The Daylight Comes With Me by John Darwin
Leave the world alone and close the door,
seal this room from everything outside,
nothing else exists but these four walls;
we have eight hours and five...
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...
Men by Belinda Rule
I only like imaginary
men,
the ones who think
my art is
the most transporting
thing they have ever seen,
and I am exactly as
hilarious as I actually,
actually am.
Even then,...
Onion Music by Mark Fiddes
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...
Poetry | A Letter from Brooklyn by Derek Walcott
An old lady writes me in a spidery style,
Each character trembling, and I see a veined hand
Pellucid as paper, travelling on a skein
Of such...
Archive | Poetry | The Wiper by Louis MacNeice
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
Exile by Manash Bhattacharjee
Exile
“I rested my mouth on your memory”
~ Yannis Ritsos, from Diaries of Exile
Night arrives like a cart
You push it with motionless hands
There is darkness
But...
Shining Shoes by Nausheen Eusuf
Weekends, growing up, I'd watch my father
as he sat on a low stool in the veranda
surrounded by half a dozen pairs of shoes,
their laces...
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...
Interview | Raymond Antrobus
Raymond Antrobus is a poet, educator, curator, editor and investigator of missing sounds, who is a founding member of Chill Pill as well as the Keats...
The London Magazine Poetry Prize 2018 – Winners Announced!
A huge thanks to everyone who entered this year's poetry prize! We had so many high quality entries this year which resulted in a...
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...
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...
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...
Last Heron by Stella Davis
Last Heron
As the last heron goes, rooks
fall from the sky like old black rags
to carpet the new-laid field.
Six days now, six days and nights
without...
Catalogue of Minor Extinctions by Tyler Raso
i. labrador duck
Sitting at a disrespectful distance—
---------back where they came from—gets
defensive when blinking (like only
---------shepherds have a right to).
welcoming wreckage to its homeland by
---------sailboat...
Partita, 1968 by Hannah Lowe
Partita, 1968
When the tabla and double bass are really moving
the raga in full swing
I think of when I used to run for hours, for...
Real Life by Suzannah Evans
The producers decided things were getting slow
so I caught you with Arabella at the charity regatta,
delivered a flute of strawberry champagne
to your blazer, a...
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...
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...
Madonna and Child by Hugh Dunkerley
Don’t believe the lies:
Joseph was a randy little sod.
That’s why we had to leave,
go back to Bethlehem
where he told his family
I was pregnant with...
Refugees by Manash Bhattacharjee
Refugees
I know a thing or two
about refugees –
As a child I heard father
say, “We were sleeping
in the place we thought
was our country, till
the siren rang...
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...
What You Call Your ‘Winter Mode’ by Patri Wright
On the wicker chair I wait for the duvet’s rise:
you’re just a mound, breath,
as I worry over why, again, you’ve overslept.
Could it be early...