Category: Past issues

Exceeding Expectations   I’m not all that you hoped for at all what you dreamed a little less than expected or different it seems   I took my time to reach milestones it took some time to teach milestones I’ll probably never get a handle on speech but I know…

1 | 2 | 3 Two Car Seat Covers for Twenty Bucks   I hear the brush of faux-fur covers, the demi-gods of her saloon. I’ve done my research too. Sugar Button I say, I want you to know I’ve rolled every stone, I’ve travelled every avenue.   The time…

1 | 2 | 3 What the Sea Knows   Even though she believes the world is not an oyster, she knows it has a crust, an incredulous centre. She filters sand through her brain, the tiny organisms sucked in. She breathes smoke from the fire pit, the cabbage and…

1 | 2 | 3 Geological Time   I first touched your breast accidentally in the meteor storm the swans swimming almost nothing of them under water.   Accidentally, I sent my fingers beneath your skirt the mist rising from the lake a still autumn morning.   Like an accident…

1 | 2 Mary Shelley attends a performance of ‘Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein’ It is the night before her twenty-sixth birthday. She wears a plain black velvet dress cut low to reveal her shoulders, the dark colour her only concession to the outward conventions of mourning. Her father…

1 | 2 The Flaneur In one street, a gallery containing a collection of gonflables. In another, silhouettes of balloonists, aerialists, circus performers. The words the omnipotence of dream, and the disinterested play of language are written along the base of the wall in thin gold letters. Walking past the…

A note about writing this poem   This is about the usefulness of a writing group, and usefulness of catching the bus. I joined a small writing group. We had to take a piece of work every time. I’ve got piles of unfinished work, but I decided to write a…

Tēnā tātou e tau mai, e pānui mai nei. Welcome to 4th Floor 2014 – a showcase of writing from the Whitireia New Zealand creative writing programme.   Q. Kia ora. Firstly, I was wondering where you get your ideas? A. There’s this flat in Seddon Street. It has a…

Outside the sun is shining   She stands by the window – keep away from the window, they said, but she wants to see the purple lady monks come and go and offer red roses to the young children.  If they take one they will be lucky all their life,…

PROSE   Mere Chater Kotahitanga Navina Clemerson The Violinist’s Dog Carolyn Gillum The Walrus Alison Glenny The Flaneur Mary Shelley attends a performance of ‘Presumption, or the Fate of Frankenstein’ John McTavish War Bride, Part Two, Sixty-five Years On   Priyardashi Ranmuthu The Community Chef James Ridley Dad Tracey Schuyt…