Arts Articles

In the Atlas mountains

30 November 2023 | by Roger Iredale

'Five faces and a white-nose ass disrupting dust rise up the slope of olive trees past bearing.' | Patrick Ogilvie on Unsplash

Five faces and a white-nose ass disrupting dust rise up the slope of olive trees

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Beneath sufferance stones

16 November 2023 | by Steve Day

'From the comfort of our sofa we went there with you. Took her scented candle to a vigil saw your sorrow in the flame asking us to waste some silence.' | by Eyasu Etsub on Unsplash

He had been digging his four year old daughter out of the earth. We know this because there was no choice, witnessing him burst his straining back, splitting spinal minor chords of both himself, as in parent       and child, as in dead daughter. Now he lies fixed...

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Garden lessons

09 November 2023 | by Jennie Osborne

'A woman may sit in a garden of young blossoms showing their faces to sun for the first time, and wait for words to take root.' |

There is more than one way of calling in the seed. A woman may sit in a garden of young blossoms showing their faces to sun for the first time, and wait for words to take root. Soil knows the spell of waiting just as the robin knows the right...

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Ashes and diamonds

02 November 2023 | by Roger Iredale

'There are no diamonds in the ashes of despair.' | by Chris Coe on Unsplash

There are no diamonds in the ashes of despair.  Anger writhes along each cortège as broken souls go down to brandished flags and guns. Hope seems lost.

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Listening post

26 October 2023 | by Bob Ward

Elijah Went Up by a Whirlwind into Heaven (Chariot of Fire), by Shlomo Katz,1985 |

Silence is hardly pure. Life engenders Breathing aloud, spider steps, and white noise – Your nerves fretting to their own agendas – But there seems to be a spirit that employs What rises from near quiet. Just recall When Elijah, bloodied by raw righteousness, In hiding unclear how fate might befall, Heard...

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The dance

19 October 2023 | by Dorothy Lindsay

'And so, the Poplars-pair, lanky and beautiful, in their newly-sprung green, now fully clothed, danced in unison....' | by Mitchell Griest on Unsplash

Not like Matisse’s ‘Dance’, as Touch for now, is merely a hopeful thing, and for them, not a dancing ring of five; nor, it seems, just communal friendship, but something more: a longing to embrace, but never quite achieving that closeness.

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Jerusalem Odessa

05 October 2023 | by Steve Day

'Walk upon the rubble In the Odessa Bar of Jerusalem, they were drinking shell shock from the clouds' |

Walk upon the rubble In the Odessa Bar of Jerusalem, they were drinking shell shock from the clouds, by whatever name this place is known no one loves them as much as this; walk upon the rubble, except perhaps their own camouflage leaders. and the collateral crucifixion, Imported weapons of...

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Wake brain

28 September 2023 | by Roger Iredale

'Return once more to consciousness, the roar of being...' |

WAKE BRAIN,             DRAW BREATH,                                 CRY LIFE Return once more to consciousness, the roar of being, of seeing half-bright galaxies roaming overhead, of struggles in foaming floods of alien...

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Dear diary

21 September 2023 | by Harvey Gillman

'strangers pass, may find a discarded trunk, fashion flutes that fire the world?' | CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

I am so sorry that once again today I have not been able to save the world. Somehow there is never enough time. Problems arise in unexpected places and so, because of me, once more the world will fall apart. All my fault. Of course.

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Meeting

14 September 2023 | by Angela Arnold

'Breath finally shared in community: listen. One single Breath knowing itself.' | by Tim Goedhart on Unsplash

Breath held – while still idling in and out. Breath as a bubble, something caught and sealed. Breath expanding then, becoming its own country, world, see: whole continents of breath.

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