Jacob Silkstone
Night Train
It seems so long ago, now, that I took the night train across the border
aware only of the fury to flee anywhere,
the numb indifference towards the destination.
Does it matter to you where I started from?
Since then, every journey has seemed somehow
an extension of the first,
only my face in the window grows a little older,
the list of possible stops a little shorter,
a life spent always in motion, never sure
if I wanted to reach that one still point.
And in the blank black space beyond the window
nothing has really changed:
the rain still pastes its strange constellations
across the window’s map of the night sky.
Jacob Silkstone has worked as an Assistant Managing Editor for Asymptote and a Managing Editor for The Missing Slate (Pakistan) and has taught at international schools in Bangladesh and Norway. He is currently based in Bergen.
Read MoreKitty Coles
Below Zero
The night is freezing, freezing
and thick as velvet, and the little stars
stand out as thin as pins.
The bath is hot and I lower
myself, I sink, beneath the water:
it hurts my skin with its comfort.
I think of how they recommend peeling tomatoes –
I haven’t tried it – dipping
them in boiling water
and I think of my skin peeling
off in great gauzy bundles, revealing
a casing of fat, cool, thick and lardy.
I could take a spoon and pick
and chip and flake and watch the whiteness
fall away in fragments.
Underneath are the nerves and muscles,
dense pulsings of red, like the things
the butcher displays, like those poor flayed corpses.
And underneath, once I unknit, unravel,
those tuberous skeins,
are the clear, clean lines of bone
and housed in those cages are airbags,
a pumping meat-fist,
the mess that I would jettison, cast out.
And it would fly free,
the bird, the breath they call spirit,
fly far above borne up on words of ash.
Kitty Coles’ poems have been nominated for the Forward Prize and Best of the Net. She was joint winner of the Indigo Dreams Pamphlet Prize 2016 and her debut pamphlet, Seal Wife, was published in 2017. www.kittyrcoles.com
Christopher Prewitt
Cowboy Church
After I came out of the coma,
it was explained to me that
I had (repeatedly) tied
cherry stems with my tongue.
Reporters in attendance
of my waking took pictures,
and a few shook my hand.
My girlfriend, who believes mountain lions
sleep on her couch when she’s not
home (or she did prior to my
leave of absence from the world
of the willingly asleep
or awake), was clearly fishing
in her little handbag for mace.
“Who fed him cherries? He’s
allergic to cherries.” The doctor
rebuked her. “No one fed him
cherries. We simply brought him
stems to demonstrate his talent.”
My bed sheets were stained
with moth wings. It looked like sleet
was coming down on the hospital
from my window. My girlfriend’s
fake eyelashes were detaching.
I felt incredible guilt for creating wonder
unsolicited despite the apparent
danger. I squeezed my girlfriend’s
hand. “You have seen the true
me. You have seen how in this
dirty dishwater colored brain
there are mother birds flying
to the wrong nests, feeding their babies
lemon seeds and fire. For my part
I am so sorry, and I love you.”
With that my head dislodged
and floated over my bed.
Looking down at my body,
I couldn’t recall when I had been
bisected.
Christopher Prewitt‘s collection of poems, Paradise Hammer, won the 2018 James Tate Poetry Prize (SurVision Books, Dublin).
Read MoreNicholas McGaughey
Cold Kitchen
Willow has bred in the cold of our kitchen
like some internal coppice;
where hot cakes and rolls cooled on racks,
we have “Shoppers” and wreaths
and little else between us,
as she grapples stalks with steel fingers,
weaving the bonds that together
nothing can break.
Nicholas McGaughey is part of Literature Wales Mentoring Scheme 2019/20. He has new work in Prole, Marble Poetry and Poems About Running (Smith/Doorstop.)
Read MoreLaura Potts
Swansea Son
He is here in my autumn of age
the riverlight through windowpanes,
the small-hour laughter,
the slim-supple night
and moonlight eyes on the history page.
I remember his name that giggled the stars
when the stage of the world lit its lights for him,
and I, summer’s daughter,
he Swansea’s son
whose words in the plash of the water
we hear in the echoes of hills. Still
the ghost in my arms in the cracked black night,
still in stairwells the old grey light that writes
of the deer shaping the dales, that writes
of bonfire-bright old ale, that writes
of Death in His coat and tails.
You, man of words with the firefly eyes,
who didn’t stay to see the wild spring flowers
riot on the mountainside, who died
like a steeple that cradles its bones,
and whose voice now sleeps beneath Wales’ stones;
you, my lone man with the light, lord of all words,
whether I’m there with you or not, well, that’s alright.
Laura Potts, twice-recipient of the Foyle Young Poets Award, became one of the BBC’s New Voices last year. She received a commendation from The Poetry Society in 2018 and was nominated for The Forward Prize in 2019. Website: https://laurapottspoetry.com/
Read MoreVote for your September 2019 Pick of the Month
It feels like all of life is in the September 2019 shortlist for Pick of the Month: Birth, death, love, hate, the past and the future (or lack of it.) Can you feel time in Cliff Forshaw‘s ‘Ice’ slipping away or see the futility in ‘Brick By Brick’ (Brian Rihlmann)? Do Judi Walsh‘s ‘Stone’ and Helen Kay‘s ‘NIMBY and the Supermoon 2018’ captivate or unnerve? And where is Madelaine Culver going in ‘Run’? Is it towards or away from that envisioned in Setareh Ebrahimi’s ‘ Galloping Horses’?
All six works have been chosen by Helen or Kate or received the most attention on social media. They can be found below or by clicking on ‘Vote for your September 2019 Pick of the Month′ in the Categories list to your right on the screen.
Please VOTE HERE. Voting will close at 9pm on Friday 18th October.
The winner each month will be sent a £10 book giftcard or, if preferred, a donation of the same amount will be made to a chosen charity. In the event of the winner being from outside the UK mainland, we will make every effort to provide a reasonable alternative. All shortlisted poetry Picks, provided they remain unpublished and meet other eligibility criteria, will be considered as IS&T submissions for the annual Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. (‘Frequency Violet’ by Kate Edwards was a Pick of the Month for November 2017 and was Highly Commended by the 2018 judges.)
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