“I light one, and toss it under the slide.”
Category: Poetry & Fiction
[Poetry] ‘Nude, in a Bathroom’ — Aditya Shankar
“A nudity that isn’t an apostolic pendulum/swinging between pleasure and sin.”
[Fiction] ‘Tourists’ — Mark Halpern
“At breakfast, Henry thought he should discuss fatherly matters, but didn’t know which or how.”
[Poetry] — R.A. Allen
“I find him a collectable specimen / for my ongoing study / of longing.”
[Fiction] Passing Through — Ronan O’Shea
“Now, sat in the café, I forgot the general rundown feeling that had nagged at me all morning, and I wanted to stay; happy and nostalgic, with Marcus.”
[Review] The Brown Anthology edited by Sofia Amina — Daunish Negargar
“This anthology is refreshing in its boldness and authenticity, particularly at a time when major publishing houses are tripping over themselves to make promises on Twitter to ‘do better’ in highlighting more authors of colour.”
[Fiction] In the wish factory — Joanna Kaye
“The caretaker sees the world through its wishes; he feels the passage of time this way, he hears the people’s pain, he smells the glacial pace of change.”
[Poetry] — Tom Holmes
“This is where Oppenheimer lived / before he ended the war, / where he read the Bhagavad Gita”
[Poetry] ‘Net Curtains’ — DS Maolalai
“this morning is milk / with a thick mist / of souplight”
[Poetry] — Simon Robson
“the Boots perfume counter assistant looking / like Dracula’s daughter”
[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.”