Category: 2010

Justine There’s no point trying to stop your Ugg boots from scuffing on the ground, it’s just the nature of Ugg boots. Anyways there’s no hurry. You’re thinking about those Black Sabbath lyrics and him singing in a metal falsetto in the garage by the beer fridge. One hand on…

An Ear for Post-Impressionism I always thought you loved me, by the way you stroked my lobe. I heard your heart beat bounce and the flash flood of art – aerial blood: the circular of your life, my life, our symbiosis. But how could I have known you could hear…

Those things you don’t understand We gather on the roof of the museum to open a shed – actually two: one red the other yellow – members of a family of sheds by Ronnie van Hout. I’ve met some of the others. There’s one too small to stand in, a…

Suddenly the Lake (after Rosalie Gascoigne) You stroll the galleries of reconfigured road signs, soft drink crates which are birds, maps, more signs of other signs, yellow and black monuments to the AA, directions for driving anywhere you ever wanted to go. They are the hills above a dump in…

Freestyle Anna doesn’t want to dive she never does but that’s the rule. Me and Fale we curl our toes around the edge of the pool and watch as our spit lands on the water it always goes like this as we wait for the signal. Jimmy says the man…

My heart goes out At the seaside it is gritty and on piers underswum by fish. Gets out books on the armours of the ancient world; it would try on helmets if it had eyes. Keeps lists in musical notation some things be done Calmly some With the Jinking Energy…

What to do When the Lights Go Out I know what you’re thinking and it’s true that birth rates peak nine months after power cuts but this is a family poem and if you have ever played charades by candlelight you will understand the wide eyes of children and the…

Good grief: three poems Audrey Evelyn Weeping trees Shield the house Aunty’s old shed From the road Grey planes It caught the sun Inside dust laughed Drunken chairs Chicken feed Driftwood Alone inside Space enough To waltz     Susan Gay Further north Frayed blue rope Swings the park We…

Nafanua’s sister thinks about Nafanua in America Think of my scenes: thin, meatless, glamorous as gravy. She is making a life for herself in America. I work in a library not even a city library, but a library of World War Two amphibious vehicles. A library that only old men…

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