Dear Reader

My touchpaper torso is the source of the hex / flickers of green and red fire / purify me / scorch  tendrils / stop the slink up my spine my spine a spindle / mouldy petals dusted black / each withered leaf a knock I’ve taken / every hateful  fraction of a second stored below my waist / twisted like a sow’s tail / waiting waiting for the craving to save me / heat of seeds / stems / skin / a gulp of vinegar / cauterises vines / cuts the killing thorns above the root / trims dead weight back / until the next waning moon --- Kate Garrett writes and edits. Her work is widely published, recently or forthcoming in  Atrium, Allegro, 8 Poems, Déraciné, Ghost City Review, Kissing Dynamite , and others. Her first full collection,  The saint of milk and flames , is forthcoming from Rhythm & Bones Press in April 2019. Born in rural southern Ohio, Kate moved to the UK in 1999, where she still lives in Sheffield with her husband, children, and a sleepy cat. Twitter @mskateybell

A green and pleasant land full of white people and churches is what she wants to see but that’s not how it will be, the only thing that doesn’t change is Change itself, the Taoists say and for thousands of years people have wandered the world moved around, crossed continents. We came later, built our shrines to erase the previous gods; now you complain when seeing a mosque but wear jeans made cheap in Pakistan. Your cosy picture is a fantasy, a fixed idea you can’t let go. Your tolerable life paid for elsewhere so be quiet and think: though some might not wish to integrate, in reality we’re all connected. --- John Short lives in Liverpool and studied comparative religion at Leeds University. His poems and stories are often inspired by his travels in Europe. In recent years he has been published in the UK, France, Spain and the USA, most recently in Prole, Dream Catcher, Frogmore Papers, Envoi and The Blue Nib. He's active on the local p

Sometimes I remember the days I spent with Roy in my childhood. Eager hands ripping through paper and plastic as if it were Christmas. Roy is a red Chewit with a bit of the wrapper still attached. A soft ooze belied by crystalline edges-- a meaning I was yet to catch. Roy is an orange Calippo I savoured every drop of, wringing the ice till juice ran down my chin and somebody else cleaned up my mess. Roy is a yellow Pom Bear I carefully dissected, limb by limb-- leaving only a head. I apologised profusely but I don’t think he heard me. Roy is a green-bundled After Eight I took as an instruction. It tastes like responsibility (an introduction to adulthood) and I eagerly spat it out. Roy is a blue dolphin purchased at a cinema. A rolling chew of thoughts left idle before they had a chance to turn cynical. Roy is an indigo Yorkie bar, telling me I wasn’t allowed. I never thought he was serious but my chocolate mo

Bricked back lanes where council-covered cobbles peep from potholes in the blackened tarmac skin; rivers where turbine technology pins the ghosts of shipyards onto Roman barracks; medieval battlefields buried under farms, whose crops are wheaten-stoned houses, unaware of any back-garden history; nature reserves sculpted from spoils – a green veneer for the lost paths of dark, drowned mines. Beaches, untouristed – at first sight unpalimpsest. Yet hid in grit-grey water, under the plane scarred sky long settled onto the seabed, cold-boned shipwrecks lie. --- Penny Blackburn lives in the North East of England and writes poetry and short fiction. Her online publication includes pieces in Writers’ Café, Bangor Literary Journal  and Marsden Poetry Village and she has appeared in print anthologies by Batley Poets and Paper Swans Press.

Crossing the bridge I see it, a bible, red leather, gold embossed, caught by a fallen tree in the middle of the lake. Pages, once clear and black-inked, water-soaked. The cover curling like painted lips. I reach with a branch to reel it in. A storm wind bellows under the bridge, turns the water murky brown, swirls the bible away from its mooring. Saints and angels, virgins and whores, disciples and betrayers sink to the black depths of the lake. In the fading light I wait for Jesus to rise again. --- Belinda has worked as a psychiatric nurse, lecturer and creative arts practitioner. Her poems are published in magazines, on-line journals and anthologies. She recently gained second place in the 2018 Ambit Poetry Competition. Her first pamphlet, Touching Sharks in Monaco, will be published this year by Indigo Dreams.