Category: Past issues

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 amniotic sea   you swim around in it you are mostly water just a thin membrane separates you off like an eggshell you are frangible red blood cells white blood cells and plasma and platelets make up your salty blood they swim…

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 Respire, beat.   My lungs fill up; my lungs empty out but you are gone and I’m still here and the muscle of my heart pumps my blood around.   I’ve been poleaxed in a way that’s so profound by the dissolution…

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 circulatory   your four-chambered heart pulses pulses fills up empties out shoots oxygen-rich nutrients to your extremities then your veins contract and send it back to be pumped pumped back out again around and around and so it goes and never…

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 wound   you get cut real bad your hands fly to your chest in an operatic gesture to staunch the flow but it’s leaking out it’s oozing out dripping down you’re losing a lot of blood your pressure drops you feel…

Kotahitanga Pāraoa This is a story about a boy who is Māori. His name is Kotahitanga. He is ten years old and lives in the Urewera. He hasn’t had much exposure to tauiwi, which is the name people give to those who came second to this land. One day a…

1 | 2 Goose summer, Whareroa Farm in memory of FSK   Today we dawdle up the north-east valley track, inclined together on the edge of sun and shade. Late April, and decline – the year’s and yours – feels gentle in this spread of after-season summer.   The sky…

1 | 2 Hearts and rips   Heart that goes swimming, be aware of rips. Rips occur often at beaches you frequent, where waves build and break, where you launch yourself into turbulent flow.   All that water which waves push up has to go somewhere. It drains, it channels to…

1 | 2 | 3 Going home haibun   Just south of Numeralla the Rose Valley Road forks by the pines at the cemetery. One branch leads right, down to the crossing. Out through the inn’s open door music spills, lanterns flicker gold from the windows. A boat waits on…

1 | 2 | 3 Russian New Year with Gurdjieff    She insists she feels better but after she runs up the long staircase to her first floor bedroom quickly without holding the banister Katherine collapses.   Moonlight catches blood from her mouth like flickers of fire – hand to…

1 | 2 | 3 Are all the pilots down?                 for my father   He’s seen rainbows from above and knows their secret – they’re juggler’s hoops rolling through the sky.   He’s followed the curve of earth turning by below his wings, shared eagle’s sight, defied weight and…