1

Smash! Mazle tov! From these splinters

of amalous silica we buildonce more broken hearts.

Each piece roughly solderedto the next and as daylightslices through we can see

the colours blur. Certain parts

are scarlet, red-wine lippedand rusted by vitriol

spat in hate-filled anger.

Others resemble the murkyolive of the cold northern sea,

the isolation jealousy engenders.

Some are the calming blue, cooland content, and bright sunshineyellow of days spent at the beach.

The composite whole shows the lacerations of the past

but it still quite beautifulin the correct light.

poetr

y

2

HEART OF GLASS

AFTER NICK LAIRD by Abel Arden

3

POETRY

“Just listen to yourself” you say.So I put my hand up to my ear,Mime hearing into a sea shell and say;“I’m listening.”You look at me as if the word SARCASM itself is beingBeamed onto my forehead by a 1920’s projector.

Silence.The type where you’re walking a rope-bridgeAbove the rocks of Mad-Hatter laughter.It’s me that snaps the wooden plankAnd hurtles downwards,Still, mid-air, I’m laughing,Sniggering into the sea of tension breakingWith only myself to thank.You tell me my disarming of our argument isn’t charming,That my sneering is no longer endearing.I pull the neck of my t-shirt over my shoulderAnd wink.

Then I see it creep onto your face,You’re painfully fighting it, the smile. It makes you thinkOf that innuendo you’ve made when listening to a funeral speech.Improper thoughts when looking at inappropriate faces.We’re made up of the childish poking out of tongues,Paper aeroplanes, jumping out of dark placesAnd post-it notes with the words “love me” in blackStuck slyly on each others weightless backs.

POST-IT NOTES

by Emily Harrison

4

POETRY

I hide behind words like shitExhale them longingly on your neckTo distract you from the tearsAnd it works.

Perfectly carmexed lips and theBoldness of your tongue are…Nice – Better than the half-empty bottle on my deskNext to something Hemingway wrote becauseIt is the passion I want andYour hands are good liars.

Part my lips with your tongue Look at mePretend you mean it.Shit

SHITby Sylvia Blackwell

One day, we will leave togetherby train, to watch through our

small window frame the short treesblur by and the clouds dim.

We will arrive somewhereat a field of foxtails

and walk toward low yellowed mountainswithout aiming to reach them.

When the sky has completely blackenedwe will lie down with the foxtails we pickedlooped around our fingers. I will be talking

about things I’ve read, things I’ve seen,and one moment you will say shhh,

listen to the cicadas singing, anduntil we fall asleep we will listen to them

trilling and shivering where we won’t find them.

TRIPby Emily Yoon

5

POETRY

THE CYNIC by Charley Bendall

I’m being realistic, no, practical, you say.Well, everything’s a hazard

isn’t it?

You wouldn’t know, you wereInside (trapped) as a precautionary measure.Best not get my hopes up, you say.

Step outside.Optimism has its benefits.You follow,Who knew being blind could be so wondrous?

Wait.

For what?

Pessimism to penetrate this brief sanguine haze,Momentary,Then fractured, orI suppose you would say broken, lost.I should tell you,Your glass is half empty again.

6

POETRY

Stifling heat of embryonic summer,Blue world and burnt skinComing, finally, to the break, and brutal storm-Lightning ripping shards in the soul skyGod’s hand, reaching in angerThey called it magic but it is only science,Meteorology and disremembered pain.The traces of you missing from windowsill and wallThe smell sticks in nostrils and knuckle hairsI could eat the stench, swallow you whole.Onwards we guess and we fail, we fall,Bloodshot eyes, oh how little sleep this timeNight is too humid for breath and dreams,Only endlessness, and it came back to meAfter the seventh spiritBitter in my throat, your smile.

TRACESby Mary Chapman

AFTER PRUFROCK’S BREAKFAST

by Joe Prestwich

Talk of teapots brewed in silence,Talking of toast buttered like a thin blanket

That’s screwed up in a question on the bed.

Words come easily, sweetly;Chomp on an apple that’s tossed to the cart

Of plans, that rambles on up streets of unnameable naming.

Is it fruitful to trail on, yawning,With evening’s darkness stretched out, dawning?