“the Boots perfume counter assistant looking / like Dracula’s daughter”
Category: Poetry & Fiction
[Fiction] ‘The Talented Higgs Boson’ — Mary Peelen
“You have to admit that in this way, the Higgs has sort of a sheen of godliness.”
[Fiction] ‘Clarity’ — Mark Halpern
“Among the many words they didn’t use was judōteki-kōgeki—literally, passive-aggressive—which had recently infiltrated the Japanese language via Western theories of psychotherapy. But did Japan need such a word? Maybe that’s just the way people are. Especially as relationships wear on.”
[Fiction] ‘Train Ghosts’ — Yash Seyedbagheri
“Imagine Mother, a silhouette in lavender.”
[Fiction] ‘Debt’ — Franck Vanhee
“If I lend you a letter w, you must return that same letter w, the oman in the bookshop said.”
[Fiction] ‘The Ghost of You’ — Christopher Moore
“He may as well have fucked me into the mattress, he was so possessed with it.”
[Fiction] ‘The Fall of the Owl’ — Tim Harding
“The one thing she never felt while she was dreaming, she thought, was suspicion that she was in a dream.”
[Fiction] ‘The Death of Cleopatra’ — Paul Murgatroyd
“Octavian sat there with winter in his eyes, calculating, controlling the narrative.”
[Fiction] ‘Dog Thieves’ — Nick Power
“Hibbs had the thing grabbed by the dewlaps and its nose forced skyward.”
[Poetry] — James Mcloughlin
“Nothing soars here /
but flies under the radar, obscured.”
[Fiction] ‘Architecture in Reverse’ — Joe Bedford
“With a final burst of brilliance, the sun falls missile-like to the point where the sky ends and life begins.”
[Poetry] — Elizabeth Gibson
“The eagle, burnished brown,
/ golden, / his beak and the arch /
of his regal neck somehow in tune”
[Fiction] ‘Gone Away Is The Bluebird’ — Chris Veasey
“‘The money first. Please,’ she said.”
[Fiction] ‘Gloaming’ — Nick Power
“The newborn sky outside is quicksilver and vast, threatens to engulf our eyes completely.”
[Fiction] ‘Homeless’ — Bart Van Goethem
“At home, Jerry always felt he was some sort of permanent guest.”
[Fiction] ‘Flesh Songs’ — Catherine McNamara
“He describes the persimmon tree as an equilibrium of weight and colour, a tree Gauguin would have liked.”
[Poetry] — Jenny Sloan
“Unburied heads poke above the paste as / Two childhoods sit in either corner of the cab.”
[Poetry] — Anna Vine
“The long fetch of patterns of the past.”
