Clapham Rick – Marc Woodward

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Clapham Rick

When Clapham Rick stayed with us for a week
we hid our little silver knick-knacks,
those which could fall into pockets unmissed
until some days later when a lack of dust
would cough their absence from the mantelpiece.
We felt rotten – as if we’d breached his trust.
He said he’d dumped the junk and kicked the horse,
was clean as snow but for the booze, of course.

He said our farmhouse with its bird-pulled thatch
made him feel uncomfortable, spooked by bats
outside the window, the only night sound
the scrabble of house mice. He couldn’t rest
without a traffic lullaby to drown
out the darkness. It was probably best
he didn’t come to stay in January –
when vixens scream like injured babies.

…

Devon based poet and musician Marc Woodward’s recent collections include Hide Songs (Green Bottle 2018) and The Tin Lodes – co-written with Andy Brown (Indigo Dreams 2020). His new collection Shaking The Persimmon Tree will be published by Sea Crow Press in April 2022. Find more at: www.marcwoodwardpoetry.blogspot.com and  www.facebook.com/marcwoodwardartist  and @marcomando 

The lettuce – Nora Blascsok

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

The lettuce

Waits for the day
Of reckoning
Snap after snap
Blanket on cheese
And ham
You will never
Get to the core
Of the problem
By peeling away layers
It will reveal itself
When you least expect
Throw away plastic
& crunch the stub

..

Nora Blascsok is a Hungarian poet based in the UK. Her work has appeared in a variety of online and print publications. A selection of her poems titled ‘Headspace’ is out with Broken Sleep Books imprint Legitimate Snack in September 2021.

The Ultimate Task Master – Sidrah Zubair

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

The Ultimate Task Master

I am a stupid prawn except I am not really stupid
but neither am I really hot you know the kind of hot that makes
you want to smash your toes with a hammerhead shark on purpose

or makes you want to swallow banyan trees until your intestines
say proceed with caution, please! I am a prawn without a tail
I cannot swim I drown in piles of hemp seeds I am prawn

with fire brown eyes and dodo brain I break umbrellas inside man-grottos
smelling cigarettes and Tom Ford I cannot afford my own habits
doesn’t that seem a bit ironic? I hate on David Foster Wallace

gleefully I fill ears with shit-hot discourse that tastes like purring
overnight oats soaked in acacia honey and blueberries so it is
slightly inedible but looks good from afar maybe 30 feet away

close friends forget to text me back but maybe the problem isn’t me!
maybe the problem is that my prawn is overwhelmingly prawn maybe
the problem is that I always carry a canvas bag full of stinky dxy orbitals

that want to choke throats and throw tantrums in uncomfortable situations
maybe the issue is that I am missing a z-axis which meanders into brains
to find out exactly what people think of me neurotic a solid 7 hairy ugh her again

I am not the ultimate task master I cannot compete with time my clock
visits me in my sleep red-pecking at heart like a neanderthal and I wake
with psoriatic itch I am prawn dreadfully in love but mostly toopuss to navigate

through it maybe the problem is that hopelessness is brothers with pity
and I have not acknowledged it because maybe I am also hopeless prawn
I am wasteman prawn I eat 55 gsm paper for snacks and die every night repeatedly

…

Sidrah Zubair is a poet and English teacher living and working in London. She has previously been published in PERVERSE, bath magg and Poetry Birmingham Literary Journal among others.

The wind is not yet awake – Anna Milan

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

The wind is not yet awake

Patience, eyas. The wind is not yet awake.
Wait for its breath to rise and turn

till you can scoop the air
under pointed wing.

Your eyes are not windows, but walls.
Enamelled with anger,

watchful, siege-ready; mistrust
kept safe behind ashlar and buttress.

Although the frosts snap at your feather buds
the spathes will grow curved and strong.

When the barbs lock firm to collar the wind
then, eyas, we’ll be ready to begin.

…

Eyas: a young hawk, especially (in falconry) an unfledged nestling taken from the nest for
training

…

Currently living in Hertfordshire, UK, Anna Milan’s poems have appeared in publications such as Under the Radar, Eye Flash Poetry, Black Bough Poetry and Ink Sweat & Tears. @annamilanwrites

Bird boy – Jennie E. Owen

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

Bird boy

You flew

and it seemed each wish, every desire
I had to see you go, had stitched a feather
one after another upon your back.  First black and lustrous,
then foxing, like the tidal stain
on my finger from your silver ring.

You flew

far above the horizon, far above every other animal
and its stretched out twin, blackened like bonfires.
You watched the land beneath you pass, a plead
in greens; the sun (a rare sight for you) flash-lighting
musical notes on every pond, puddle, muddy
muddled lane between us.

You landed

and I pictured you, with her, stretching.  Shaking me out
of your limbs, your wings.  Loose as a doll whose
elastic 
                snapped.  Her face is a plastic supplication,
a painted tight beak.

You shook

and I heard about the quake.  I felt it,
watched it on the morning news, called the presenter
a liar.  My teacup shivered its saucer
in my hands and the memories 
pink ringed my cheeks.

For a moment on the screen,
I thought I could see the yellow of your eye.

I wondered then

after all of this shuddering of us,
did the arrow I left in your side 
still quiver?

…

Jennie E. Owen’s writing has won competitions and has been widely published online, in literary journals and anthologies.  She teaches Creative Writing for The Open University and lives in Lancashire with her husband and three children.

Leftover Casserole – Nina Parmenter

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Leftover Casserole

As the schedule decreed, I had  
leftover casserole for lunch. 
I de-tubbed it sloppily and warmed it, 
smelling yesterday 
and the day before.

But even in the first greyish forkful,  
the paprika had deepened, 
the mushrooms had infused, 
the meat had relaxed and softened. 
My mouth thought it was all new.

When you came home, I kissed you,  
noticing that you were more peppery 
than when you left. 
Later, over goulash, you pulled a new face 
and I laughed.

…

Nina Parmenter has appeared in journals including Ink, Sweat & Tears, Snakeskin, Light, Better Than Starbucks and The Lyric. She was highly commended in the 2021 Geoff Stevens Memorial Prize, and is a Forward Prize nominee. She lives in Wiltshire. Twitter: @ninaparmenter Facebook: @parmenterpoetry Website: ninaparmenter.com

Gradient – Alice Stainer

~ Claire Walker ~ 3 Comments

Gradient

A glorious day, Dad, as you would say
(that always made us snigger, did you know?)
……………Pull on your boots—you do still need them? —
……………army surplus from the funny shop in Hotwells.
……………We scoffed, but you said they were ‘value for money’.
Come on then, Dad—there’s a hill needs climbing.
Plastic-pocketed map bouncing on my chest—
I’ve learned its language as you did, and more:
zigzag up a slope,
…………..flex with the contours,
……………………….pick your way over hummocks.
………………………………….Skirt the bog
……………………….but don’t cry over lost wellies.
………….Vivid green patches have a forked tongue.
Heather helps you to hang on.
There’s one path I have yet to find, Dad—
but I will. I will.
…………..Right, binoculars slung round my neck—
…………..chance of a ptarmigan, wouldn’t you say?
…………..Those chubby boulders of bird.
Once, Mum and I saw a whole flock—
consolation, we thought, for a stumbling day
when the cloud came down.
I remembered, you see, what you said about the hills.
…………Now bog myrtle is spicing the air.
…………Hurry up, Dad! We have got all day but still,
…………this clarity of sky is precious.
…………Mete it out like Kendal mint cake in the high places.
My turn to lead the way—although in truth,
you’ve climbed this hill ahead of me,
…………and now will never leave it.

…

Alice teaches English Literature to visiting students in Oxford and is an active musician and dancer. She has only recently begun to publish her work, found in Poetry and Covid, Green Ink Poetry, Steel Jackdaw and 192 Magazine amongst other places, and won the 20/21 Gloucestershire Poetry Society competition. Find her on Twitter @AliceStainer

Cardiotocography – Flora Cruft

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Cardiotocography

The noise overwhelms me

…………………………………………………………vibrations of your ocean drum

each note

………………………………………………………….plays a different frequency, each note

ululates a ripple

…………………………………………………………..only I discern.

This is how you speak to me,

…………………………………………………………….through the beat of your ripening heart

Dum-Da Dum-Da

……………………………………………………………..Mum-Ma Mum-Ma.

Below my bloated pressure stockinged feet

……………………………………………………………..sits a machine spewing out images:

a chain of dark mountains

……………………………………………………………..rough tumbles from the peak

the shadow of an eagle

……………………………………………………………..hung in empty air.

I hold tight to the hem of this blue

……………………………………………………………..checked gown but it’s no use,

my mind rushes

……………………………………………………………..as you contract the muscle of my blood.

You jump on my cord

…………………………………………………………….like a restless hare.

Behind us I hear the call

……………………………………………………………..of another, racing to catch up.

…

Flora Cruft is a poet whose work has been published in a variety of anthologies, magazines and journals. Her poems have been selected for publication by Jo Shapcott and Hollie McNish, with one shortlisted for the Exeter Poetry Prize. She is also an existential psychotherapist and a creativity coach in private practice, and has a popular Instagram page @poet.therapist.baker where she explores the intersections between mental health, poetry, creativity, maternity and nutritional psychology.

Unknown Unknowns – Graham Clifford

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Unknown Unknowns

Viciously calm silverback, he
is moving gold spuds up
through the mud, his great hand
coming to the surface like a net.

Now he’s hosing them
as if water goes on forever,
an expansive act of cleansing, moving
new tubers around with the jet,
the trees restless around him, this
lump of nature, a pent force in the garden,
and the trees all but touch their toes
and transporter planes bring in
a fresh round of war dead, and
he takes it all in and defuses connection,
simply refuses thoughts to knot,
just cleans potatoes on the crazy paving.

At night dinner digests in the yards of guts we add up to,
water levels peak and
the gutter funnels a tapping
that gives our sleep a beat.
Something, not very much,
wakes the whole house;
you could hear us all silent
awake.

He was lying there full of potato,
remembering cleaning the potatoes, considering
lunch then dinner tomorrow, wondering
if this rain will smear his windscreen
and I wonder, does he get something right
I don’t even know needs correcting?

…

Graham Clifford’s poetry has been described as having ‘coolly brutal frankness.’ His fifth collection, In Charge of the Gun, is published by the Black Light Engine Room. Graham is also published by Against the Grain and Seren. http://www.grahamcliffordpoet.com

Nobody Knows Where You Are – Eugene O’ Hare

~ Claire Walker ~ 1 Comment

Nobody Knows Where You Are

this afternoon i walked by the green river
then up behind the old naval college
to Blackheath. the good photographers
come to the heath this time of year
to catch the fog on its slow parade.
plenty of evenings i have been swallowed
into this fog and had to listen my way
toward the road. four years ago,
mad with your disappearance,
soused up on rum, i came to the fog
to become lost too. perhaps i thought
in the lost place i could find you
and rub rum into your gums
and place your cold hands
into my armpits until i could feel
a flutter that was more than my heart.
nobody knows where you are.
how often does that occur to you?
i think the idea of all the people
who love you getting drunk and lost
and drunk and lost in fog, in sun, in sleep,
in rain, must excite you in some small way-
like a mischievous wish under the hood
of a solemn prayer. it will only be
when i am lost forever that i will find you.
i’ll be old and afraid of nothing then
& you will still be beautiful in the shirt
you left by the green river.

…

Eugene O’Hare was born in Ireland. His plays are published by Methuen. Recent poems have featured in Crossways, Fortnight, The Galway Review, and as a news piece in The Irish News. He lives in London.