Amateur musicians join me unexpectedly so
a kind of music I know nothing about –
A Season in Paradise
I find him in Empangeni. My father lies on his back at the edge of the sugar-cane valley, one arm under his head, the other flung out, fingers plaiting scrub and yellow weed flowers.
The Traffic Noir
The films were usually shown, where I grew up, in school libraries during the normal run of the school day …
End of Watch (2012), dir. David Ayer, reviewed by Janet Rogerson
by Janet Rogerson
Laura Ellen Joyce, The Museum of Atheism (Salt Publishing), reviewed by Alex Johnson
by Alec Johnson
MR9 Editorial
As we move to this newly designed site, we are keen to maintain the onscreen integrity of the poems and prose we publish …
Between My Father and the King
My father fought in the First World War that used to be called ‘Great’ until the truth of its greatness was questioned and the denial of its greatness accepted.
Worthless Men
After one long winter dredging the waterways for Meek’s Steam Navigation Company, and a second short summer hauling ice …
The Wounds
Betrayal begins at home, a fine-boned fledgling,
blown-in through your window, heart a-shiver.
Soundtrack for the End of the World
‘Promise me leaf-blowers will cut out first,
Spinning in sparkless Catherine Wheels
Then dying like blue-bottles.’
Watergate
I try to sleep on Miriam’s silk divan, can’t, and walk far in a snowstorm to some 24 hour porn booth …
Two Poems
For a good half hour this morning, from five
till the mobile’s ringtone woke me in a sweat,
I was young again and Mammy was alive.
Ghost
My sister Ailsa didn’t talk much. She didn’t want to. It was because she listened instead, and she watched.
Two Poems
The kumquat tree you brought for me
from Florida, it likes the sun, you said,
so I found a place outside
Rich Jim
Karen starts it. ‘Tell you who’s got loads of money,’ she says, ‘that Jim. Hasn’t he, Des? Bloody minted he is.’
Three Poems
If what wakes you of a sudden, past midnight
are the war or mating calls from roaming kids