Dennis Tomlinson

Dennis Tomlinson

Cheddar Gorge I walked up the road from Anne’s hotel,climbing onto limestone heights,kaleidoscope inside my head. I can’t … I can’t … it’s impossible … I thought the cliffs an awesome sight,below the bushes dropping steep,suffused in eerie golden light. I can’t … I...
Kate Hendry

Kate Hendry

Talking to Thrushes for Andy, of Maggie’s Centre Instead of you, I’ll talk to the thrush.As I can’t book an appointment,I’ll talk to a sparrow too – one that calls from the hawthorn.Or the nervous starlingon the green steel bridge. When birds are hidden, I’ll talkto...
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...