London Grip New Poetry – Spring 2025

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ISSUE 55 OF LONDON GRIP NEW POETRY features poems by:
*Maggie Wadey *Stephen Komarnyckyj *Marilyn Ricci *Denise Bundred
*Sam Szanto *Anne Bailey *Clare Starling *Lisa Kelly *Jennifer Johnson
*John Whitehouse *Mark McDonnell *Dmitry Blizniuk *Tony D’Arpino *Glenn Hubbard
*Nicki Heinen *Anne Eyries *Josh Ekroy *Wendy Klein *Paul Stephenson
*Norton Hodges *Ruth Lexton *Caleb Murdock *Barbara Barnes *Sally St Clair
*Amy Jo Philip *David Floyd *Alison Campbell *Leo Smyth *Dominic Fisher
*George Freek *Leona Gom *Alicia France *Janet Hatherley *Stuart Handysides
*Fokkina McDonnell *Oliver Comins *Lorraine Kipling *Gracie Jones *Michael Burton
*Neil Leadbeater *Tony Curtis
Contributor Biographies and Editor’s Notes are also included.
Copyright of all poems remains with the contributors
A printable version of this issue can be found at  LG new poetry Spring 2025
London Grip New Poetry appears early in March, June, September & December
SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
Send up to THREE poems & a brief bio to poetry@londongrip.co.uk
Poems should be in a SINGLE Word attachment or included in the message body
Our submission windows are January, April, June & October
Please do not include us in simultaneous submissions

Editor’s notes

Quite a few poems in this issue declare themselves to be ‘after’ works by other writers; and several more acknowledge the influence of a film or painting. Readers may not always recognize or know much about the work that has prompted the poem but a little searching usually sheds some light. But in any case it is pleasing that such conversations can take place over time and distance between creative people whether they are seeking to endorse, extend, question or even contradict one another’s viewpoint.

The word ‘after’ also relates to the process of sequencing and it reminds me that the poems in an online magazine can easily be read in any order. Perhaps we have all scanned a contents page on screen and then jumped straight to a poem by someone we already know well. (Let us not speak of the temptation to click first on one’s own name if it happens to be present.)  And, with that in mind, we do now want to emphasise that London Grip New Poetry is assembled so that, as far as possible, each poem is related to its neighbours by theme or narrative thread or at least some keyword.  Our offer of a print-friendly form of the magazine reflects the fact that we view each issue as a quasi-collection or lightly-themed anthology; and we invite our readers to take the hint and read the poems in the order we have placed them.

Meanwhile in other news … We have rephrased our guidelines to show that we do not welcome simultaneous submissions.  Since we aim to respond in no more than 4-6 weeks it doesn’t seem unreasonable to ask poets to entrust their poems to us exclusively for such a short time.  In view of the care with which we fit contributions together it is particularly distressing when we send out an acceptance only to be told that the poem has now gone elsewhere. This happens rarely; but when it does happen one might be briefly tempted to leave the item in place but as an erasure poem that is totally blacked out. But of course we would not really play such games with our readers.

As a late addition to these notes, we are very sorry to report the death of the artist and poet Valerie Josephs who was for many years a familiar and welcome face – and voice – on the North London poetry scene.  There are examples of her work here which includes a short biography and account of her eventful and creative life.

Michael Bartholomew-Biggs
London Grip poetry editor
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Maggie Wadey: At the Door of the Whitechapel Mission   
 a winter evening, 2022
 
My father and I both had name-tapes
sewn into our socks. Me, for boarding-school
where I was to be turned into a lady. My father
to go into a Care Home. To be turned into...
‘Socks’ I said to the young woman at the door.
‘It’s mostly socks. I don’t know why he had so many.
And hats, a whole shit-load of knitted hats.
Likewise, regrets.’ She raised an eyebrow.
‘His years at cards,’ I offered. ‘Poker.’ Adding:
‘My mother.’ The young woman sighed. Quietly.
‘And time,’ I say. ‘Too much of it. Imagine taking
one hundred years, three months and eighty days
to “shuffle off this mortal coil.” ’
We smile at one another, I’m not sure why.
 
I know that men lying across doorways
like so much detritus from a shipwreck
can be relied on to quote Shakespeare. Some of them.
Or Frank Sinatra. Conscious, or in their sleep.
A few days before he died my father quoted
‘Into the Valley of Death.’ In its entirety.
A poem he learned when he was eleven.
And he gave me very clear instructions
what to do. With his socks.
Only—
 
they’ve still got his name on
and I’m finding it difficult to hand them over.
I can see men, black shades on black, trembling
like the proverbial leaves, falling in every doorway
of this entire block where the occasional pedestrian,
in denial, steps over them.
The woman nods. ‘Not long till winter’ she says,
‘when they’ll be needing these.’
As he will. No, did. For so long.
What was he waiting for?
 
Care-handled into place, stubbornly he looked
the other way, shuffling his hand, playing his last high
card like death was something he could get out of,
folded about-face—faded but everlasting—
in the press of time.

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Stephen Komarnyckyj: Unheard Music

My dad died twenty years ago but in my dream
He is walking down the street in his trilby
Wearing headphones and bopping gently
I like zat music now he says

Behind him my pebble-dashed council house
Is the grin he would have wiped off my face
Is the nicotine stained heaven above the lost blues
Where my abandoned turntable never plays,

And he dances past me tapping his feet
In the green jacket too his carers lost
And in my dream I remember he is dead
And would never have danced like that

How we lowered him into the green sward
And how that ugly word seems to fit
My renewed loss now that I am awake
And we sang of the cranes returning

My father drums and drums on his coffin lid
Summoning the exiled birds and our dead 

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Marilyn Ricci: Inheritance

Your father’s monstrous dresser blocks the light,
cluttered with willow pattern which you both insist
is making a comeback. 

Still waiting for that. But then quite often a piece of cracked 
crockery jumps off and smashes to the floor; another split 
appears in the wood. 

When you ask how this happens I say it must be when I leap 
into a plate to join that young couple crossing the bridge 
chased by despotic dad. I help them steal the duke’s boat 
with its massive box of jewels and we sail away to the island 
where at night we sing freedom songs by the light of the fire.

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Denise Bundred: Blending Senses
Colours well-arranged are like poetry or the comfort of music.
  Vincent to Willemien van Gogh, February 1888

Your mother spoke in ice-white shattered glass 
at Sunday lunch in Zundert. Sisters squabbled a clash 
of green and red. Baby cried a rainbow of tiny petals.

As a child, you believed everyone could hear colours.
Your father’s hectoring rolled around the chapel 
as he preached — a grey-brown mist which clogged the ears.

I can only imagine what happens when you lick cobalt
from your brush, crush a sprig of rosemary and breathe in
or run a handful of sand through fingers onto dry ground. 

Like a blue star — brightest in the galaxy, it burns quickly
dies young — you challenge your uncertain equilibrium
with a new canvas almost every day. 

Perhaps on dark nights you tip your face skywards 
              to hear conversations
                                   in kaleidoscopes of stars.

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Sam Szanto: Mother-Daughter-Mother

My grandmother is dying
in a care home somewhere
in Eastbourne.
My mother’s sorrow
is seeping
into the soft furnishings.
I turn away, saying
Don’t be so dramatic.
Through her sobs, she says
I’m sorry.

A quarter of a century later,
I tell my nine-year-old daughter,
who I often mistake for a friend,
that seeing my mother cry
made me angry.
She asks why.
Chaining my fingers into hers,
I try to explain.
Her fingertips are riddled
with questions.

My grandmother is dying
in a care home in Eastbourne.
When my mother cries,
I hold her hand, say
I’m sorry.

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Anne Bailey: Drinking tea with mother

My mother’s cups on their saucers were unstable, 
they could fly off at any moment,
spill dark contents over upholstery
and smash into lethal shards 
which could penetrate flesh.
They say that a particle of fine china,
just like glass, can work its way up
from the end of your finger to your brain

and there you would be, having rushed
to pick up the pieces, quite unaware 
that your soft brain tissue 
was being sliced by that shard 
and that you had developed 
a startled look if anyone 
even spoke to you, expecting blame 
for this and every recurring apocalypse.

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Clare Starling: 3,000 Pieces 

My instinct, hand on heart,
was to run to the hospital, 
pulling on that inadequate PPE,
shouting I can help!

Instead, I stayed at home –
protected the NHS,
did my desk job, tried 
to teach the unteachable.

I thought the peace 
would be a relief –
after the first flurry 
of nesting I was left 

defeated by dirty 
curtains, life not
pared back to purity:
instead, dregs of a cup

once-filled. I hid under 
the eaves, did a puzzle 
of the sunset over Venice,
grading swathes of blazing

sky, trying each piece 
over and over, but
when I completed it
something was still missing  

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Lisa Kelly: Helmets (Pieces of Sky)	
after Yoko Ono, London 2024


a little bit of sky from one 
of the many helmets strung
upside down in the gallery
how many pieces are there 
to this puzzle – how many hands
have delved into this soldier’s hat

i come away with a corner piece –
looking out of my window 
there’s a corner piece of sky
an angle between a chimney base
and the roof opposite through
which the sky cuts itself out

the actual sky is grey compared to 
my corner piece of puzzle 
which is light blue with a hint of 
white cloud on the single tab 
that could also be a head bobbing
in the ocean above a wave

if i met with the countless people
who have visited the exhibition
and taken a piece of this puzzle
would we be able to fit the bits
back together would we have  
one coherent vision of sky

i have my memento
my light blue sky and white cloud –
not a wisp of chimney smoke
nor a bird’s wing nothing difficult 
to fit like an aeroplane wing 
nor a plume of white bomb smoke 

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Jennifer Johnson: Sand Grains

I saw a plaque to Eliot on Margate beach,
remembered his failure to connect there.
My brother who had been sleeping rough
found, on Bournemouth beach, his future wife
who, moved by his thinness, gave him her chips.

I then remembered another beach, 
a lakeside one in Zambia, where I once briefly
lost my mind. I saw ten men with their guns
shouting ‘you’re evil, you’re evil, you’re evil!’
I think I screamed at them to go away.

A gentle voice slid in. ‘She’s been seeing things
since the attack. Please leave her to me’.
The men and the guns disappeared. 
I saw puzzled looks on many faces, heard
‘Concentrate on every sound around you.’

Feeling shakily sick I listened intently
to the wavelets breaking on familiar sand,
thought about how each sand grain
had no connection with its neighbour,
was thankful for neurons working in sync,

that what I was seeing now was real.

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John Whitehouse: For Zazetsky *
 
Shot at the battle of Smolensk, his head bursts
into fragments, like a shed exploding. The brain
swivels on its soft stem.
 
His beginning is a Big Bang of marvellous colour,
the mind rent into useless junk, streaming with lights,
a ship on a raving sea.
 
Like Odysseus, he creates the world though words.
This writing is my only way of thinking. If I shut these
books, I choose emptiness.
 
He brings together the earthly blocks of creation,
raising them from the maelstrom of the sea. Naming
trees for shade, grass for comfort,
 
reaching for a trace on the water. Imagining health,
the flowers blooming with latter rain, grasping
for all that is.
   
* In the Journal of Beckett Studies, Laura Salisbury refers to a soldier, shot in the head during

the Second World War, grievously wounded, and his efforts to communicate through a diary. 

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Mark McDonnell: Shrines 

I have a survivor’s body.
Shrapnel
is locked in flesh-lined
tabernacles
behind the closed curtains
of healed wounds.
X-ray me — 
see how it exploded,
my life with her;
how the pieces still shimmer 
in perpetual stillness.

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Dmitry Blizniuk:The Milky Way	(Translator: Sergey Gerasimov)

after shelling, an old man crawls out like a worm
from the garage pit:
and sees in front of him the Milky Way lying on its side,
compressed like a cube of scrap metal.
the garage door – if you look at it from inside -
is riddled with shrapnel, and through the jagged holes in the metal,
the faceted, sharp daylight is oozing in.
the smell of engine oil, nuts, and bolts.
the old man walks slowly into the deadly light of non-stars.
opens the creaking iron door,
which looks like a zodiac constellation,
into an unknown world.
is there anyone alive around?
 

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Tony D’Arpino: Omdurman, Sudan		

There are so many bullet holes in my old van 
it’s as if the air itself is full of bullet holes, 
and a swarm of bullet holes rise like flies into the sky.

My house is ruined, 
but the Corinthian walls are still standing. 
I have lost my blue suede hat.

War is just the beginning of violence.

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 Glenn Hubbard: The Storks

He was firing his machine gun into the air.
The mad king was dead!
But a bullet hit a stork flying by
and the dead bird dropped from the sky, breaking his neck.
The men pulled down the stork nests and burnt them.
Shouting that’ll learn ‘em! they returned to the village 
threw the ornithologist and his daughter into the river,
and resumed firing.

The king dead, life returned.
Dykes were dredged, wells dug, fields cleared.
Barley spikes nodded on land once infertile under ash.
Stallions mounted mares watched by approving farmers.
And desire returned, afternoons filled with sighs. 

But the silence that followed love was not broken 
by the gay clattering of bills. And when no babies arrived,
crying to be fed, no crucifixion shadow crossed the paths 
of the men as they fled from the judgement of the women.

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Nicki Heinen: In a distressed, glass time way

All gorgeous like chickens
tell me, is this the truth?

Begin again, only shut your eyes 
and think of peace

Suffering, space, ceasefire

It’s good we have love
even when you’re there, I miss you 

Pomegranate seeds for loss
Haribo for sweetness
may it remain so? 

Relief and fear, fear and relief

Tell the boss to bunk off work 
and buy something meaningful 

Tell him thank you, and Godspeed

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Wendy Klein: Modelling for Audubon
John James Audubon, 26/04/1785 – 27/01/1851


I first see his portrait at an exhibit in Edinburgh – huge
with self-importance: slave owner. Fake frontiersman.

he’s wearing moccasins, carrying a buffalo horn filled
with gunpowder, a tomahawk hanging from his belt. 

The poet, Derek Walcott, asks us to ‘look at the way these birds
 keep modelling for him,’ as if they had agency, choice:

the Snowy Egret, the White Heron, the Peregrine Falcon, 
portrayed tearing a duck to pieces. I know these birds

their pictures examined again and again in a coffee table book 
from my childhood, a book that would open like the vast sky

over the Pacific, each page revealing another avian variety
in colours shock-bright, in dramatic poses, soaring, attacking,

preening with their fierce beaks. His fame for the naturalness 
of his subjects was achieved, so we’re told, 

by killing his models with light shot; then before rigor mortis set in, 
pinning them into ‘natural’ poses, often violent and bloody, 

defying the stiff taxidermy of the period: birds stuffed, feathers 
fading and falling.  Given the number of birds he’d killed 

in the pursuit of art and sport, strange that the National Audubon Society,
was founded in his name for the study and protection of birds. 

So how do we make sense of it: the man, the birds who ‘keep
modelling for him?’ Once he bought an eagle, held onto it for 3 days, 

cried as he killed it, pinned it. 

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Anne Eyries: Plan B
after Nathaniel Whittemore

Sunday evening, my daughter washed and fed.
Packing her bag for school before going to bed,
She says, “I have to take a chicken in tomorrow.”
And I say, “What?”
And she says, “I forgot to tell you.”
And I say, “Forgot what exactly?”
And she says, “I have to make an Easter chick.”
And I say, “Out of what?”
And she says, “A yellow pompom."
And I start wondering where I put that bag of odds and ends
Of wool, sure already that there will be nothing even remotely
The colour of Wordsworth’s daffodils or Van Gogh’s sunflowers.
She sees me thinking through impossible options, knows there’s
Nowhere open this late where we can buy a ball of yellow wool.
Tears welling, her voice trembling,
She says, “I need it for tomorrow.”
And I say, “Okay, we’ll find a way.”
Because that’s what Mums are for, to make things work out
And reassurance in a crisis is half the battle won. I remember
There’s some very old soft wool the colour of cold tea.
	She says, “That’s not yellow.”
	And I say, “But it’s perfect for a baby owl.”
	And she says, “Really?”
	And I say, “Really.”
And I explain that while Barn owlets are bundles of white down,
Tawny owlets are just as lovable in their grubby-looking
Baby feathers. And, between the two of us, we make
That Easter chick which is bigger than all the yellow fellows
And has a story to tell. And I’ve kept it for nearly 30 years,
Behind glass, so it will never gather dust.

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Josh Ekroy: Barn Owl











Well, I call it that but most barns now have been converted into holiday lets.
So let us call it a Holiday Let Owl then. Or am I being naive? To think
that owners would allow an owl to take up residence in their property?
But space could be found for owls between October and March 
when most of these properties stand empty. They could make their nests
in the airing cupboard or the attic. Owlets could use the play-room
to practice their first tentative swoops. Toy mice and plastic shrews 
could be provided for them to pounce on from light fittings with a 
crash and a flutter of fledgling wings. They would not need to switch
on these lights as the birds operate in the dark so need not be charged 
for electricity. It is true there might be a certain amount of crap, bones, 
the remains of nests to clean up but that should be taken as a 
compliment, a sign that the owls have enjoyed themselves and app-
reciate the hospitality on offer. And, therefore, a small price to pay for 
the prevention or postponement of extinction. Still, I can’t help but 
wonder what barn owls did before the invention of barns. If we knew
that and if the barn owls could revert to their pre-barn existence, we 
wouldn’t need to trouble the owners of holidays lets, who, let’s face
it, don’t give a toss one way or the other. But it seems unlikely barn owls
could rediscover their millennia-old instincts. So instead of the canary 
in the coal mine let’s start talking about the owl in the holiday let.

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Paul Stephenson: Drunks sober

aren’t sober for very long. They sit at
the waterfront sipping their hair 
of the dog. Even in October it’s only
a matter of a few jars before you can
find drunks sober at the taverna and the
cafeteria working a drink that doesn’t 
count. Drunks sober obey their body
and their head, which they need to

right as best they can with a swift one
to start the day. Drunks sober often
sob into their glass but maybe it’s just
dust in the air, or a local fly, or they
have been staring for ages through
the smoke, blinded by rays of afternoon 
but, anyway, they sob soberly not 
sipping even, don’t make a show of 

themselves as they did the night
before, lubricated and loud, louder,
dancing with the spoon man. Drunks
sober consume a chunk of alcohol 
and off their face dunk digestive 
biscuits in their faint morning
depression which isn’t really
depression but a sad haze that isn’t

quite because it’s nearly but not yet
midday, so they can pour themselves
a little stiffener to drown it out. Drunks 
sober hanker for a first and quickly
another, their next day always sort of 
half empty. But you could half fill it
by joining them for one, the two 
of you facing the option of outside

and the harbour, boats leaving and boats
coming in, watching drunks sober
arriving from every corner pulling 
trolley suitcases full of drams in wee
bottles, approaching you and eager
to throttle their thirst, and you – if you 
don’t get them in sharp, not knowing
the new ancient island they’re on.

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Norton Hodges: Thomas Mann at Teatime

For a man in a three-piece suit
he didn’t have very good table manners.
He slurped his tea while half landed in the saucer
and dunked the pastries I’d ordered from the artisan bakery.

First we talked politics:
he’s not a Trump fan though in the past
he ‘might have seen a few virtues in him’.
Then it was the literary scene: banal, he thought.

‘What’s missing is high seriousness
and the call of a strong morality’.
His second cup was even worse,
at one point he dribbled down his waistcoat.

Despite the broad scope of our conversation,
I felt that there was something else he wanted to tell me.
After all, we were good friends. I’d sorted out
his smartphone and his popular Substack.

At one point, he looked speculatively at my garden
with its lush lawn. ‘I always thought
it was different in the South’ he said,
giving a passing glance to the gardener’s boy.

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Ruth Lexton: He’s Looking At You, Kid
“The place of the look defines cinema, the possibility of varying it and exposing it.”

                                                                                                                     – Laura Mulvey
"Nothing is stranger, more delicate than the relationship between people who know

 each other only by sight.” – Thomas Mann, Death in Venice


Visconti’s Death in Venice, the final shot: 
Tadzio on the shore poised, posed, 
at the cusp of childhood and adolescence
the exquisite lines of his limbs – 
arms akimbo, pointed toe –
in view of the camera on the beach
and the camera behind the beach
                                                                                                              Reframe

The golden boy in his bathing suit, toe pointing,
the sparkling reflections on the waves
sparking reflections on Spinario, 
unconscious of being looked at – or is he
exposing the look of the man in the deckchair
looking back at the camera on the beach in the dead air
of the camera behind and beyond it 
the viewer in the cinema, who gasps –

                                                                                                             Reframe
The director behind the camera watches
the boy, his golden hair and porcelain skin
the point of his toe, the reach of his arms –
is he the object of desire or art 
or are these all one and the same?
The golden eyes looking back for that final shot,
exposing the man in the director’s chair 
gasping the dead air as the waves lap the shore

                                                                                                             Reframe
Temptation in a sailor suit
angel in a bathing suit
homage to art
hostage to fortune 
captured on film forever fourteen
the last gasp of innocence
dead in the air. 

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Caleb Murdock: The Rug Man

You have the dark stubble of a criminal,
but you act like Christ come back to life—
kind, familiar, using the words of friendship
not lost and never to be lost, even though
we are strangers.  You are here to take my rug
and to clean it, but I see more to you than that.

You are an “average Joe”, a man without guile—
a rare and valuable thing to be.  You live
your life without tragedy.  You are not
here to argue, nor make more money than
the stated fee.  Your chosen trade will never
make you rich, but you appear to be happy.

Me, I am a love-starved homosexual,
a sometimes dangerous thing.  Your easy kindness
causes me to look past you to my own needs,
to what you might do for me.  A life of hurts
has left a black hole where my heart should be.
You do not see that I am a predator. 

But today I try to act normal too.
I don’t reduce you to your beauty, though I
do notice the slender muscle of your frame.
I don’t remark that you are attractive.
I don’t make suggestions, lurid or tame.
Today I allow you to keep your dignity

(knowing, of course, you’ll be back in a week
with my carpet professionally cleaned).


Caleb Murdock: Of Love, Cuts and Caring

“Thank you for caring for those you love.”

That’s what the lid flap says on this box of Band-Aids.
It doesn’t say, “Thank you for loving those you love”
or “Thank you for caring for those you care for.”
Those would be redundant. Is there a poet working
at Johnson & Johnson? Or is it obvious
that people should not be repetitious?

So who might this person be who is thanking me?
One of the thousands of nameless J&J employees
that our Supreme Court now says, collectively,
constitute a person with personal rights? Or is it
the marketing executive who approved the slogan,
neither of whom knows me? Or is it their largest
shareholder? Or their chairman with bulging salary?

I see they are thanking me for loving others,
others they don’t know—not for buying
their product, which would make more sense.
But why do they care whether I love anyone at all?
Do caring folks buy more bandages? I suspect
that uncaring folks get into more scrapes.

But the larger question is, whom do I love?

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***

Barbara Barnes: Not So Blue
 after Frank O’Hara’s ‘Steps’

We met on an out-breath, a sigh
between us like relief after a cold snap.

The parkette had benched us a bar room,
November air pulling our jackets close.

In a slur of beer we turned ourselves
side-street stumblers, weaving across town 

to the high reach of your window, tucked
under a rim of rooftop and nightglow.

Your arm an instrument for reeling me 
close, I heard Frank close too–

all I want is a room up there 
and you in it

Almost a year I’d carried my country
as a lump in my throat, having left but still

stranded in arrivals. I mourned distances
with an ocean dragging heavy at my heels.

Battered by the tide swells of longing  
and loss, I wondered at how easily a life-

line could be cast from a third-floor walk-up,
the feeling of home delivered in an instant.

While at the same time I was falling
like an anchor released through the gloom 
 
until its weight settles on the seabed.

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***

Sally St Clair: Sometimes
 
                    just for a change,
I do all the things I usually do 
in the evening after the washing up, 
before. I go to the bathroom & brush 
my teeth. I peer into the mirror
& wonder whether I look older 
than yesterday.

I smooth my bed and shake
the duvet which is heaped up
from where I lay down earlier
this afternoon, after searching
my bookshelves for a poem
whose title I could not remember
& whose author's name escaped 
me. It had something to do with 
football. Or Ancient Greeks, or maybe
poets. I still don't know. It was possibly 
a film anyway. Not a poem.

I fill the kettle for my hot water
bottle, remembering not to let
the water boil, because it is dangerous
to sleep with a hot water bottle
full of boiling water. The man in
the shop pointed this out to me
when I bought it last winter.

I tidy the table. I move everything to 
one side, so a small patch of table is exposed
and I lay out plates & cups for breakfast.

I collect all my different pairs of spectacles
together & put them in the designated
place for spectacles. My reading glasses,
the ones I am wearing to write this. My
distance glasses, which I will put on in
a minute to look at what my husband
is calling me to look at downstairs. The
sunglasses I wear when I watch TV in the
evening, so that the blue light does not
interfere with my ability to fall asleep. An
ability which seems to wane each day.

I put my new tinted & expensive glasses
into their special case, the ones the optician
promised me would change my life, & as I do
I realise that this has not yet come to pass.

I turn off my phone. I turn off & unplug 
my computer. I look around the 
room. I am looking for anything else
which needs to be turned off & unplugged
& I am thinking of going to bed.

I sweep the ashes from in front of the
stove, the stove which I now know
is a health hazard, filling the air inside 
my house with countless infinitesimally 
small particles which sink deep into my 
lungs so I have coughed all winter. I wipe
the floor where the ash has fallen with
a damp cloth. I kneel & stare at the wet floor.

At the sink, finally, I am rinsing everything
under the running water, which is running
because I am waiting for it to become 
hot. I stack what I have rinsed beside
the sink in order of size & I take the lukewarm
slightly murky water outside & pour it
over the daffodills. For a while I stare
into the darkness. 
                               
                                   Then I return to 
the kitchen & begin.

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***

Amy Jo Philip: Everything is Running Out at Once

The breathable air. The unjaded news.
My Satin Care shaving gel. My rosemary oil
shampoo and conditioner. The soil
that will sustain a healthy yield. The snooze
time on my sleep-tracker app.
My sunscreen and the summer sun.
My Inky List redness relief serum.
The shortened lease on my current flat.
My bank account. My patience
with the mockers, the haters and the leakage
from their meetings, minds and mouths.
The space for us to live as uncowed
members of society. The room for breakage
without brokenness. My own degree of agency.
Our space to breathe. Our space to be.

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***

David Floyd: Bad luck 

We are lucky to live in our village
because the experts tell us that
according to their model
it should only flood once 
in every hundred years

Unfortunately, our village 
has flooded three times 
in the last ten years
but luckily this does not
mean that the model is wrong

At the meeting in the village hall
two experts explained that 
while our village has all of the
characteristics of a village 
that will only flood once 
in every hundred years
unfortunately, the model 
does not account for bad luck

Some of us asked if there was
anything that we could do 
to help us to become lucky enough
to benefit from the good luck of
living in a village that should only
flood once in every hundred years

One of the experts suggested
that we should take care to 
always have a lucky saucer
ready in our kitchens in case 
a black cat came calling
and wanted some milk 

Mrs Newton asked:
“How do you know that
it’s us that’s unlucky?
Maybe, you’re the unlucky ones”

But the other expert said 
their director was laser-focused
on eliminating bad luck from the
department’s workforce 

She explained that whenever
a new job was advertised 
the first stage in the short-listing
was a ‘good luck test’, when all
the applications were printed out
and randomly placed upside down 
in two equal piles on the table then 
one of the piles was thrown in the bin 

As result it was now
totally impossible for 
an unlucky candidate
to be appointed to a role
in their modelling team 

I asked what happened
if an otherwise very lucky
person was unlucky on
just this one occasion

The expert explained that
that was just bad luck

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***

Alison Campbell: Dive

I want to turn my room upside down.
Twelve, thirteen feet above me 
a pale blue sea of ceiling –

the afternoon throws yellow light
into a blank corner.
I’m spread-eagled on the wide chair

revel in the space up there
cool and calm, only one pale lightshade
in the very centre.

If the ceiling was underfoot
I would jump from the mantlepiece
into the foam

or run from the bay of the sofa
catapult into the vast cobalt.
The sky through the high window –

a deeper blue.
I’ll crest the fine sparkles of glass
swim as far away as those curled waves of cloud.

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***

Leo Smyth: Standing on the Ceiling
Australia 1998: The Sydney to Hobart yacht race sailed into a hurricane. 
The enormous waves caused several yachts to be rolled right over.

the rogue wave turned them upside down
they scrambled to their feet on the ceiling
a young man kept his head, grabbed the mic
'Mayday, mayday, mayday'
he named the yacht, their last position.
'easy lad,'  the skipper said,
'we're upside down
you're broadcasting to the fishes.'

We called out Mayday for a world in danger
oceans warming, deserts forming,
wildfires blazing, islands drowning.
Were we broadcasting to the fishes?
Some labour over plans for 2030, 2050
but mostly fishes know that storms will pass
their ancestors saw Noah sailing by
during the last scare

Hard to grasp
you're standing on the ceiling
of a world turned upside down


Leo Smyth: Mindfulness in new boots

We have trudged the roads since breakfast time
and dusty tracks across French countryside
day off from the silence of the Zen retreat
'but continue to be mindful as you walk and talk'.
Silence has made us economical with words
and wayside weeds demand attention
I can feel a blister on my foot with every step
I never noticed the beauty of those weeds before
these new boots were clearly a mistake
we stop for lunch, stay mindful of the food
as we were taught, noting each grain of rice
the French word for blister is ampoule
we tell life stories plainly without shyness
I wonder will the blister burst
close listen, people are real today
strangely, ampoule also means light bulb
is a blister starting on the other foot?
We turn for home, led by a young Buddhist nun
head shaved, still beautiful, she leads us
in a meditation on the now:
Be present to the trees, the dusty track, the stones
Be mindful of our feet that have carried us this far
Sister, you have no idea how easy it is 
to be mindful of my feet

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***

Dominic Fisher: October or November
After Louise Glück’s “The Wish”

Will you read me that November poem?
		November, not October?
No, it must have been November.
		Remind me how it goes.
Their feet go quietly on well-worn paths
and silences become conversation.
		I don’t remember writing that.
Perhaps it was the other way round. Anyway
they cross the bridge and go into the woods.
		Yes, it’s coming back I think.
They walk on intertwining tracks till almost dark.
It’s a little damp, they pause.
		No one around.
Only that’s not quite true.
		It was then you told me.
Yes, that’s it. Read me that one.
 

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***

George Freek: Nothing More Can Be Said

The day ends like a familiar play,
then darkness descends.
As the moon appears,
with its mysterious face,
it’s aware of none of this.
In the moon’s world,
there’s no right,
and there’s no wrong,
and when we’re dead,
that’s the way it is.
Such is incontrovertible,
say the philosophers.
Theologians have doubts,
while the physicists 
work on equations
to tell us what it’s all about.

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***

Leona Gom: The Microworld
“It’s a weird field, run by weird people.” 
—Jeremie Harris, in Quantum Physics Made Me Do It

After a century and weirder than ever
the impossible is true and we are in two 
places at the same time and spinning in 
opposite directions at once and nothing
exists until observed and it is all zombiecat 
paradoxes and randomness and uncertainty
and smeary electrons, and physicists who are
not completely sane at the best of times 
know there is no best theory to explain it
and some give up and say the answer 
to the why and how and when is 
Just because.

Just because.  Think of the shrug and sigh
as they say it these mathematical perfectionists
compelled to betray their science and end 
their equations the way a lazy parent would 
with the evasion we thought we’d left behind 
in childhood yet now still the one we grow 
old with and die with though sometimes 
arguably in the quantum world we don’t 
die and we can’t ask why. 

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***

Alicia France: Landfill

You said to fill the earth—

and we’ve been busy filling 
it with soiled nappies, sticky 
lolly wrappers, lithium-oozing 
batteries, empty blister packs,
old diaries full of days 
we won’t remember

non-refundable bags of buyers’ remorse,
fast food buckets and losing lotto tickets, 
red-marked worksheets 
from lessons we never learned, 
empty vape pens and virus-ridden 
hard-drives, mangled cars, 
laments of languished labourers slaving 
to satiate our envy 
of another’s riches 
soon to be rubbish

pathogen-polluted PPE, empty 
chemo bags and bullet brass casings, 
bones of our beloved, boiling 
ire of the innocent, entrails 
of our envied enemies, sluices 
brimming with their blood

And we keep filling and filling—
but I’m not sure that this 
was what you meant.

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***

Janet Hatherley: As the gentle rain
a golden shovel, from The Merchant of Venice

What are we saying, what the?
Casual talk about the quality
of our nuclear weapons, of
lucky we have Trident, where’s the mercy
in that?  The good thing is
no more worry about the climate, not
at all.  Consider the corals of the ocean strained
and straining.  And Trident under the sea, it
can’t be found, can fire, drop, droppeth
nuclear bombs, the fallout as
a mighty ending, the
collapse of the world, gentle
as the covid we forgot, the rain,
the end of our reign from
here to there, and what we had was heaven
but we didn’t know it upon
the ground, where we looked up to the 
sky, no longer blue, down to this place,
zero, no longer teeming beneath
our feet.  Forget it.
All civilisations end.  It is
certain the cockroach will survive, once, twice
for some reason blessed
and able to stand an attack, it
scutters, skitters, blesses, blesseth
the creatures of the earth, her and him.
It must be true that
we don’t have the intelligence, nothing gives
us the right to take and
take.  It wasn’t me, it was him.
Forgive us that.
I take, you take, he takes.

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***

Stuart Handysides: A Golden Shovel for the Western Wind

I sickened of the Western
— how Indians and settlers would wind
up dead. The balance out of whack when
guns were drawn — you saw them wilt
on sidewalks, in the desert, thou(ght)
that if the brawl were real a single blow

might fell a man, but on and on they slugged, the
goodies and the baddies, small
farmers, greedy ranchers. The prayed-for rain
that never fell, their cattle down
on knees with thirst, the upturned billy can
— last drop — but when the rain

came, how they milked it. Thanked Christ
the crops would grow, or wondered if
the bridge was out, the stage bogged down in mud. My
Billy, Annie, out there, my tortured love
— how much I’ve missed them, now they were
so close but still denied in
storm as never was. If I could never see my
Billy, Annie, hold them in my arms

I don’t know what I’d do; and
now the sun out, floods abating, I
gaze in awe as the coach rattles in,
the gritty driver coaxing weary horses. My
Billy, Annie, waving, worn out, longing for their bed
— loved ones, families, united once again.

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***

Fokkina McDonnell: Family Bible
after Heidi Beck

Genesis
Darwin may or may not have written about giraffes. The day I first saw them I

knew they were family. They’ve roamed the savannahs of Africa for millions of

years – peaceful, sociable animals. 

Songs
My father had been paid a small sum. The tune he’d composed was going to be

broadcast on Dutch national radio. That day war broke out. Planes flew

overhead.

Exodus
My father’s father had a German name and was a master baker. Hence those

loaves.  My mother’s surname was Visser, so they were destined to get together. 

Ecclesiastes
For everything there is a season: summer and winter for sex, drinking, singing.

My mother is manic in spring and autumn. They throw words and furniture at

one another.

Jonah
Forty years at a family firm, Beaver Bronze. Empty-handed on a beach, no

pension to speak of. Probably my father again. With his costly, bi-polar wife. 

Job
Was he the one who lost everything? Yes, that makes sense. After he died, we

discovered my father had been robbing Paul to pay Peter.

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***

Oliver Comins: Over there

Viewed from their side, we were the family—
who arrived and turned out to be the rabble.
They claimed the street was tranquil before,
as if the noise of children could be resolved.

Which is not to say it was sedate on their side.
The mumble of guests and talk was frequent,
transformed to clamour underpinned by clink
of cutlery on plates during social afternoons.

When alone, a running commentary they gave
out loud was unrestrained as one, occupied
in whatever, received a blow-by-blow account
of the other’s activities, with too much detail.

Each household made the noise it needed to.
If either was becalmed, next door’s carry-on
took over. Moments of mutual quiet did occur
and may have lasted longer than it seemed.

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***

Lorraine Kipling: First Week of September

Weetabix drying, destined to go stale,
she leaves the table, keen to make her way—
no grist, no makeup, simple ponytail
unfixed by kirby grips, unclouded by hairspray—

she puts her blazer on, sleeves knuckle-long,
her skirt still reaching to below her knee,
her backpack on both shoulders, not yet wrong—
not yet weighed down by what she ought to be—

the air is fresh, her shoes are clean,
the early rain has left the pavement wet,
the leaves still clinging to a trace of green—
and still a few more weeks of sunshine yet

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***

Gracie Jones: Family of Three

Five, ten, three hundred out.
Washer on, clean clothes for work.
Chicken, potatoes, veg plated waiting 
on the kitchen counter to be eaten
She fumbles for her keys, locks up for her shift.

One hundred in, ten hours slaved;
making burgers, chips – whatever they want
Go home, the boy she created snores
in his race-car bed.
The husband she funds welcomes her
into his unfamiliar arms,
soaking his polo shirt with her leaky eyes.

Another six hundred out – a replaced fridge.
Bacon, cheese, salad inside, destroyed;
her weekly shop doubling in size
He slams through the door after his stint,
two hundred back.
Telling her, “Everything will be fine.”
How can it be when they work 
opposite shifts to provide for their boy?

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***

Michael Burton: When They Ask Him

He tries to forget that glimpse of his mum 
slumped, how her face scrunched,
as his uncle jumbled on his boots,
wrapped and carried him on his back
to the hills above the estate.

He pictures instead that day’s snow, 
the ruby glaze of his new sled,
listens to its slush and the voice 
which called his name 
clean across the silence.

He remembers how his heart
sunk as he plunged down each slope, 
the grip of hands held 
firm to his coat, their push.
Insists that’s all he recalls of the day.

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Neil Leadbeater: The Big Draw

One day when nobody was looking
a small boy walked into a painting.
He wanted to be in the driver’s seat
of the red John Deere tractor.
The big draw
was the pulling power of giant Dunlop tyres
whose treads punctured the ground
and the spill of grain
showering out of the spreader
but the farmer had got there before him
so he stood in the field
happy to watch 
glad he had made it this far.

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Tony Curtis: Flaming June


The RA’s featured painting is Flaming June --
In a large, heavy gold-leafed frame
This young woman’s astounding beauty is displayed.
As she reclines, her red hair falls 
And spreads to the ground.
It is impossibly long, as if curtains were drawn to reveal her.

She is dressed in a diaphanous peach gown which clings 
And locks our gaze – nipples, her right haunch angled to us,
Right leg over the left so that ankle and feet 
Are precisely drawn under the silk.
You could stroke those toes.

Her eyes are blissfully closed; 
She is far away in memory or dreams, 
Resting against a parapet, on which grows 
Oleander – that beautiful and toxic bloom.
Beyond is a line of silver sea and a vague other land.

Lord Frederick Leighton has given us this vision of desire,
A Victorian fin-de-siècle piece of erotica. 

I sit on the bench in the middle of the room. 
And when I next look up a woman in a black abaya
Stands in front, interrupting my gaze.
She holds up her iPhone to capture the painting, 
As we all do in galleries these days.

Covered from head to ankle, her form is invisible.
I guess her eyes are dark.  Who knows?
On her feet are pink Nike Pegasus.
What colour is her hair?
What body is shaped under those loose, hanging clothes?
Her phone has Leighton’s beauty in focus.

What is it that she is taking away?
Who will she share this with, and what will they say?

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***

Anne Bailey’s pamphlet What the House Taught Us  was published by Emma Press in 2021. She is a committee member for Cafe Writers organising poetry events in Norfolk

Barbara Barnes’s poems have appeared in Under the Radar, The Interpreter’s House, Poetry London, Butcher’s Dog, Brixton Review of Books, Ambit, Arc Poetry, The Alchemy Spoon, Perverse and Black Iris. Her collection ‘Hound Mouth’ was published by Live Canon in 2022.

Dmitry Blizniuk is a poet from Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared in Rattle, The Cincinnati Review, The Nation, and many others.  A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of The Red F?rest (Fowlpox Press, 2018). His poems have been awarded RHINO 2022  Translation Prize.  He lives in Kharkov, Ukraine Directory: http://www.pw.org/directory/writers/dmitry_blizniuk

Denise Bundred won the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine in 2016, coming second in 2019. Her poetry has appeared in various anthologies and magazines. Her  pamphlet, Litany of a Cardiologist, was published by Against the Grain Press in 2020

Michael Burton’s poems have been published most recently in The Interpreter’s House, The Honest Ulsterman & Pennine Platform. He also writes and performs as NotAnotherPoet and is one half of the band New Age of Decay whose debut album can be found on various online streaming platforms.

Alison Campbell has poems in publications, including Pennine Platform, The Curlew, The Poetry Village, London Grip, Arachne Press, Artemis and Indigo Dreams, she was shortlisted for the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize, and won the South Downs Poetry Competition, in 2023.

Oliver Comins returned to the Midlands recently after living in the Thames Valley and West London for many years. His work is collected in pamphlets from The Mandeville Press and Templar Poetry and in a full collection (Oak Fish Island) also with Templar.

Tony Curtis was born in Carmarthen in 1946 and grew up there and in Pembrokeshire, where his grandmother’s family had lived for hundreds of years.  He has written and edited over forty books, most recently his first novel Darkness in the City of Light, short-listed for the Paul Torday Prize, and an eleventh collection Leaving the Hills.He was awarded a Gregory Award in 1972; he won the National Poetry Competition in 1983; he had a Cholmondeley Award in 1998. He was awarded a D.Litt. in 2004. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. A full bibliography and biography may be found at  www.tonycurtispoet.com

Tony D’Arpino’s poetry has appeared in the Evergreen Review, Volume Poetry, The North, The Glasgow Review of Books, and the Winter Anthology. His most recent book is Sky Tree Sky (Alien Buddha Press, 2024), based partly on the journals of the Scottish botanist David Douglas. tonydarpino.com

Josh Ekroy lives in London

Anne Eyries has work published or forthcoming in Cranked Anvil, Dream Catcher, Green Ink Poetry, Moss Puppy Magazine, Mslexia, Reflex Press, The Hyacinth Review and The Piker Press, among others. She lives in France.

Dominic Fisher lives in Bristol near the allotment he shares with sparrows and foxes. He is widely published, and has sometimes been broadcast. His second collection, A Customised Selection of Fireworks, was published by Shoestring Press in 2022.

George Freek’s poem “Enigmatic Variations” was recently nominated for Best of the Net. His poem “Night Thoughts” was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize. 

David Floyd is a Holloway-based poet who grew up in Hornsey. He is a former editor of Brittle Star and a trustee of Magma Poetry, who most recently co-edited the Performance issue. 

Alicia France grew up in rural Alabama building forts in the woods by day and catching fireflies by night. She is a designer and mum living in ?tautahi, Christchurch, New Zealand

Sergey Gerasimov is a Ukraine-based writer, poet, and translator of poetry. His stories and poems written in English have appeared in Adbusters, Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons and Acumen, among many others. His last book is Oasis published by Gypsy Shadow. The poetry he translated has been nominated for several Pushcart Prizes

Leona Gom is a Canadian writer who has published six books of poetry and eight novels and received several writing awards.  She has taught at three universities in western Canada.  She is currently retired and tries to do nothing much of anything.

Stuart Handysides began writing as a general practitioner, continued while working as an editor of medical publications, and for some years has focused on poetry. His work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. He ran the Ware Poets competition for 11 years

Janet Hatherley’s pamphlet, What Rita Tells Me, and collection, On the road to Cadianda, were both published by Dempsey & Windle/Vole in 2022 and in April 2024.  She won 2nd prize in Enfield Poetry competition, 2023.

Nicki Heinen is a London based poet who has been published widely, including in the Bloodaxe anthology Staying Human. Her debut collection There May Not Be a Reason Why is out now. 

Norton Hodges is a poet. He lives in Lincoln.

Glenn Hubbard began writing in 2013 and has had work published in many journals including Stand, Strix, and London Grip. Although it may not always be obvious, he owes a great deal to the poetry of R.F. Langley.

Jennifer Johnson has had poems published in a wide variety of magazines and anthologies. Publications include Footprints on Africa and Beyond (Hearing Eye) and Hints and Shadows (Nettle Press). She won a ‘Bread and Roses’ award (single poem) in 2022

Gracie Jones is a writer, poet, and playwright who is studying creative writing at the University of Gloucestershire. She has had two poems, published in the university’s 2024 Unbreakable anthology.. Her play, One Day You’ll Understand was performed at a showcase at the Everyman Theatre in 2024.

Lisa Kelly’s second collection, The House of the Interpreter (Carcanet), is a Poetry Book Society Summer Recommendation 2023. Her first collection, A Map Towards Fluency (Carcanet), was shortlisted for the Michael Murphy Memorial Poetry Prize 2021. She was shortlisted for the 2024 Forward Prizes for Best Single Poem — Written. She is Chair of Magma Poetry

 Lorraine Kipling is now living again in her hometown of Manchester, where she writes poetry about petrichor and gutter puddles. She is currently working on her first collection.

Wendy Klein, more and more elusive, has had a quiet year publication-wise, and is still looking for a home for a pamphlet that features physician-assisted dying, and for a collection which has all the earmarks of being her swan song. Her chances are reduced by the fact that submitting and marketing her work are her least favourite tasks.

Stephen Komarnyckyj’s literary translations and poems have appeared in Index on Censorship, Modern Poetry in Translation and many other journals. He is the holder of two PEN awards and a highly regarded English language poet. He runs Kalyna Language Press which publishes his own poetry and translations and has taught at The Poetry School and translated a series of Ukrainian poets and their blogs for The Poetry School site under the title Stanzas for Ukraine.

Neil Leadbeater is an author, essayist, poet and critic based in Edinburgh. His latest publications are Falling Rain (a collection of short stories) and Italian Air / Radiant Days (poetry), both published by Cyberwit.net (Allahabad, India).

Ruth Lexton is an English teacher and writer. Her poetry has appeared in Abridged, Shooter, Ink, Sweat & Tears, Drawn to the Light Press, and The Alchemy Spoon. She won second prize in the Hexham Poetry Competition 2023 and was longlisted for the Aurora Prize 2023.

Fokkina McDonnell now lives in the Netherlands. Her poems have been widely published and anthologised. She has three collections and a pamphlet. Fokkina received a Northern Writers’ Award from New Writing North in 2020.

Mark McDonnell worked in education, industry  and psychotherapy in various countries.  Nowadays his focus is on trying to write a good poem and singing.  His work has been published in magazines and journals in the UK, Ireland and Spain.

Caleb Murdock was born in 1950 and lives in Rhode Island, U.S.A.  He spent most of his life as a word-processing operator for law firms.  He has written poetry since his twenties but didn’t lose his chronic writer’s block until his mid-sixties. He is now writing up a storm to make up for lost time.

Amy Jo Philip (formerly known as Andrew Philip) is the first out transgender priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church. She has published two full collections of poems and her work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. She is currently working on a third collection.

Marilyn Ricci is a poet, playwright and editor. Her pamphlet, Rebuilding a Number 39, was published by HappenStance Press and her collection, Night Rider, by SoundsWrite Press and Dancing At The Asylum is available from Quirky Press. She was one of three poets selected for the 2024 Sampler series from Mariscat Press.

Leo Smyth has come to poetry late in life. As yet unpublished, he was, however, highly commended in the Sean Dunne Poetry Competition 2024

Sally St Clair’s stories and poems have appeared in numerous magazines and journals, recently in Stone of Madness Press, Poetry Scotland, Raceme, ARC, Salzburg Poetry Review, Ink Sweat and Tears (3 issues) and London Grip. She is currently working on a pamphlet, as well as a novel.

Clare Starling started writing poetry when her son was diagnosed with autism during lockdown. Her pamphlet Magpie’s Nest won the Frosted Fire First Pamphlet Award 2023. She particularly loves writing about our connection with nature, and about how neurodiversity can give different perspectives on the world.

Paul Stephenson has three pamphlets: Those People (Smith/Doorstop, 2015), The Days that Followed Paris (HappenStance, 2016), and Selfie with Waterlilies (Paper Swans Press, 2017). His debut collection Hard Drive was published by Carcanet in summer 2023.

Sam Szanto is an award-winning, Pushcart prize-nominated writer. Her poetry pamphlet ‘This Was Your Mother’ was published by Dreich Press in 2024; another pamphlet, ‘Splashing Pink’ (with Annie Cowell), was published by Hedgehog Press.

Maggie Wadey is a writer of fiction, of many screenplays for television, of memoir (most recently The English Daughter, Sandstone Press, 2016) and, in the last few years, of poetry (including Acumen, The Pomegranate, London Magazine and The High Window). She lives in Hackney, London.

John Whitehouse, a retired academic, suffers from aphasia .The condition affects speech and comprehension, two things that most of us take for granted. For Zazesky is a tribute to one soldier, who following a grievous head wound, solved the problem of global aphasia through the difficult act of writing. For him, putting pen to paper gives him hope, and proves that he is human.