Poetry
Globes
Jack Little
you, God on hardsoil, insatiable Icarus…
Man Ironing
Anne Rouse
Sunday night, you pick up an iron in a cold room.
Where The Dead
Marion McCready
Cloud-shadows darken the windows. / In an upstairs room I watch the city glide by.
Moons
Sammi Gale
I am the boat with a stomach full of rain,/ and I am faceless even when the moon/ peers in…
Maggie Mucklebackit
Andrew McCallum
The clock repeats its parable as Maggie talks./ The seconds tick and fall, tick and fall,/ like waves lapping without a sound.
Thrum
Niall Campbell
I add to this the dark bloom of a life// discovered, pursed and fat, beside the slope./ How I wish I’d cut it from the branch
Difficult Laughter
Olivia McCannon
Is what there is between a funeral and The Awful Truth
The bit where the dog….? Where Cary Grant….?
Jaap Blonk & Sound Poetry
Delaina Haslam
The Wild Thing Is Always Near
Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné
…There is a lit fuse
in your daughter’s mouth,
her brownish body a bomb…
A Medicine of Moments
Janette Ayachi
I am the perverted picture viewer
tuned in and turned on
to the aesthetic beauty of visuals
Fire, Somewhere
Theresa Muñoz
smoke/ rises/ in the south//thick plumes/ float
Ice Yaqoub
Nigel Holt
“…The wax extends across the afternoon;/ every follicle exhumed and exiled;/ each inch of skin exfoliated. Soon,/ she will be ready: brows plucked; nails filed…”
Taxidermy
Richie McCaffrey
They often took people from these shores,/ pariahs of the law or kirk. Sent them down/ into the holds of ships with flint as ballast,/ mined locally as plentiful useless weight….
Poe in Love
Howie Good
1 A man jammed fistfuls of earth into his mouth. And why not when nations sell/ weapons to their enemies?
Becoming – A Triptych in Reds
Michael Kearns
I scoured the thrift shops/ Looking for the perfect sport coat/ Maybe checkered black and white/ Or jazzy plaid of multi-colors…
Carsaig
Alice Willington
The naked women lie back & repose
Emily Wolahan
Hello I Am Cambodia
Michael Pedersen
The Olive Branch
Ross Macgregor
I send you a postcard, you send me a postcard,/ From some exotic place./ But there are no more exotic places. No more remaining exotic places….
Writer? Right… Er?
Michael Ormond
The finest poem I have ever read goes like this:
Olive Oil
Camembert
French bread
Green Veg
Chicken bisto
Plonk?
I love you
Even though
You are a
Cunt head
This brilliant poem was written by my wife following one of the small flare-ups that real life relationships are made of. Structurally it satisfies me. Ten lines seems like a nice length and it is half the number of words which is pleasingly symmetrical. Each line is about the same length which gives it balance. It is not quite Haiku, not quite shopping list, not really anything, but nonetheless magnificent.
Chris Powici
Interview by Andrew F. Giles
When it comes to the after-life
I’ll settle for the Calmac terminal
on a spit of Hebridean rock
after the ferry has sailed.
A lobster boat tugs at its rope
and beyond the pier a gannet rises
from the low swell into the cold cradling waves
and quick air…
The award winning poet and writer talks exclusively to NLP about the his craft and the inspiration he finds in the natural world. The interview includes three of Powici’s poems. His latest collection Somehow This Earth is published by Diehard Books.
New Poetry
Alice Willington
The child holds the strings,
semi-quavers,
long lickedysplit lines that jerk
and loosen as he turns his wrists.
The wind is made from resin and horsehair,
the buffet of canvas swoops and soars
in the quiver of catgut…
NLP is delighted to publish a small collection of new poetry from award winning poet Alice Willington Continue reading…
POE-NERO: Leopoldo María, Gothic tyrant
The enemy is Man
and I am
the shepherd of shit
only Lord of nothing
King of the wind
the page on which the dog barks
Andrew Faraday Giles introduces us to the extraordinary world of Spanish poet Leopoldo María Panero, luminescent figure of La Movida Madrileña, inmate of multiple asylums, writer of remarkable poetry. Continue reading…
Letters Unsent
You broke the picture of the lovers when
You turned away last night. Heave of mattress –
Glass and slashed photograph through the gap
Between bed and wall….
Zoe Green explores the complications and conflicts of love, betrayal and loss in her powerful new collection, Letters Unsent.Continue reading…
