They Would Have All That by Mary Jean Chan
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, imagining
her lover’s...
That Boy by Robert Nazarene
He was patient as a dead bird.
He perched on the ledge of bottom
and rocked. He was the missed flight.
He was silence calmed down.
He loved...
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...
I Don’t Live in a Mountainous Country by Talin Tahajian
We look up, & beyond the maple trees & the brick
steeples with weathervane roosters, clouds billow
as sleeping monsters. Not the sort of billowing
that clouds...
The Year of the Pin-Up Calendar by Imogen Cassels
Excerpts from a previously unpublished sequence of poems named The Year of the Pin-Up Calendar.
February
there is a white pigeon opened like a book
on the...
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...
Questions Concerning Aristotle’s Tomb by Manash Bhattacharjee
An archaeologist in Greece unearths Aristotle’s
Tomb; others dispute the evidence.
If Aristotle’s ideas are consulted, the archaeologist
Needs to prove, the tomb’s where he claims it,
Not...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
Two Poems by Sean Borodale
Response to Finding a Fossil at Writhlington Coal Batches:
A Fossil (a Fern) on Writhlington Batches Re-Take (Pt.II)
Time not as we know it
but another time...
Coming Thunder by James McAskill
When we stole the eggs from the barn that June
you said we held life in our hands.
Untrue I said as I carried a near...
Eros and Asbo by Miles Burrows
As a man under a restraining order
Still follows his ex about from day to day
I stalk your shadow as if you could show up
In...
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...
2016 by James Stradner
The clouds have swum down from the sky and rolled onto their backs
in the streets, begging for someone to rub their fluffy bellies
A day...
Social Contract by Rachel Willems
The politeness, not leaving any butter in the jam,
or jam in the butter, or shoes in the hall.
Not leaving any residue of who did...
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...
We Wait for Poets by Manash Bhattacharjee
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...
Counting by Ralf Webb
April doesn't rain.
We have spent days watching
the truant magpies comb
our cat-eyed neighbour’s lawn
for bottle caps and burnt-out tin foil.
The cloying sun has not coaxed...
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...
His Bottom Lip by Rachel Long
Clitoral, like finding a small, hidden part
of myself in someone else.
Nerve-wet, fleshy
- for a white guy, and stained
between life-lines with red wine
gone black.
Only this...
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...
Translated Love Letters by Andrew McMillan
From The London Magazine October/November 2009
Translated Love Letters
from Norwegian
oh love, doesn't the fact that the world is so big,
laid out like ripe fruit
make you...