your hand inside remains
Determinedly still –
I do not expect to notice this –
To feel the restraint in it –
The effort not to assist –
Not to betray need.
Mangy mutt drooling at the muzzle.
Terribly still.
The abominable heat of your cheek reaches the skin
Beneath my helmet strap.

…

The glove begins to give.
Each finger crooked and reluctant –
Your hand swelled and distended
By pain and cold.
When I tug harder –
A little mean –
You set your jaw firm and brave.
‘That hurt?’ I ask –
A little meaner.
Your head is angled
And gracious
And acquiescent against the seat rest.
‘Just get it off.’

…

My hands cupping yours –
Your wrist braced in the recess of my palm.
Small bones
Shifting like the
Slight, sinewy spars of
The very first bomber bird.
I pull and
You watch –
Like Hughes watches his own films.

The gauntlet releases its grip.
The skin of your hand dark red –
Flushed
Deep and swollen
Like fruit bruised beneath the rind.
Blooming blood vessels,
Tender contusions.
Your knuckles shine faintly –
Blood forced close to the
Taut, tight surface
Of your stinging skin
By the returning warmth.
You flex your fingers once –
Tendons moving all a-jitter
Beneath the skin.
Indecent, somehow.
Your mouth pulls askew .
‘Bad?’ I ask.
‘Raw, ‘s all.’
‘You’re shaking’ –
Unhelpful.
‘So are you.’
It’s not often you man up
And choose to be right about something.

…

The second glove is worse.
Your knuckles have caught stiff and dry-skinned
In the lining.
When I pull –
The cowhide gives only grief.
You shift impatiently.
Your knee jams harder into mine –
Pressure deliberate –
Provoking –
Desperate for horseplay.
Hell,
You’d romp with the Germans
If they gave you no reason not to.
Scuffle right in Stuttgart –
Half a bottle of brown in your belly
And a dollar on the line.
I look up.
Your eyebrow raised
Like fists by your face.
Your features etched with irritation.
‘You like telling me what to do’, you state plain.

‘Someone has to.’
I think of you behind the wheel.
Bail-out siren blaring –
And your parachute somewhere not on your person –
And all our boys with their silks torn open, safe and settled upon the ground –
Waiting for you to listen to your Kraut-crazed copilot and eat your grief –
And jump –
And come home to them –
Wounded –
And weepy –
And wonderful.

‘Thought that was the colonel’s job.’
‘He makes a poor go of it.’
‘And you manage well?’
‘Well enough.’
I think of you caught in the collapse –
Strapped fast –
While the fuselage folds upon itself,
The harness holding you
In saintly posture –
Head bowed slightly,
Arms drawn in,
As though the machine had arranged you
For burial.
I think of the long, awful fall
And the ground rising
To meet what is left of you.

…

I hook my fingers beneath the cuff
And yank harshly.
The leather complains.
Your mandible too –
Molar on molar.
For a moment I think
Your hand will come off like a doll’s.
When your wrist slips free –
And lands atop
The heel of my palm –
The heat of it is scalding.
Pulse jumping as the recoil of a gun
Just fired against
The heel of my palm.
You look down at the mess of limbs you put there –
Your wrist and
The heel of my palm.
Some small noise comes from you then
Which I have not yet heard –
Angry and frustrated,
Simpering and childish.
‘You do this’, you strain after.
‘What.’
‘This—’

The familiar edge in your voice.
The small flare of fury
That lives just under our skin –
Has festered since basic training –
Worsened in one another’s pockets.

You do the rest of the work –
Pull your hand away –
Flex strong fingers again. –
The redness all but gone.
‘Better?’ I ask –
Cringe at my own condescension –
‘Better.’
You do not thank me,
But when you reach for the latch
And haul yourself down the forward nose hatch,
You are there
To push your palm between my shoulder blades –
All pesky and puerile –
And send me stumbling over my own boots.
That wicked smile –
With all your teeth
Still in their right place.

Featured Image: Imperial War Museum, United States Eighth Air Force in Britain, 1942-1945

By Robbie Foster

L’enfant I

Go with me now raising nothing,
For nothing will come from nothing.
Your hands, they will brush against mine
And feel the marks of adulthood
So rudely and so freshly forced
Upon me and my shaking palms.
Go with me now raising nothing,
For I’ve nothing left to tell you.
Your hair will fall over your brow,
My world will be shapeless to you
And you’ll feel me gently trembling
As I lead you to your slaughter.

Eden II

Hold my hand and take me to the river,
We were born there after all – and will die
Some day. I’d like to return before then.
I want to listen to the familiar roars:
Mum shouting to stand back and that picture
Dad drew to let me know that I was seen
As I dissolved into the peripheries
Of the river’s great undying torrent.
I’d like to return there before I die,
To run my hands through the hopeless waters
Flowing slowly into obscurity:
From the moment I touch them – from that place
On the bank to which I haven’t returned.
I’d like to return there before I die,
To feel my hands be gently swept away,
By the waters, into obscurity –
To know that there was some real in all this.

Shutting the door III

Walk a few steps ahead of me.
We’ve said everything that we can
For now, and the day isn’t getting

Any shorter. I like to think
You were like this once – long ago –
The overcoat looser, less grey,
And the drink that we could’ve had
So much the more understanding.
Still you wanted us to walk home
Together, just for old times sake,
And I know that you’ll leave the door
Hopefully ajar, just in case
My nostalgia for being at home
Can tempt me back inside with you.
It will probably, and this will
Be a silly flight of fancy,
Stopped then forgotten forever –
My last desperate gasp in all this,
Stopped then forgotten forever.

Featured Image – Toby Dossett

By Penelope Gathercole

think of us here in your head before– 

no! don’t think! 

floating 

neither in front nor behind 

of your eyeballs? and already 

gone, too slow. 

why do they always have to go like that? 

just like that. 

not to think but to write. 

there, 

they are there. 

more wiggly than expected but certain nevertheless. 

an urgency, it is 

a frantic urgency. 

like a bird 

pecking at the same piece of corn 

but the force of the beak 

coming down 

propels the corn away and 

the bird must run 

after it and try again. 

nothing more humiliating 

than running 

after a ping pong ball. 

waddling, 

like a small child, arms outstretched, 

as it rolls and bounces 

further from you. 

we are all watching 

and waiting. 

an untimely titter, 

your turn. 

you’re my favourite yet. 

you tit. 

Featured Image – Darya Sannikova

By Tillie-Rose Wallis

The orange of my nails meets the tan sand, grains falling, attaching to the damp

I pick the small shell in my fingers then place it in the palm of my hand The sound of it clicking against the others obtained from the same sands I straighten up, the wind brings smells of salt and perfume, its motion pushing

Later, I sit in front of the campfire

The laughter of my friends, the plucking of strings and the soothe tone it

emits

I think of the day, of the sea and its loot

I transport back, to a decade ago To different waves, to same action

I pick the small shell in my fingers then place it in the palm of my hand

The sound of it clicking against the others obtained from the same sands l open my grasp; they cascade into a plastic bed

Here, 1,369 miles from there, I am the same.

Featured Image- Saoirse Pira

By Theo Turner

Lilac cards lay strewn on the carpet.

A smattering of patterned backs and pruned plum pips

 Discarded from whatever 

Late night

Mystic revelries

You previously entertained.

You lounge above, on the sofa;

Book in one hand, coffee in another.

A singular chipped violet nail 

Taps each grape in turn, on the chipped mug

(Your mug).

The lamp is on,

You bought that shade

From the shop down the road

So it can throw heathered hues

On your favoured kitchen table spot.

I ask to borrow your perfume – 

I have a date later and he seems like a Poison Dior kinda guy. 

You smile your assent so I pad to your room.

There a rug fills the floor

Like a fresh bruise

Spreading on soft skin.

A thistle charm 

Hangs 

From your windows’ handle.

It reminds me of the amethyst earring you wear

And tug when too many people enter the room. 

Returning, I spot a lavender circle poking from your jumper;

I know you sleep in that top.

I’ve never seen those sleeves that brush your knuckles,

Brush your knuckles outside.

You claim it compliments your eyes.

I think they need no trouble with that

But let you have the excuse 

So I can spot the tannin soaked tell of your presence.

The juice stained thumb marks from your love.

You tell me you want to plant a wisteria

In the pot on our balcony.

This flat will be long gone by the time it first blooms.

Featured Image – Pinterest

By Robin Reinders

The morning has not yet decided to be morning –
A pale seam of light lying low along the hedgerow
Beyond the hangars –
Everything else ready-room charcoal and damp tin.
The trainers crouch along the tarmac, wings folded
Like birds waiting out a storm.

We sit on the narrow step of one of them –
Shoulder to shoulder because there is no other way to sit –
Soles knocking the aluminium skin.
The metal is cold enough
To steal heat through wool.
You swear softly from behind your teeth –
Shove your hands beneath your thighs.
‘Christ–
Colder than the Channel.’
Your breath ghosts between us,
Seeps into the nothing void of the sunless dark.

I strike a match.
The flare of it briefly paints your face gilt-gold –
Young still, soft along the jaw,
Eyes gentle
And half-lidded with sleep.
The cigarette takes to the flame –
Tobacco curls wonderfully into the air, bitter and sweet the way sweat is.
You pitch gracelessly forward to steal the first draw
Before I can lift it to my mouth,
Shoulder bumps mine –
‘Greedy bastard’, I mutter.
‘Pilot’s privilege’, you answer.
Cocksure. Irritating.
Your grin flickers quick and mean like the spark of the match –
Bright and licking up cruel and then gone.
Smoke leaks skywards from your mouth.
For a moment it hangs between us
Like breath on cold glass.

…

Inside the cockpit the instruments sit dark and patient,
Anticipating handling.
The seats absurdly close together –
A joke among all us flyboys –
Knees almost touching
Even before the parachutes and the harness
And everything else we carry into the kite with us.

You climb in first –
I tell you to –
The leather of your jacket creaks
Like saddle tack.
When I follow
There is the usual awkward instance –
Boots tangling with pedals,
Shoulders negotiating space
That will never be won between two grown boys
And their clumsy limbs.
We afford one another the same dignity
As bedfellows.

‘Give us the cigarette.’
You hold out your hand behind you
Without turning to face me.
I place it gingerly between your fingers.
Your glove brushes my wrist in hasty hungry hunt for the filter –
I feel as if some surface part of me has been permanently smeared by it.

The cockpit smells thickly of oil
And stale canvas.
Smoke threads through the cramped air
In thin blue ribbons.
You lean back in your seat impish and lazy,
So the cigarette hangs near my mouth.
I bend forward to take it –
A cat lapping milk from the dish and
Our helmets knock.
You laugh like you’re out of breath.
‘Careful –
We ain’t even wheels up yet.’

The ember pulses blood orange when I draw.
For a second the light of it
Paints the underside of your jaw all ruddy and raw.
Pink-skinned.
Your throat moves when you swallow.
Clicks.
(‘Why do all-a men got a Adam’s apple? Hell they do wi’ mine?’)
You notice I notice and know this is tolerable.

Outside, ground crew voices drift through the dark.
Boots clink-clanking on metal ladder-rungs.
Someone slams a hangar door with
The same rough-handed tenderness you’d handle a horse.
A lark begins somewhere beyond the field –
Thin, tinny, delirious music climbing the sky
Like a dizzy soprano.

You reach forward to fiddle with the compass housing.
Your sleeve drags across my forearm.
Friction of wool
And leather.
It is ridiculous.
It all is.

‘–?’ you ask.
Your voice is easy –
And careless –
Like how you fly and handle girls.
I shake my head though I never register what it is that you said.

You hand the cigarette back –
The flighty little pulse beneath your skin
Jumping through the opening in the glove seam –
The ghost of it stays in my palm.
The last of the ash lengthens, trembles.
You reach to tap it out the window
And your bony elbow nudges my ribs.
‘Sorry.’
‘Sure?’
You grin like you’re going to survive this one too –
Allow me to get you back for it.

…

The eastern sky lightens
From jet-black to Bobby’s blue velvet.
The trainers along the runway begin
To show their shapes –
Long wings, blunt noses,
Frost dulling the metal.

You stretch one leg forward,
Moony and slow,
Your ankle
Bullying my shin out the way.
I go without much fight.
‘We’ll be home for breakfast’, you speak
Through the palm
Dragging down your weary face.
‘Powdered eggs and cold coffee’, my lippy retort.

You draw once more on the dying smoke-butt –
Deep enough to burn it to the stub –
Then hold your leftovers out to me –
As if there’s anything left.
As if I should thank you kindly.
The heat from your last drag warms the thin paper.
I feel as though a detonator is beneath my thumb.

Outside, someone laughs, sharp and awake –
You snatch the butt back,
Flick it out into the wet grass,
Dewy from the damp English dawn.
It lands –
And dies with a small hiss.

Featured Image: Australian War Memorial, William Dargie, 1945

By Emi Sharples

She, with her curls placed perfectly in an updo, divine,

a doll, pretty woman, head-turner – alluring, luring them.

Everyone’s eyes beheld her; she, the apple of them all,

her name in every song: she, her, she, oh she.

Uptown girl walked downtown, her pearls

gleaming, smiling, stunning. Dipped in

and out of cafés, travel agents’, department stores;

she laughed and gushed about her dream

destinations – Zanzibar, Vienna, New York –

the pianist’s eyes darting, pen scribbling on a notepad

as she strutted past.

She, the face you can’t forget.

Her pout hummed in the key of C#, mulling over

a melody, looking like a million bucks,

noticed by two square black frames. Watched her,

traced her expression with a blunt pencil,

tipped his fedora, left –

glass half empty on the bar.

Definitely legato; she mused,

bristling at the breeze coming from the open door.

She wanted more.

It was Moore who sang the blues; she fed him

lines of cobalt, navy,

cornflower, royal, her voice treacle,

sticky on the keys, fire,

searing in the buzz of the strings.

The brass played her in as he sang,

mourning her departure.

She was bold as love; little wing; foxey lady.

She blew the melodic gale that cried

Mary,

her breath coming short

but true.

Hammered on with his right, strummed with his left

as she confessed: take anything you want from me.

Her name lay used on the page, scrawled beneath the letter ‘F’.

A rainbow like you, he wrote,

the rose-coloured tinge hanging in the air,

dissipating, as their dinner lay

half-touched around him.

And she watched. And listened,

hearing her voice, her words, her mind.

But she watched still –

still,

pushing down thoughts of picking up a pen and

Featured Image: Edward Hopper – Nighthawks