Broken Blues
Two poems
Terrestial Zodiacs in Britain
Terrestrial, or landscape, zodiacs have always been at the outer edge of antiquarian studies, and remain the eccentric uncle of that trendier activity, psycho-geography. Disdained by the orthodox, they prompt questions about how we interact with the numinous in certain landscapes, and about the potency of occult symbols.
Exercise in Controlled Harmonic Observance
This text score is inspired by and in the spirit of Pauline Oliveros and her concept of Deep Listening.
Visual Pantoums
Visual and concrete poetry is often less linear than written poetry, more like a collage or an abstract painting, which you can start and finish anywhere within the frame. These, on the other hand, are collages which use ‘lines’ and ‘stanzas’, so you might want to start at the top left and work your way down to the bottom right.
Ghetty Gospel by Isaac Harris: Reviewed by Pippa Sterk
Pippa Sterk reviews Isaac Harris Ghetty Gospel (Good Press, 2022)
Dreamscape
“Dreamscape” comes from a strange dream, the principal recollection of which was an image of a woman in white cotton summer togs who lies alone on a white field. She becomes a symbol for something beyond herself.
Tirana
A short story by Andew Hart.
The Poem as a Spell in EP Jenkins’ Rituals (Broken Sleep Books) by Katy Mack
Katy Mack reviews EP Jenkins’ debut collection, Rituals (Broken Sleep Books, 2002).
Nine Eagles and the Silvery Water
Zadif presents their debut, alchemy-inspired album. These gentle, contemplative songs recall British and Spanish folk sounds with a touch psychedlia.
Local Nature Devas
The energy of the plants in the park near my home has a visionary quality. The nature devas appear. They radiate a soft, peculiar luxury, with distinct characteristics sculpted from light. Waves of light, wind blown fields of light.
Beneath the Pavement
Ever since I was a teenager, friends and family and teachers and civil servants have told me that I think too much. I overthink, they all said, which made me think. People have used other terms to describe my condition – several doctors, for example, have called it anxiety.
Life, Love & Gay Inhibitions In The Noughties
I suppose I'm an old romantic at heart. Even though I should know better, I still adhere to the old school notion of 'true love'. I tried deeply to dismiss it - telling myself it was all too complicated and that I couldn't possibly put my body through the angst that comes with it. It didn't work.
An Obituary Explanation
Death is a diabolical diamond, only beautiful when you examine its facets. These poems tell stories about death from the perspective of people who deal, not just with the realities of vacancy, but the truth about the (temporary) survivors.
A Star of Television and the Silver Screen
A new story by Douglas Cowie: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re particularly pleased to have a special guest flying with us today, star of television and the silver screen—” And here he said the name of some actor, or actress, I supposed, but I couldn’t be sure because it sounded muffled, or at least I didn’t understand. A few people clapped. Heads began to turn around, looking for this celebrity, although why they thought he or she would be sitting back in economy class, I don’t know.
Water vapour hangs like memory in the air: a review of Alton M. Dapanas’ Towards a Theory on City Boys (Newcomer Press) by Cat Chong
Cat Chong reviews Alton Dapanas’ autotheoretical prose poems, Towards a Theory on City Boys (Newcomer Press).
When You are but a Breath of Light
Five poems by Douglas Cole.
The Room
I look outside the window, see two strange stars in the Milky Way, unexpectedly hot and covered in ash. This is not what she is looking at, obviously. It’s what I’m looking at. She is looking out at the roof tiles, studying the slanting afternoon light. She finds the impression of the sunlight on the roof tiles quite particular, quite beautiful, and it inspires in her an ache, the kind one might experience when one’s entire body is racked with fever, a fever-ache, heavy and consuming, and she can’t decide what might satisfy this ache, possibly codeine or ice cream or a walk or a nap or a shot of dark rum with lime and sugar syrup, or possibly just really horny sex, but she does’t know which because her senses are hitting her up with this aimless ache: all of her best wants hurtling at her, meteoric.
A Conversation with a Conversation
A Conversation with a Conversation is a collaboration between Thomas Helm and Jamie Macleod Bryden. It is, first and foremost, the document of an afternoon well spent in Jardins Laribal, Barcelona. Images of the park - a statue of a women, a font where the water spurts out of a god’s head, pools of water dribbling into other pools of water - somehow found their way into the text.
Mike Ferguson Surreal-Absurd Sampler
“A significant period mainly writing found prose poems brought me closest to a sustained absurdist style – the random connections of found content – but being arbitrary and staccato, they lacked the more usual storytelling…”
Laura Tansley’s Notes to Self (Trickhouse Press)
Laura Tansley’s Notes to Self documents an imagined future whilst preparing for the end of the present moment, and the rebirth of an entirely different one.
The never-ending quest…
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