Drain it from my eye
Take my retinas and 
Give them to the sea: 
Hope's final pillar.  

Subscribe now

Read more

I went under the lattice 
and found nothing: 
Oh! What a day! I fell

Into a fish and ran from
A whale, a wave, I was
Under her fin and, a stream,

I toiled amongst great rocks.
Every unmaking became
A-making until I was dizzy

With creation: the eye of 
The storm sat between my
Teeth and I disputed w…

Read more

Bent-knuckled, these three 
witches meet again: Eye of 
newt to globular earth/ turned 
by their rooting/ mixing to 
matter/ owned by labour until/
planted/ it shakes into being. 
Consumptive trees -
limbed into lungs/ veined across
blue/ cracked by their reaching. 
Tubular trees/ bubbling from 
their bark/ rounding at their hurts/ 
knotte…

Read more

Last weekend, I bought a 1960’s edition of Gray’s Anatomy. This was joined by a Bible (KJV), an Oxford Dictionary and an Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar. These were bought on Sunday morning.

Sunday afternoon: I have a cup of tea, a hot water bottle on the kidneys and a Highland wool blanket which smells of wet animal. I like thi…

Read more

Take the mist from the heath 
The glass from the ice sheath
And the pupils from the space underneath,
Now throw it off the ship's rail.

Suppose I took it from its socket 
And put it in my mouth 
And held it with my tongue. 
Floating weightless pebble 
I let my tongue drop 
And it stays sticking —

Suppose I rooted my finger 
And took ano…

Read more

I’ve been walking with a 
Stone in my back 
Between my hips
Where men leave their kisses
Someone left me a rock. 
I tried digging it out
But all I get is spine 
And pelvis sitting like a fruit bowl 
In my hips. 

Read more

She shuffles in velcro shoes and a down duffle coat. It is hot, but her thin limbs do not know that. A knotted finger draws forward in a slow accusation. She points to the nearest bench, and her globular knees bend in the hope of rest. The carer pushes forward, not that one, the one over here. The woman moans something throug…

Read more

My husband asked 
where his keys were 
Rocks filled my mouth 
and tumbled to his feet. 
He threw one 
at the window 
And stepped 
through its shattered frame. 

Share

Read more

DEER

is an experimental dance short inspired by Ovid's Diana and Actaeon. It is a cautionary tale that combines eco-feminist explorations with the aesthetics of folk horror to raise important questions about the male gaze as a framework for viewing the body and the environment.

Abstractly told through the eyes of our protagonist (the deer in the headligh…

Read more

The Watermelon

Anne bought a watermelon on Wednesday
It sat in her basket, a head 
She called it Bob 
and it bounced 
as her hips swayed 
Twenty pounds 
All-in-all 

By Friday 
Bob was an undertaking 
A lighthearted affair descended to dread
Taking the kitchen as his greenhouse 
He appeared to be growing
At an unexpected rate

On Sunday …

Read more

Eating verses

Eat me[1] Patience Agbabi
said 
And I said 
I eat 
commas, colons and full 
stops 
Turned into oil 
Down the gullet 
Wax along the lip 

Each slippery line 
And molten stanza 
I eat until 
I am fat with words 
Bloated, floating 
In a vat 
Being stirred 
Into the next verse.

Share

Read more

Ribbons fall from seconds

Catch me
At the top of the clock
At the day’s middle end beginning  
Dionysus, I am an
Onlooker, storyteller
Tragedy-filler 

Have you had your fill?
You have taken the form 
To its limits
Here, from the days passing
I am impressed 

You have outdone yourselves.
Outdone into un…

Read more

This post is for paid subscribers only. If you would like to support my writing, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. This allows me to continue writing, it makes all the difference.

Subscribe now

12 flies

They are above me. The flies. I’m eating crisps and trying to determine whether they will go away if I hold my breath. Don’t flies like carbon dioxide? I suck in air and hold. One….two….three…four… As I do this, I watch the flies. They’re still here, perhaps a little longer… eighteen…nineteen…twenty…. Are they slowing?

25 flies

I worry that the people in this park will think I’m fly food. I have a paranoia. Not of the flies but of the people thinking the flies are mine. As with any of my anxieties and paranoias, I am always able to fabricate a beginning.

This one began at eight when a fly followed me around school for a day. To my horror, my classmates noticed. There was a moment where I thought it might have been an imaginary fly. I had fictional friends but I had to think those into existence. A fly, though, is much smaller and might only need a seed of a thought not so fully formed. I thought perhaps this was what had happened.

Read more

If you enjoy this piece, consider becoming a subscriber. Or upgrading your subscription to paid.

Subscribe now

Read more

I had taken a break from writing in reference to the climate crisis. Consider this break broken. Here be the rootless beings, the gods who preach into existence a crisis passed into the hands of the future’s children. With woes of sick lands, they will cry from their cribs. They will be sicker still, their roots torn by generations before.

If you like t…

Read more

This post is for paid subscribers only. If you would like to access this, then become a paid subscriber — such support enables me to continue writing each day. Paid subscribers also have access to my monthly zoom poetry meets and interviews with poets.

Subscribe now

[image]

Fondant Fingers

The girl has fondant fingers 
Sweet when worked
Soft, fleshy 
Slow to move 
Moulded into the moment 
An essence of action  
— who, what, where —
Directed by the let-me-tell-yous

Read more

Subscribe now

Read more

I wonder whether poets, writers, artists can use the excuse to do the same. We like this idea, let us place throughout our words — in between sentences, amongst soundscapes and verse forms. It is the idea of the thing we like, perhaps not the thing itself. If we can keep to that, though, we are happy. Nature is, too. Is this Nature replicating itself in us? Are we drawn to our motifs for its hubris?

This post is for paid subscribers only. If you would like to access this, then become a paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

Dreaming of speciate change

An octopus in the wall
As she walks past 
An octopus in the pavement 
As she walks past

Read more

Read more

Read more