Mackerel There’s mortal shock in that swallowed thup – the deep and instant plumb drop as hooks and feathers plummet like a host of fallen angels into slate. The whole thing seems unstoppable, like the paying out of graveside rope, until some deep and unseen frenzy shakes the rod and sends you skywards to grip […]
Issue 22: Part One
Three Poems
Michael Donaghy at The Taibhdhearc, April 1997 He stepped from the wings in a pilot’s jacket and was in full flight when the power went. I can still hear the double take we did as he kept going in the dark, and it dawned that the last thing he needed to go on […]
Two Poems
Green You slip through the gap in the sandstone wall and turn in among the trees, the stone-grey columns of beech. The sound of your steps is hollow, the path dry and cracked after so little rain. Bramble and nettle and falls of ivy half screen the space of the field, where a few people […]
Blue
Blue Months on it recurs in disparate forms, the famous blue of those ubiquitous chairs in orderly rows, sun loungers and parasols, striped blue on bone white sand, the graduated blue of the middle of August reflected in the tinted lenses of new sunglasses bought to replace a pair left at home. Certain tiles – […]
Three Poems by Xi Chuan, translated by Lucas Klein
Travels in Xichuan Province Everywhere the erhu all about the street oh the whole street singing. Everywhere the peddlers all about the street the great big sky. Everywhere the daughters all about the street each one named Jade Orchid. Everywhere the aunties all about the street all with eager faces. Everywhere good people all about […]