London – Foxglove Journal

Longwood – Louise Walker

Hail hard in our faces, sun in our eyes,

we push through brambles, past the dovecot

and piles of tumbled bricks, driving deep into

the heart of the wood. Long before the house

burned down, someone planted daffodils here

and every year there are more, seen only

by those who still remember where to look.

Around the empty walled garden, bastard

fruit trees shoot upwards from ancient rootstock,

foaming white, but there will be no fruit,

unless we bend to read these faded labels

beside each shadow tree against the stone,

unless we plant again to face the sun

with Concorde, Harrow Sweet, Laxton’s Superb.

Louise Walker is a poet and teacher who lives in London. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in anthologies by the Sycamore Press and Emma Press, as well as journals such as South, Oxford Magazine, Acumen, Second Chance Lit, ARTEMIS and Dreich. Commissions include Bampton Classical Opera and she was Highly Commended in the Frosted Fire Firsts Award in 2022. She is working on her first collection.

February 14, 2023 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: creative, creativity, elements, flowers, fruit, garden, heart, London, Longwood, Louise Walker, nature, place, poem, Poetry, senses, stone, sun, time, trees, UK, weather, wood, writing Leave a comment

Fluttering – Heather Walker

I notice the fluttering inside of me at the time the earth stands still. Equal day and night. I turn to the man sleeping with his back to me. The shape of him stirs me and the fluttering increases. I lie my head against him and he does not stir.

The fluttering reminds me of a butterfly whose wings knock against a closed window, yet I cannot open up and let you out. It is not yet time. The year dips into winter. Snow lines the windowsill. I breathe on the glass and draw a heart. How I long to be out in the fields once more.

I have not told him of the fluttering I feel inside. This is my secret and I have no wish to share it. I hug my arms around my stomach, shelter you, to reassure you.

As days move into months, I have not grown much, yet I feel your kick. I caress your movement, talk to you as I shower. Surely it will be soon. I have still not told him. How can I?

Spring comes with a burst of white and yellow. I walk the fields, my feet sodden with dew. Lifting my face to the sun, I ask it what I should do. When the pain begins, I rejoice seeking a hollow rather than return home where he will ask questions.

You are restless to escape and now cramps rage through me as you shift. I hunker down and push, bearing my weight and strength through the length of me. And then the slip-slide of body, membrane, mucus and blood onto the grass. You are all legs as you flounder. Your head turns and we make eye contact. I smile and stroke your body, still wet through. I lift you to the sun and name you Solar. Placing you at my feet, you dry off, all the while trying to find your feet. I hug you, nestle into your furriness, and place you to my breast.

He will never understand. I can never tell him of this. You are mine, and we shall run the fields together, just as I did before I met the human.

Heather Walker is a London based writer of poetry, flash and short fiction. Her work has appeared in various magazines, ezines and anthologies, including Paragraph Planet, Visual Verse, Ink Sweat & Tears, Seaborne and Popshop. Her novellas, Where It Ends and The Chair are available through Amazon.

December 13, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, Prose, UncategorizedTags: birth, creative, creativity, fiction, fields, flash, fluttering, Heather Walker, London, movement, name, nature, secret, shelter, short, snow, spring, story, sun, time, UK, winter, writing Leave a comment

Francis Ecstatic – Julian Bishop

Brother Leo gives chapter and verse

on this ecstasy: as if heaven were exploding,

its glory splashing forth in millions

of stars like waterfalls. But it’s the reverse

for Francis on the mountain of Verna

at this moment of stigmata – no flaming

angels but a beefy stripling shoehorning

the stubbled saint onto his seraphic lap.

The landscape is blissful, Francis basks

in the afterglow of some divine happening.

No stigmata, no wound, no bleeding

except perhaps within the saint’s heart?

(The lad-turned-angel is identical to the youth

in the painter’s infamous Boy Peeling Fruit.)

This is one in a series of poems about the painter Caravaggio

Julian Bishop is a former television journalist living in North London who is a member of several London stanza groups. A former runner-up in the Ginkgo Prize for Eco Poetry, he’s also been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize and was longlisted in this year’s National Poetry Competition. He won the 2021 Poets And Players Competition judged by Sean Hewitt with his poem Sitting For Caravaggio.

He’s also had poems in The Morning Star, XR’s Rebel Talk, Riptide Journal, Finished Creatures Magazine and the first few issues of The Alchemy Spoon. He is one of four poets featured in a 2020 pamphlet called Poems For The Planet. Read more at https://www.julianbishoppoet.com.

March 6, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: afterglow, angels, art, Caravaggio, creative, creativity, ecstasy, glory, heart, heaven, Julian Bishop, landscape, London, mountain, nature, painting, poem, Poetry, religion, saint, stars, UK, writing Leave a comment

The Argument Of His Painting – Julian Bishop

After Robert Herrick

I think of tainted saints, unseemly Madonnas,

Bacchus hung over, artichokes in butter,

dirt-caked soles, two mop-headed angels

coupling, Jesus and Cecco baring all.

I paint in bone-black, bloody vermillion,

backdrops of ochre and black, umbers that burn,

throw in hasty halos, Gentileschi’s feathers,

water-snakes and corpses hauled from the Tiber.

I picture Paul being floored, John’s head severed,

Matthew tethered, Lazarus resolutely dead

and Goliath, beheaded, gasping for air –

deft self-portraits of violent despair.

Painted or unpainted, in every picture

I’m a spectator, the spectre who’s always there.

This is one in a series of poems about the painter Caravaggio

January 24, 2022January 25, 2022 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: air, angels, art, blood, Caravaggio, colours, death, despair, feathers, history, Julian Bishop, life, London, painting, poem, poet, Poetry, portraits, saints, spectre, stories, UK, violence Leave a comment

A Dream of Flying Over My Childhood Home – Isabel Greenslade

I open out my skull bones like leaves

my head a white hard dome

hot knife humming.

Current flows along my skin like oil

slicking rigid arms to body.

I rotate my neck as I do just before speech

gasp as I rise head-first to my element

a fish of the air.

Only then do I see them standing there

mother father brother neighbours all

gazing up by the fence, rooted as sunflowers

soundwaves lapping at their stems.

I flick my shoulders like fins

I am gone.

Isabel is from and of London where she works in a museum. In a former life she was a youth worker then a tour guide. Her poems has been published in Orbis and she can be found discussing poetry, art, gardening urban history, and the natural world on her Instagram account @ijgreenslade.

June 21, 2021June 21, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: air, bones, creative, creativity, current, elements, family, fins, fish, flight, home, Isabel Greenslade, leaves, London, neighbours, poem, Poetry, rising, senses, soundwaves, sunflowers, UK, writing Leave a comment

White Butterflies – Andy Eycott

White butterflies

crisp as a new playing cards,

hinged wings

guitar picks strumming.

The first rests on yellow petals

the second fluttering

over blackberries ripening,

both blown into the bushes

as a train that doesn’t stop

at this station thunders through.

A flash of bright white returns

drawn back by a dandelion sun.

Andy lives in South East London and currently works within the NHS. Since being diagnosed with dyslexia at forty-eight he has been published in a number of magazines and anthologies. These include Obsessed with Pipework, Worktown Words, Orbis, The Dawntreader, The Cannon’s Mouth, Snakeskin, Runcible Spoon, Sentinel Literary Quarterly and Poems in the Waiting Room. He had also qualified as a counsellor and enjoys writing stories for his grandson.

May 12, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: Andy Eycott, animals, blackberries, bushes, butterflies, creative, creativity, fauna, flight, fruit, London, nature, petals, poem, Poetry, rest, return, senses, sun, train, UK, wings, writing Leave a comment

Souvenir – Isabel Greenslade

I left the car on the cliff top,

went looking for a toilet, found a bird.

There used to be a coal mine under here –

that’s what the guidebook said,

and the mark on the map.

It’s long dead, whatever it was,

probably dead when I was at home

looking it up in the bird book.

Fieldfare? Thrush? Which colour plate,

which description did it fit?

Anyway, there it was, trapped in a toilet block

in a car park empty of other visitors.

There were only two of us.

This assemblage of stone sand wind and air

progressed up and down the cubicles,

one two three four five five four three two one

its feet scrabbling on the overhead cisterns.

Too far above me to catch, it wouldn’t be wafted

towards the doorway with my map.

Already I was trying to name it as it struck

at the skylight that we could both see.

Death was always certain – inside a neglected egg,

by teeth or talon, by being shaken loose.

It didn’t need its name, only the sky which turned solid on it.

I flushed and walked out over the stone floor

into the wind, past the laminated pictures of the mine.

I got back into the car, drove to the heritage museum

where miners are trapped on a screen, to be bidden by a button

so someone knows they’re still there.

It’s history now, that bird. I thought about it

on the motorway all the way home.

April 11, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: bird, creative, creativity, death, doorway, encounter, heritage, history, home, Isabel Greenslade, journey, London, map, memory, mine, poem, Poetry, senses, sky, skylight, sound, UK, writing Leave a comment

A Meeting in Dyrham – lou moon

Where I am she will meet me

among the naming of the trees

and the subtle serendipities

I land gently on crows’ laughing feet.

Carefully trace the blue rivered breast,

try not to worry about what comes next,

for only time can bloom fruit sweeter,

and where she is I will meet her.

Only here, only now could she meet me,

and could we open arms so completely,

that where the branches meet the sky

we could slip away inside and

be calm,

for we will meet where we are,

and we will meet where we are.

lou moon is a vague and formless artist occasionally found reluctantly exploring the spaces between poetry & music, gender & sexuality, bristol & london. Part time artist, full time hippie & a regular at LBGT+ spoken word open mics in London, their work explores the intensity of the interplay between mental health and relationships, spirituality and symbolism, metaphor, vulnerability and queerness in all its forms. @_lou_moon on instagram & twitter

February 14, 2021 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: arms, branches, Bristol, calm, creative, creativity, Dyrham, elements, encounter, fruit, London, lou moon, meeting, naming, nature, poem, Poetry, senses, sky, time, trees, UK, writing Leave a comment

Riverdawn – Daniel Tobias Behan

Dawn-break

over water –

cold depths she runs

in her course;

shifting blue-grey

and orange juice

canvas, of

painted sky’s

mirroring;

sombre: her

undulating

ice-flow

belies the

busyness

of city-day

scurrying.

Daniel Tobias Behan is a London born-and-based poet. From 2017 to 2019, Daniel performed regularly at the London Irish Centre, Camden; in 2018 Daniel was interviewed by the Irish Post as part of their London Calling podcast series, and in 2020 had a short film made of ‘The Visit’ featuring acclaimed actor Nora Connolly and directed by Patrick O’Mahony, was interviewed for Wombwell Rainbow, and commenced a poetry series ‘Findings’ on channillo.com.

December 20, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: canvas, city, cold, colours, course, creative, creativity, Daniel Tobias Behan, dawn, elements, flow, ice, landscape, London, nature, poem, Poetry, river, senses, sky, UK, water, writing Leave a comment

You – Daniel Tobias Behan

You are one, whose

lung breathes

new song, of

love beautiful;

dreaming

heart-drum

ever beating the

rhythm-shape of life;

the one whose

ear births

new ways

of hearing me,

here, being with me;

who grows

ever stronger

than ever will I

forever love you.

November 22, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: Poetry, UncategorizedTags: birth, body, breath, creative, creativity, Daniel Tobias Behan, dream, forever, hearing, heart, life, London, love, lung, poem, Poetry, rhythm, senses, shape, song, strength, UK, writing Leave a comment

Boxed Dusk – Jenny Moroney

A beginning of an evening was grasped by the room

whose sparse light seeped in from a solitary window.

Lain on the bed, a pencilled in person noted the square

of sunset with its pastel pinks, blues and greens

layered over a charcoal city skyline.

Moving their hand against the square

so the light was sieved through their skin like dust,

they noted how this beginning of an evening

could be anything from a painting

to a life.

Jenny Moroney lives in South-East London. She studied English Literature with Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and has been published online and in print.

August 4, 2019August 4, 2019 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: bed, beginning, city, colours, creative, creativity, dusk, dust, evening, Jenny Moroney, layers, life, light, London, nature, poem, Poetry, room, skin, sky, UK, window, writing 1 Comment

Separation – Rachel Lewis

In seconds the ice will crack bright on the pond.

You’ll lift a bubble of it in your hand, ungloved.

In minutes the mud will have soaked through our shoes,

And we’ll leave behind the gardens and the bending statues.

In an hour’s time we’ll leave this place I’ve always loved

And in a day anyone might have come or gone.

Hot, tight, soft, close, are goodbyes here,

As though intensity could be a kind of glue,

For all the things we’ve promised here, to glue

Them to my promise that next year,

This city, here.

Rachel is a London-based poet. She was previously a poetry editor for the Mays Anthology and a Young Producer with Poet in the City. Her poetry can also be found on the Poetry Society website, in the Dawntreader and Kindling journals, and unpredictably at live events around London.

March 17, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: bubble, city, creative, creativity, elements, gardens, goodbye, hand, ice, intensity, leaving, London, mud, nature, poem, Poetry, pond, promise, Rachel Lewis, shoes, time, UK, writing Leave a comment

Ithaca – Rachel Lewis

My wife is behind me

And my life before.

The sky lit from inside itself

With golden dying day.

Turning itself,

And turning again.

We are sailing east

Towards a dawn

That has not yet risen and will not

Til terrors past absolve us

Of having left at all.

Ithaca, sharpening blue

And deepening silver,

My house just one

In our city stretching out the coast.

My father buried there, his dust

Rising in flowers touching heads to dew.

My nurses there, their old hands threading

At baby clothes, sat in sun smiling wrinkled.

Ithaca I can feel you holding back.

Something in me will not come with me.

It will stay murmuring in the cypress,

It will croak with the cicadas at night,

It will live with the snakes in the sand and the gulls on the water.

Promises, winds,

They cannot move a weight of water.

Ithaca I promise

I have never and will never leave you

Even as winds blow me on

Into the rose red grasp

Of this first dawn alone.

February 17, 2018February 17, 2018 by foxglovejournal Categories: PoetryTags: animals, city, colours, creative, creativity, dust, elements, fear, flowers, home, Ithaca, journey, London, nature, night, poem, Poetry, Rachel Lewis, sounds, sun, travel, UK, writing Leave a comment

Everything bright and illuminated – Melissa Goode

He sits in the back row. The concert has already begun and the stage is lit. The school orchestra plays Bach. His daughter, Joanna, is stern, focussed, behind a cello. They sound excellent, but he will tell me they dropped x, raced across y, and could have lingered at z and he will hum it a little to show me how it should have sounded. I will say, she’s seventeen. She’s a star. He will smile, probably at my ignorance, my upbringing, my haven’t-got-a-clue.

I stand in the doorway, my wet umbrella drips London rain onto the floor. Joanna is vivid on stage with her red hair. She is a flame. He faces straight ahead, lit by the light from the stage, a portrait. His gaze is hard, merciless, like a hawk. She dips her head over the cello and I feel the movement in my chest.

We could lie on a beach in Hawaii, him and me, pale beneath the white blaze of the sun. Joanna plays in the water and meets American boys and girls her age who make her laugh. We drink frozen cocktails all day—strawberry, coconut, lime, pineapple. Let’s try mango. There is sand everywhere, in the carpet, the shower, under our nails, inside our ears. When he and I lie down at night, he leaves the lamp on and looks at me like he could eat me entirely. We move slowly as if we have all fucking day and night. We do.

He has saved a seat. I touch his shoulder and he looks up at me. Sorry, traffic, I whisper. Hello, he mouths. He smiles. I move past his sharp knees to the seat, his hands reach out and hold my waist as I go.

Melissa Goode’s work has appeared in Best Australian Short Stories, Griffith Review, New World Writing, Litro Magazine, Pithead Chapel, Gravel, and Jellyfish Review among others. One of her short stories has been made into a film by the production company, Jungle. You can find her here: www.melissagoode.com and at twitter.com/melgoodewriter.

June 1, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, ProseTags: Australia, creative, creativity, dream, family, fiction, flash, Hawaii, humanity, London, Melissa Goode, music, nature, portrait, Prose, rain, relationship, senses, story, travel, weather, world, writing Leave a comment