Poetry

This is not throwing plates, how you ask me. Too late for that. This is a whisper dissection. Thisis a beggar’s hand in my mouth. This is...

I grow lighter for you with each striptease from skin to skin leaving a glimmering bulb a milk light by your bed for you to undress by or find your...

The moon is a sealed coffin A boast The moon of poets The moon of dogs The moon of ovaries The moon of astronauts The invisible moon Knived Sick Yellow Waning Moon-wreath of everyday Moon of...

“Is it tomorrow, or just the end of time?”~ Jimi Hendrix, Purple HazeSabeen had a list of crimes to her name – She ran a...

To sing the evening home, the lover prepares a pot of lentil stew – her phone lighting up to the news of love’s imminent arrival, imaginingher lover’s...

The air has cleared today,Over the city, and in my head,I see the trees breatheThe invisible greenness of air,I feel the taste of sunlightOn...

The London Magazine has long been a champion of emerging writers and independent publishers, stretching back to the 1950s and 60s, when young writers...

The following poem is taken from the anthology Tales of Two Londons: Stories from a Fractured City, ed. Claire Armitstead, Arcadia Books, London, 2019.Ferdous...

prophets have retired so do not wait for yours to come to you ~ Ashraf Fayadh (translated by Mona Kareem)In our country, a prince, Dara Shikoh, had...

First published in the May 1960 issue of The London Magazine (Volume 7, No. 5).Through purblind night the wiper Reaps a swathe of water

IIt’s just the same old air a person breathes, roughly the same respiratory system, steady compared with ours, the same idea of hindrance (flesh the breath must...

Layla Benitez-JamesTrapeze A rabbit might be taken away from a butcher by two different people and prepared separately; I mean, the structural integrity of my...

LifesavingThey don’t do it anymore, breathe into the mouth to save.We had learnt it reluctantly, lined up beside a recumbent dummy,waiting to take our turn to...

IThe 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...

The rosy almost-heartwood of larch, / which sounds like lark, which sounds like singing, / which sounds like the wood could open its rosy throat / and pour forth the song of boats / sighing in the harbour, / swimming onto slipways, knocking against pontoons / The grainy planks of teak, / which sounds like talk, which sounds like the boatbuilders / as they ease about the wooded space, handling compass planes, / talking of cleats and chines and carvels, making tea [...]

Can you rinse away this city that lastslike blood on the bitten tongue?~ Agha Shahid Ali Delhi,where parrots liftthe weight of tombs,poets offer daggersto deepen...

'No-one has ever written a poem “On His Deafness”'; (David Lodge, Deaf Sentence). - - - - - - - - - - - - - -...

The London Magazine has long been a champion of emerging writers and independent publishers, stretching back to the 1950s and 60s, when young writers...

Evening LightBrave bat in a bowler hat Blood shot eyes question What time does this light Depart?The light descends elsewhere Its shadow rising here The bat changes into an...

Andrew Wynn OwenThe Scientist Before the time of skiing on Europa,               Enceladus still a far-flung starry dream, When humankind had...

After Alison Watt, ‘Venus’ (2015)Their backs against the grass, she felt a pull, as if the leaveson the trees were lodestones, the hairs on her skin...

The Lighthouse Markhouse RoadSo far from the wine-dark sea, a displaced monument to faith and absurdityat the turn of a neat, Victorian street. Still, the treacherous rocks...

Derek WalcottA Letter from Brooklyn An old lady writes me in a spidery style, Each character trembling, and I see a veined hand Pellucid as paper, travelling...

SnowboundCarriages lit and still between the drifts ... With each flake it took on a new form, the city they seemed exiled from --- almost a sad,...