Issue 3 - January 2008 - Poetry
Boxing Day by Helen Askew
Siberian air from across the sea -
a fire-hydrant on the tide line.
I wrote my stage-name
in the sand - it washed away.
(A rainbow on the ocean's horizon -
a year to the day since it took those souls.)
Wearing my paralysed grandpa's jumper -
crying because I love him, smiling
because my sister is in love.
(Cracked, old music in her car, wet sand
on my shoes, and ear-ache.)
Wanting it all back to normal now.
A Goose Called One-Eye by Rosie Balyuzi
On my rounds I spy
the wild goose named one-eye -
one eye beady for the grass,
his other a pink blood socket,
a doll cup opened up.
Of all, I love you especially -
you cut into me each time
with a vulnerable life
that draws itself through
with such dignity.
You unbutton my body
of its cheerful stance,
and lead me into a field
stripped back, raw, unsealed,
where the black panther stalks
and danger counts us down.
But it is also a sunlit place
where we meet to exchange
our open wounds,
our beautiful places
that sing and quiver
in the shared flood of air.
Slice by Rosie Balyuzi
stop thinking
about the way
it’s like
drinking
your life
today from
an empty glass
that takes
you past
all the
buttered up
ideas spread
on bread
over the years
be ready
for the knife
when she
comes
all guns
to slice
your world
into eight
so if falls
open broken
at the centre
baby bambi
bright eyed
untied
no words
or speech
to reach
backtrack
just a still
dawn
- trembling
to the thrill,
of a newborn.
Fears by Ben Gadsby
I fear just two things:
Lack of socks in he morning
Losing you, like I lose everything
Haiku by Ben Gadsby
To long for Haiku?
Industrialization
Is an example.
Arles by Jonathan Hayes
Imagine, that "little yellow house"
Held up by rafters of epilepsy and canvasses
And the screams of oil-paint fumes and gunpowder
And absinthe and prostitutes and blades and blood
One claimed to be a buddhist monk in his self-portrait
The other was a sailor looking for logic on land
Arguing over theology and vowing never to fall in love
Dangerous, their perspective of the chair.
The Caves At Ronda by Tommy Herbert
Where the tall rock curtains itself in folds,
Four strokes down and one across in black:
The tally marks by which you once assessed
Days long since inseparably old.
And drawings: an archer drawing his bowstring back,
Goats, deer, a fish – perhaps a shopping list,
Or a request to those in charge of deer.
Shard and bone people, where you left your bowls
And built your fires among those arcades, that
Blackness on the wall – that chimney – lingers.
You snapped off stalactites to make your tools:
After four millennia, the stumps are flat
Except for tiny regrown stone fingers
Pointing at the floor: they were here.
The Crab by Miša Klimeš
A crab scurries along the shoreline.
Breakers roll in from the night
where an invisible horizon
pierces my blank mind.
My friend and I watch this crab
not sure of its direction,
following some random course
nobody has thought up.
We wander closer, curious visitors
from another world, bemused
by its antics and impressed
by its energy.
We try to inspect it
but the crab is swallowed up
and spat out by the Pacific
which cannot make a decision
whether to keep or disown
one of its children.
Eventually, we lose the crab.
My friend writes my name
into the sand,
we lose that too.
Green by Chris Lindores
Platypus-cupboard hybrid,
Takes flight off the cliff,
Opening it's doors, soaring.
Big green.
Freshly-cut grass drowns peacefully,
Passive ground downwards.
Delicate pins.
Green-ness.
Table yawns like a valley,
Bored, roaring lethargically,
Bottomless nonsense.
Green green green.
Metal plunges in,
Quite awkwardly fun.
Blood flows.
Crazy green party.
? by Corey Molloy
I know you, don't I?
That long, flowing hair,
And dark chocolatey eyes.
I'm sure I've seen you before,
I could never forget
That shy smile you're wearing,
Or the soft touch of your hand.
For all this you still look unfamiliar,
What is your name?
Now I'm unsure.
You cry on my arm,
Yet still, I can't name you!
Still you seem a stranger to me...
As I drift to sleep,
In this hospital bed.
THE BEST OF READ THIS: Issues 1 & 2
Recognition for the very best work from the print magazine.
Resolution by Daniel Watkins
featured in Issue One of Read This. It was chosen as the best poem from the RT1 by The Journal, and featured as the Monday Poem for their second issue.
I once read that "It is a great thing
to do what is necessary
before it becomes essential
and unavoidable,"* which is what
I aim to do this year.
I will take some risks,
perhaps four.
I will try to write something every week.
I will be confident,
I will be myself,
and I will find a way
around that paradox.
I will make the effort
to do something sociable
at least once a day.
I will quote Bob Dylan more
and Lord Of The Rings less.
I will use this year
to decide the next twenty, thirty, or forty,
and I will continue to think
of abstract, indefinite things to do
so that I have an excuse
to not actually do them.
I will ignore this list in January,
forget it in February
and be myself again by March.
I will accomplish something.
* from The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
Tryst by Sarah Quigley
featured in Issue One of Read This. Sarah also read a selection of her poetry to a full house at the Read This launch.
two small suns
burning on the hill
twilight foods
French bread
pear dribbling on the grass
and redcurrants
lips
buttons
ow. mind my hair
earth
The Creative Process by John Foster
featured in Issue Two of Read This. John's work was also featured on the Read This website during December 2007.
Elbow grease and midnight oil
Spent and spilled in inky splurges.
Tippex slathered as a foil
Paints iconoclastic purges
Yet, when all the clots congeal
(All the tippex squeezed or sniffed)
Not a word they spell is real
And the page is hard to lift.