Puddocks by John Greening
for SECH
Clare would have called
these five red kites
circling above dead
or stag’s-headed oaks
like iambs broken from
a line of English pastoral
by a name that signifies
a deed...
Poetry | The Goldfinches of Rome by Peter Anderson
Carduelis carduelis (Fringilla carduelis. Linn. 1758)
Dawn on the Palatine:
planets bow out, stars pick their way
through rat-traps and incident tape.
The morning after the party...
Acrostic by Sudeep Sen
(R.I.P. Derek Walcott: January 23, 1930 – March 17, 2017)
Deep seas of yesteryears wash new froth on your home shores.
Egrets, sea gulls, circle the...
Four Watercolours by Sudeep Sen
The London Magazine has been celebrating the life of our former editor, Alan Ross. An important figure in the literary world, Alan was known...
Review | Rough Trade Books | Series 3
The recently-launched Rough Trade Books imprint has been releasing pamphlets at a prolific rate since the summer of last year, bringing us highly collectable...
Playing Safe | Hugo Williams
I liked not liking you much.
I liked playing safe. Not being bowled over by you
was part of the thrill.
At the King’s Palace Hotel
you couldn’t...
Home from Greece by Robert Selby
Above whitewashed, tabby-haunted Kamari,
I wearied of the incessant inversions
in Pope’s Homer, and left my self-improvement’s
cooling terrace to the night, now drawing in
here too, across...
Giggles by Evdokia Charalampous
With her eyes closed
she has been staring at the lamps on the ceiling for days.
By now they must look like Sufi dervishes
whirling in white
to...
Poetry | Coot by Iain Twiddy
Iain Twiddy
Coot
It didn’t need to be a big ripple
nudging its reed-nest for the overstep
to plop into the up-plump of the breast,
and the coot to...
Two Hundred Twenty a Kilo by Nabarun Bhattacharya, translated by Manash...
(Homage to Karl Marx)
Nabarun Bhattacharya
(23 June 1948 – 31 July 2014)
On the floor of a slaughterhouse
A butcher’s leg slips in the blood
Crows go raucous...
The Veil by Manash Bhattacharjee
She walks past the wave
Of curious glances
An apparition eluding
Light and desire
Everything she hides from
Trembles in her body
She remembers the lures
In every street
But no street...
October by Lydia Towsey
October
Pizza bruschetta gold dress Rioja
Autumn is here and Winter forgotten
Walking through town arm in arm with a lover
Moon in the sky and leaves good...
Spotlight V: Journals Edition | LE GUN / Hotel
The London Magazine has long been a champion of emerging writers and independent publishers, stretching back to the 1950s and 60s, when young writers...
Replete by Maggie Butt
Replete
Enough of beauty - I have devoured
small boats curtseying at anchor,
green palace-dotted hills swarming
the spice-scented shore of Asia Minor.
I couldn’t chew another mouthful
of waves,...
Caries by Fiona Sampson
Little hole little well
of dark staining the lacquer
of my tooth little confessor
coming close and coming close
why are you pursuing me
interrogator of the nerve
in its...
Poetry | Under the Loquat by Peter Anderson
He had that majority under the loquat,
rain falling like a god in gold, the breakthrough
sun, and the spin on things, tar growing a fur.
Loitered...
Difficult Cup by Isabel Galleymore
after Wu Hao’s Duke Cups
The china cup is frilled at the rim
like tired lace and all over it
ceramic tentacles extend
to whisper if you drink...
Five Years Ago by Manash Bhattacharjee
To Fady Joudah
I was waiting at the platform
For a train to Calcutta
In...
Towpath by Neil Burns
I
The Lagan - a muddy silt river -
Barrel of roll-tide, ribs of clean branches
Poke up water jutting. On the towpath
I glean a warm wet...
Snowbound by Michael O’Neill
Snowbound
Carriages lit and still between the drifts ...
With each flake it took on a new form,
the city they seemed exiled from ---
almost a sad,...
The Lighthouse by Michael Shann
The Lighthouse
Markhouse Road
So far from the wine-dark sea, a displaced
monument to faith and absurdity
at the turn of a neat, Victorian street.
Still, the treacherous rocks...
For Calcutta by Manash Bhattacharjee
As I leave for Calcutta
I think the city
Always that other city
Its river Ganga
Always my other river
Howrah Bridge
What a colonial cradle
A Raj suspended
Kipling's imperial joy
Hoogly...
Competence by Anna Kahn
There is nothing in this room
for those who have not learned to
sing without thinking, who don’t know
where the music fits in their bodies, how
to...
Interview | Robert Lundquist: Never say sorry or common words again
My Father was a boxer. He taught me how to box when I was nine. This commonality, and the need to impress him, informed a great deal. When Charles Bukowski at an event asked me to ‘take it outside’ over a girl, I said okay. I was 21 and shy. Everyone at the party kept telling him [...]