NADIA ANJUMAN No desire to open my mouth, what should I sing of . . . ? I, who am hated by life. no difference to sing or not to sing. Why should I talk of sweetness, when I feel…
No Desire to Open my Mouth
Poetry
Six Tree Poems
JONATHAN BOULTING DURAMEN for Nicole d’Amonville Alegría Olive acacia fig orange banana pine cypress lemon palm carob holly-oak – the truth about trees is this (in summer especially): unless, inescapable, one comes to pluck, prune or hack, their interests lie…
Breakdown as Breakthrough
BILL LEWIS Apple Pickers 1940 As they work, above them a Spitfire takes on a Messerschmitt. The daily dog fights of the Autumn days of nineteen forty. The Spit like a great broken Bird comes down in the orchard. The…
Poets from the World, Ajmer Rode, India
Take My Hands Take my two hands make eight feet of them give them to the spider I soaked in hot water in my kitchen sink. I will hide my arms in long sleeves, will finish the last painting with…
Tree Diagrams
A. ROBERT LEE Tokyo Sakura Tree Yes, it’s a Japan-icon, the nation’s postcard. Cherry blossoms. Branch-born, bud to flower. Wind-gyres of floating white-pink petal. Imprints upon woodblock, flag, coin, kimono. Even upon street manhole covers. Japan’s colour code. But, at…
The Selfishness of the Trees
MARGARET MCCARTHY THE SELFISHNESS OF THE TREES I It is the cruelest spectacle, they put on such clouds of white that allow you to believe in some endless generosity; you remember how you looked this time last year and the…
Juvenile Magnolia
STEPHEN WILSON All year long I’ve been waiting on the promise of a light green cocoon whose size increased in almost imperceptible increments its tepals unable to free themselves yet always on the point of budburst as if something inside…