Daljit Nagra

Daljit Nagra

bells bearded men under straw hats at springgaudying the playground with ribbonsthat sprout from a maypole you’d go in groups round the canopybut recall the other times when snakes would descendthrough a nightmare in the airround your side of the bed till you’d find...
Sally Long

Sally Long

Loss My loss comes wrapped up in phrases:… no more funding… have to let you go. Yours has no such delicate packaging:the click and boom of gunshotsthat violate the rushing street,the angry blade that rips through flesh. I add the experience to my CV,gain advantage...
Robin Thomas

Robin Thomas

The Deliverance of St Peter David Teniers the younger, c.1645 On one side of the massive door,which stands unaccountably open,the guards, so steeped in reality it hurts,are playing dice, that means of transport fromreality into some other sphere of things,where it’s...
Maggie Wadey

Maggie Wadey

On not Being the Last Bird to Sing my child’s face, stretchedin pain like a Noh mask, relaxesand she sleeps at last,leaving the land around usto lie awake under a crust of starsthat mists the sky with light likethe illuminated face of a watch.On the hillside, a hare...
Kevin Graham

Kevin Graham

Let’s Do Cartwheels and watch the great world spin.Everyone will be on the green againplaying football or tip the can.Parents will pop out every now and thento check we’re still alive and then some.All the flowerbeds will be shakingwith laughter, ickle secrets...