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Hear poet Jim Newcombe read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Jim Newcombe back next the poet Born and raised in Derby in the heart of the English Midlands, Jim Newcombe moved to London in 2006. Since then, he's lived in every quarter of the capital – enjoying an active cultural life of concerts and visits to theatre productions, museums, galleries and taverns. Jim's writing has appeared in numerous publications, and was shortlisted for the prestigious Bridport Prize, as well as for the Pendle Prize for elegies commemorating the First World War. the poems Eight Owls for Hieronymus Bosch 00:00 / 01:43 I Between the inward and outward wave upon the shore a rhythm in feathers that wasn’t here before called into being its substance and its law. II Between the masculine and feminine, between the how of her and why of him, came one with wings who shamed the seraphim. III Out from opposing poles that brought us here with eyes of sun and moon that knew no tear a tremulous presence maintained the biosphere. IV Between one nation’s customs and the next a primal entity that left the scholars vexed denied in its descent the doctrine of each text. V In the skewed trajectories of time and space it roosted aloof and in the darkest place rotated the clock of its expressionless face. VI The wood has ears, the field has eyes, and dawn reveals the eyes in every ear of corn that scans our thoughts, their verdict full of scorn. VII It is the decoy to all you think is true, to everything you ever thought you knew; the one note in its voice asks Who-are-you? VIII Both the signal to a secret and a lure, it hears the silence of a spider on the floor and sees most clearly when it’s most obscure. The House 00:00 / 02:16 Boundaries were defined by harsh words and bolted doors, yet by night I snuck past sleeping sentinels, the dark air pregnant with unanswered prayers, the page of each wall scripted with shadow, seeming to swell with pressure, as though something passed through it. Rain tapped at each window where the gloating stars peered in like patient voyeurs, the rhubarb blanched in moonlight as the clematis loomed, scaling the house, rending foundations I could not fortify. Spiders were hatched from cracked corners. I searched for clues, listened at keyholes for conspiracies, my memory mapped with creaking floorboards that betrayed my presence. I would spend hours in prayer and soliloquy trying to subsume the guilt I had inherited. Before they could be caught or killed the spiders would scuttle back to their dark dimension, as though a gash could suck up its own blood. Somewhere in hiding was the eight-legged mother of them all, her deftly strung web a grid of carcasses; wings, shells, corrupted husks mauled and festering. I couldn’t sleep for fear of it. Sometimes I would try the cellar door: deep and forbidding, that underground lair, where steps descend into a darkness that writhed with apprehensions. I couldn’t reach the light switch to dispel my suspicions which grew like rumours of a secret sin. One day I would confront whatever was down there and return victorious (if return at all) to where another, like me, would dare to descend along the cellar’s corpse-cold walls, dank and mildewed, the treacherous gloom now bristling, bristling and black with all that is unassumed. The Moon and The Sea From A Shake of the Riddle 00:00 / 01:00 VIII The moon and the sea – are they in harmony or at war? The martial marriage of the pale satellite and the brisk lush rasp of breakers – their sickly scurf and slosh, the weft and warp of crawling froth, and the pendulum tide like a nag gone berserk in its bridle, while the blind pupil of the milky moon dumb and vacuous, dimpled with craters, barren as the soul of an atheist. Holding dominion over the toiling water, that wormy, comet-scuffed wafer, that shrunken bauble of colourless light, still separate despite its travelled distance, its clean light of clinical intellect frozen from shadow, whose oblique brilliance does not illumine, but only reflect. Publishing credits Eight Owls for Hieronymus Bosch / The Moon and The Sea: exclusive first publication by iamb The House: Eunoia Review

Hear poet Róisín Ní Neachtain read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Róisín Ní Neachtain back next the poet Róisín Ní Neachtain is an autistic Irish-Scottish poet and artist now based in County Kildare, Ireland. Though mainly self-taught, she was briefly educated at NCAD and Trinity College Dublin, before studying for two years under Irish artist Gill Berry. Róisín is creator and editor of online literary and art journal Crow of Minerva , and has had her poetry featured in a number of digital publications. She's currently at work on her first collection. the poems Memory 00:00 / 01:12 I held my dreams in my palms Though they were bleeding A soft tremor against my skin Some were shallow Some like a cave Some pricked my conscience Their threads tethered to my flesh And I chewed their weights to set them free My teeth wore down I fell in a haze through our memories When a hollow sound echoed in my mouth And fell past my lips You bit my tongue and hummed The ebb of nameless laughter A cadence of sorrows Spinning a steep melody Now I am unfearful of pain A slow praise of closeness Breathing blue In midnight songs Tightening my pulse Fingers twisting in a frenzied dance To unworded lyrics My last need stilled Remembering Without Believing 00:00 / 01:21 Remembering without believing The stars appeasing Against their obsidian abyss Heat and light unseamed from dust Remembering without believing Questions pressed in psychosis And promises which feel no shame Illegible hypergraphic promises Of love and empty rooms and symbiotic existence And undivided sounds and realities And reproached pain and laughter And dissonant dreams Which lead to my repossession A petty heresy of Silence Look at this earth embedded beneath our nails Our language measured by prayers And lumen a measure of their glare Look at this skin scored by hate Their unfamiliar eye Rooted in fear All truths unchanged in time The Edge of Reason 00:00 / 01:22 A room Like a trite cage Between these four walls Where prodigal sons and daughters return And are rejoiced and bound once more A spiel read like a dead poet A bastard pain The object of such a conclusion Perhaps an accidental gale? Swept and tendering our bones Archaic songs of sorrow That lull us in their readiness Black on white Black on black White on white Letters made barely visible And nonsensical A few steps closer to the edge of reason A past and future arrested in a photograph What will happen if we awake again To see these passings going beyond that edge? To the beginnings of someplace? Someplace more of a sedentary mind A hollowed space in each Man’s chest Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Mims Sully read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Mims Sully back next the poet Nominated for The Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, Mims Sully is a poet from Sussex, England. She was a winner of the Visual Verse Autumn Writing Prize 2022 , and has had her work published in Prole , Ink, Sweat & Tears , The Ekphrastic Review , And Other Poems , Obsessed with Pipework and other journals, as well as in anthologies by Sidhe Press and Black Bough Poetry. Mims started writing poetry after studying Creative Writing at the Open University, and many of her poems are inspired by her experience of caring for her mother, who had dementia. the poems Simple Hex For A Slanderer 00:00 / 00:51 Write their name on a piece of paper. Put it through the shredder. Place the ribbons in a bowl. Ignite. Watch them grow tongues, curl back and blacken, flaking to ash. File your nails (the sharper the better) then clip the tips, sprinkle over. Add some callus freshly grated by pumice, a crust of wax picked from your ear and one salty tear. Lubricate the mix with your own spit and lashings of mucus then stir and speak: Unkind words will not go unpunished but form ulcers yellow and bulbous tight with pus on the tongue. My Father’s Belt 00:00 / 01:00 looped around my waist, moves when I breathe like a phantom limb. The leather cracks, moves when I breathe. With bronze lustre the leather cracks as if with laughter. With bronze lustre, his face creased as if with laughter as disease spread. His face creased, a shifting of skin, as disease spread its tightening belt. A shifting of skin drawn across bone like a tightening belt; his body buckled. Drawn across bone this broad strap buckles my body with a strong clasp. This broad strap holds me together with a strong clasp like my father's arm. Holding me together; like a phantom limb my father's arm loops around my waist. Afternoon Entertainment, Chamberlain Court 00:00 / 00:58 I wasn’t sure at first if she was even listening, though we sat in rows in front of the baby grand, as the piano man played all the old classics. It was when she closed her eyes that it happened – her hands started patting her jeans in time to Over the Rainbow. Then her fingers stood to attention, as if remembering: the coolness of ivory, warmth of wood, weight of black and white keys. She leant into the music as her right hand rippled across her lap onto my leggings, while her left hammered chords on the neighbouring gentleman’s knees. And just when I thought I should intervene, she opened her mouth and sang at the top of her voice about a blue-skied cloudless world where someday, I might find her. Publishing credits Simple Hex for a Slanderer: Prole (Issue No. 27) My Father's Belt: Pulp Poets Press (March 1st 2021) Afternoon Entertainment, Chamberlain Court: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Ed Garvey Long read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Ed Garvey Long back next the poet Life coach Ed Garvey-Long is a queer poet from North London. He has an MA in Creative and Life Writing from Goldsmiths, University of London, and published his first pamphlet, The Living Museum , in 2019. Ed's poems have featured in Under the Radar , Perverse , clavmag and harana poetry . His hobbies include hand-sewing quilts, and long walks with his husband. the poems Visitor 00:00 / 01:06 I look up from my muesli and Jane Austen’s in my kitchen, red-cheeked from dancing and tiny like a museum mannequin. She comes to join me at the table, doesn’t say a word, smiling warmly like we share a funny truth. I don’t say a word either – what would she make of my accent? She looks around bewildered but taking it all in her stride. Maybe she often falls out of time to join gay men eating their muesli? We look at each other awkwardly again with beaming smiles and a sense of when is this going to end? She goes to speak, looking at me directly, but she fades out, and then she's gone. Sunday in the Woods 00:00 / 01:10 All the dogs follow us home. At first we pretend it’s an inconvenience, but then we start dancing and skipping with a conga line of cavapoos and dachshunds, labradors and cockers, huskies, newfoundlanders and chihuahuas gambolling and prancing behind us. Once home, we thrive drenched in dog slobber, swimming in kibble and poo bags – our flat’s a Pets At Home warehouse. But we love them all endlessly, yes. We love them all more than the bored middle-class families did. We love the chaos of it, we love the glory and the noise. And the love: we love the love of having them with us, falling over each other in an abundant pile, a glorious fur phantasmagoria. Borrowed Light 00:00 / 00:43 Friday and I pick off the moss of this week and let myself stand in brightness streaming through our modest windows yellowing my books the snake plant likes to be crowded and the song thrush is back to nest if we have anything it is borrowed light warm on our faces large and powerful and second-hand Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Liz Houchin read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Liz Houchin back next the poet Liz Houchin lives in Dublin and holds an MA in Creative Writing from its University College. Her first chapbook, Anatomy of a Honey girl , was published in 2021, and she was recently awarded a bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland to support the completion of her debut collection. Liz's work has appeared in Banshee, Journal.ie, RTE, Visual Verse and several anthologies. Her poems have also been shortlisted in the Fish Poetry Prize, Bridport Prize for Poetry, and the Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition. the poems Beauty and the Beech 00:00 / 01:22 I knew what they were saying behind handfuls of confetti under hatfuls of flowers ‘there she goes marrying a tree’ silly girl and her silent knight taciturn and towering over callow pea-green saplings ‘in a sludge brown suit in June!’ who dared speak as one vow cartwheeled down the aisle one murmured on the breeze ‘I’d say he’s some barrel of laughs’ the band played and I twirled gazing at my spotting point as they raised a mocking glass ‘let’s toast beauty and the beech!’ but the day gave way to crickets and stars my dress lay puddled on the forest floor and my ear pressed to his rippled trunk heard sparklers and peonies and pearls. It’s snowing in Omaha 00:00 / 00:31 He said, when I asked for a table inside and I tightened like a good sweater in a hot wash It’s only a sweater, he said, as I unwound it from a pair of tracksuit bottoms and pulled it in every direction away from its heart cast off 00:00 / 01:33 When we cast on, years ago, knitting our love sweater we followed our own pattern, starting with a slipknot new needles click-clacking as we found our rhythm uneven at first, our threads pulled a little tight in places —but too fine a gauge to worry about strangulation— we counted stitches in twos, like heartbeats, watching lines of plain settle smooth into our unthinking centre a u t o m a t e d l o v e l i v e s m a c h i n e d m o n o t o n y p e r f e c t p a r a l l e l p a i r But there it was: a peephole, there, in line seventeen. Who was counting after all this time? Me, I never stopped. I wonder if you had already noticed the dropped stitch, untethered, a loose loop ready to unravel us all the way and perhaps you let it drop to allow some other’s light illuminate your exit while I fumbled with a crochet hook to ladder us back up again, to make us look like new. Publishing credits Beauty and the Beech / cast off: Anatomy of a Honey girl (Southword Editions) It's snowing in Omaha: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Jenny Byrne read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Jenny Byrne back next the poet A newcomer to writing, Dublin-based Jenny Byrne had her first poem published in 2020. Her poems have appeared in The Galway Review , Impspired , Dust Poetry Magazine , Drawn to the Light Press and The Madrigal – though Jenny still thinks her biggest achievement is being a mum to two lovely people. the poems Danseuse 00:00 / 01:25 I do not want to lament the day you died, each year, purging up the aisle of expectation to kneel and prostrate I am ready for the day to come and know there is no must, no proper, no should I may trace a fingertip across your scarf of orchid silk, allow jewels to glisten in my palm, scatter photos, hold linen to my face and breathe you in — less of you with time; but still, a tiger knows her cubs, animal instinct reciprocates This pace, once chaotic, stumbling, shape-shifting to satisfy others has slowed, is gentle; with desire to gratify fading I move, a rising relevé in satin slippers to my tentative, delicate rhythm I may look back from time to time as I lead myself forward towards my skyline I think you would raise a celestial hand, urging me onward. Love (Classified) 00:00 / 00:45 I don't write about love it's ours, it's private. Where we are queen and king passions force bloody battles some won many lost We grieve poultice womb wounds with salt purging the demented Orchid roots reach toward light and air epiphytes survive supported freely I don't write about love, it's ours, it's private. Sapere aude 00:00 / 00:59 The wise child omniscient, sensing, absorbing full up, engorged, overflowing No reprieve, corridors closed, dam bulging, deluge certain walks within the gilded mausoleum, sham, chaos mire Instinct knows what can and cannot be said perception is reality they say a ten-year-old cannot play with perception Sensitivity has no place in dysfunction systems are not made to be broken wise children, bearing all weights, eventually crumble. Publishing credits Danseuse: The Madrigal (Vol. 2) Love (Classified): Impspired (Issue 11) Sapere aude: The Galway Review

Hear poet Laura Theis read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Laura Theis back next the poet Writing in her second language, Laura Theis has work in POETRY , Oxford Poetry , Magma , Rattle and elsewhere. As well as being nominated for a Forward Prize, she's been the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including the Alpine Fellowship Writing Prize , the Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize and the Hammond House International Literary Award. In addition, Laura's collection, A Spotter’s Guide To Invisible Things , won the Live Canon Collection Prize. She has two new volumes of poetry due out in 2025: a collection with Broken Sleep Books, and her debut children’s poetry book with The Emma Press, Poems From A Witch’s Pocket . the poems in my mother tongue the name for grand piano is wing 00:00 / 01:00 in my mother tongue words can be feathered which turns them into old jokes or proverbs owning a bird in my mother tongue is sign of great madness: you can accuse someone with an outrageous opinion of cheeping and chirping if you want to convey that you are flabbergasted or awed in my mother tongue you might say: my dear swan which is what I think when I first hear you play as your fingers move over the keys I wonder what gets lost in translation between music and birdsong whether both soar above our need to shift between words then I remember in my mother tongue the name for grand piano is wing Medusae 00:00 / 00:59 Do not lose faith on the day you wake up with spiders instead of hair. Do not cry as you look in the mirror. Remember: They may stay. They may not. They are here for now. If you must, take pains to cover your head. Hide their crawling under your most elegant hat lest people recoil from you in the streets. Or don’t. Remember Medusa and her snakes. She’d turn anyone to stone if they looked at her frightened. She was a monster and proud. All hiss, curse and scorn: danger. And yet to think someone must have loved her enough to name half of all jellyfish those moon-glowing blooms of floating fluorescent umbrellas and bells after her. miðnæturblár 00:00 / 00:47 we have to look up when we search for our dead even though we buried them in the ground but the dead like to call to us from the moon they try to spell out their wildering words in clouds or meteors they try to wave at us through murmurations and other such avian patterns in significant moments they do this to teach us to make lifting up our eyes a habit remember   they say once every day for a couple of  minutes the entire sky turns your favourite colour: the very darkest shade of blue Publishing credits in my mother tongue the name for grand piano is wing: won first prize in the Poets & Players Poetry Competition 2023 Medusae: how to extricate yourself (Dempsey & Windle) winner of the Brian Dempsey Memorial Pamphlet Prize miðnæturblár: POETRY Magazine (April 2022 'Exophony')

Hear poet Simon Alderwick read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Simon Alderwick back next the poet Raised in Surrey and now settled in Oxford after several years of moving between various locations in England, Wales and the Philippines, Simon Alderwick is the author of poetry pamphlet ways to say we’re not alone . His poems have been featured in Magma , Anthropocene , Ink Sweat & Tears , Berlin Lit , Acropolis , Dust Poetry Magazine and elsewhere. Simon's debut collection, reaper in a headlock, will be published by Broken Sleep Books in 2026. the poems love in the age of extinction 00:00 / 01:01 hot day on her lips, record-breaking thighs. no ice left when she tells me – we need a circular economy. she breaks the bones in my fingers, feeds me water – filtered – through a paper straw. straddles me, hushes my concerns, this aging population. she knows love’s impossible, keeps sandbags stacked against the door. we can't die out like dinosaurs – she says – we are God's chosen creatures. but her laugh, a tipping point. she drills me until she strikes oil. we spill across the bedroom floor. smoke like chimneys after. she says: the future’s out on Mars. – i don’t think we’ll make it. when she's gone my cat brings me birds fallen from the sky. the game 00:00 / 01:11 my daughter holds a red building block to her cheek, says: hello . i pick up another brick, say: hello . no daddy , she says, taking my hand, you’re in London . she walks me to the bedroom; goes out; closes the door. i put my ear to the receiver of the block. i can hear her through the door. hello . brick heavy in my hand. i miss you . my hand against my head. when are you coming home? i tell her soon. i tell her i’m on the airplane. i break down the bedroom door. holding my arms out like an airplane; fly around the front room; land in the front garden; run to the front door. my daughter runs to me kicking toys across the floor. i hold her in my arms. it’s a silly game but it feels good to make a game of it at last. flubbergust 00:00 / 00:35 can't come out today – bit of a mad one i was opening a packet of crisps and found a blue whale inside i said: normally the packaging is inside you but he failed to see the funny side i called a number on the crisp packet but i don’t think the girl was listening she said it should go out with the general waste i said for the love of god it's still alive Publishing credits love in the age of extinction: exclusive first publication by iamb the game: shortlisted for The Telegraph Poetry Competition 2022 flubbergust: Magma 81

Hear poet Oormila V Prahlad read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Oormila V Prahlad back next the poet Oormila Vijayakrishnan Prahlad is an Indian-Australian poet, artist and improvisational pianist. Her poetry and art have appeared in journals and anthologies including Cordite Poetry Review , Black Bough Poetry and Bracken Magazine . As well as being nominated for The Pushcart Prize, she's had work put forward on several occasions for Best of the Net. Author of Patchwork Fugue and A Second Life in Eighty-eight Keys , Oormila lives and works in Sydney, on the traditional lands of the Cammeraygal. the poems Dirge in June 00:00 / 00:47 A lone tree wilts in the solstice night— a ripple in blue pashmina. Slow denudation— its trunk is a withering cross sowing moth wings in the night. All around the periphery of the dark hours frost-eaten buds decay, a carpet of papillae strewn on purl-furrowed soil. There is no mercy in the frigid sky. It descends in a shroud of clouds. Myrrh numbs the pain of bruised torsos, tortured limbs shivering in winter’s Golgotha. Padma mudra 00:00 / 01:09 The boy on the marshland is a pious lotus a helix of petals unsullied by the murk of mud. He lies awake at night in a hammock of moon— breath sustained by the thin gruel lining the stalk of his belly. His fingers moisten cotton wicks. Oil hisses into blue-eyed flames as primroses quiver in prayer. The boy knows that his salvation lies in the power of the syllable— he captures cold cursive in chalk on slate forging words forming phrases raising a bridge over the quagmire one kernel of knowledge at a time. An indigo god smiles, bamboo flute in hand glowing from an igneous wall. They will converse—boy and deity and alter what seems to be hewn in stone. Padma mudra is a hand gesture in Hinduism and Buddhism that resembles an opening lotus. It symbolises the journey from darkness to light. Maiasaura 00:00 / 00:37 I know her in her unravelling— her kaolin scales ground to dust scattering upon a tongue of breeze. There are lessons I learn early on— that I must grow a pellicle over my skin to heal the penury of touch. Frenzied murmurations mimic the shape of her armored heart— love is a severed appendage the shadow of a fleeing gecko a clot of cold blood throbbing in the dark. Maiasaura means 'Good mother lizard' Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Darren J Beaney read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Darren J Beaney back next the poet Darren J Beaney cuts his own hair and loves punk rock and Marmite. He's one half of Flight of the Dragonfly , which hosts regular spoken word evenings on Zoom and in Brighton, produces the Flights e-journal, and recently expanded into independent publishing. Darren is the author of three poetry pamphlets: The Fortune Teller's Yarn , The Machinery of Life and Honey Dew . His newest chapbooks – The Fall of the Repetitive Mix Tape (Back Room Poetry) and Citizenship (Scumbag Press) – will be published in spring and summer 2023. the poems I was created without innocence 00:00 / 01:03 the philosopher named me lazy love child of tyranny. Conceived of invasion and rage. At my birth historic dreamers clustered around the womb only to wince at the struggle. A foolish cleric anointed my brow with sorrow, branded me radioactive and resistant. Nurture came with provocation and accusation as infancy turned battlefield. Playful years were slaughter and I grew into travesty. Indignation matured, associations curdled, I lived life wretched. I am little more than chronic, my own enemy. I look to scald the preposterous, denounce the bastard, punish false evidence, destroy the offensive. Now unbound I seek a new heart. I am not acquainted with angels, but I believe I am here to be loved. Love 00:00 / 00:30 on acid tastes like it looks vivid chaos blinding shimmering like sherbet overwhelming with glycerin whispers which vibrate the air as touch becomes hyperactive and the world smells demerara senses on acid in love warp and wrap each other into playful cat’s cradles knotting until rice paper lips eventually find a way I like this place 00:00 / 01:48 and could willingly waste my time here even though it smells of hospital corridors and the walls are balding as paint decays and plaster peels and the brickwork reveals clay intestines. Derisory light pinches though a ceiling sprayed with holes crafting a dingy prospect, somewhere suitable to commit crimes. Window frames nurse broken panes and a latch scalped from a swinging door lies like a fake island in a lagoon of impossible to dredge grime covering floorboards all but conquered by rot. The air has a taste resembling a cave, the description clings to my tongue as my mouth waters like it’s a dripping acid bath tap. I scrunch my eyes closed and catch a smeared breath to stop me taking a bite. I perch, painted into a corner by cobweb tusks. I purge with primeval ivy, flagellate with waning lost feathers. I whistle like an uncomfortable outsider looking for a sign to relax in damage. I imagine … and the obscurity of my thinking invokes an alternative picture, a chamber, a cell, a byre, a stable. An uninhabited room in a tower fit for young princes. I perceive possibility and space. I tell myself I make hollow history as I waste each minute, but I snub my meaningless words and sing to the shadows 'fuck off with your time'. I consider one more squandered hour as I unwind. Publishing credits All poems: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Hilary Otto read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Hilary Otto back next the poet Hilary Otto is an English poet based in Barcelona, where she reads regularly in both Spanish and English. Her work has featured in Ink, Sweat & Tears , Popshot , Black Bough Poetry , The Blue Nib and elsewhere. Hilary was longlisted for the Live Canon 2021 International Poetry Prize, and her first pamphlet, Zoetrope , will be published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2022 . the poems A dream of flying 00:00 / 01:54 At times the locust prefers to be alone. Until one day when it’s too hot, food is short and there are too many saw-clamp jaws scissoring shut. When those spiny hind legs rub together it all revs up. A sex switch flicks. They’re chock full of guaiacol, buzzing like a floor of clubbers, bingeing on lush leaves, fat grain. They get high on grazing, flush wheat-gold, and rise. In their striped masks, they terrorise the locals who cannot swat them in such numbers, can’t control the swirl and swarm. So many wings whirring in the corn, so many antennae waving in the furrows, weighing down the stalks until they split. Like remote-controlled drones they fly as one murky swathe, moving on the breeze in careless decimation. They gorge before the spray can settle, then flee long skies away, their wreckage strewn in hard and yellowing husks. Far from here, the upsurge will finally recede just as hormones do. Somewhere, among the stumps of a ravaged field a locust wakes alone, its head buzzing. It has no scent memory of this place, or its arrival here. All it remembers is a dream of flying across deep water, its mind heavy with gold. What the data about migration told me 00:00 / 01:01 We are incoming packets discrete, carrying our own context. Our aim is to pass through without being stored in a session. We choose the optimal path for delivery, clustering at the interface between nodes. When we encounter a closed path we redistribute, or use a broker for dispatch and settlement. The broker makes decisions based upon current demand. If the load is well-balanced we are outgoing, our movement is invisible to the receiver until we reach choke point we have not yet reached settlement we are asynchronous threads pooling we are stateless, but we persist Black star Scientists recently examining a victim of Vesuvius found that the extreme heat had turned his brain to glass. 00:00 / 01:09 This is no ordinary stain. Here lies a cluster of black stars, a spilling of ideas; the spectacle of dreams on fire. Inside this many-faceted mirror there is a man, exploding from his own head in a shower of thoughts. Vitrified, he shines, his secrets burned dark in the pit of a flame. This is birth itself smothered in sharp death. One catastrophic jewel spreads its brittle offering to Vulcan. Shards of energy cooked in the kiln of a skull are pressed cold across our consciousness in a bribe. This is what you could be, Death whispers. Look how beautiful you are! Publishing credits A dream of flying: The Blue Nib (Issue 44) What the data about migration told me: Ink, Sweat & Tears Black star: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Emma Lee read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Emma Lee back next the poet Poet and reviewer Emma Lee is the author of The Significance of a Dress and Ghosts in the Desert . She was Reviews Editor for The Blue Nib , and the co-editor of Over Land, Over Sea : an anthology of poems expressing solidarity with refugees crossing the Mediterranean on small boats and rafts. Emma's poetry has featured in many print and online journals including Fevers of the Mind , Ink, Sweat & Tears , Clear Poetry and more. the poems The Bridal Dresses in Beirut 00:00 / 00:41 Each dress hangs from a noose. One is plain satin with scalloped lace, another an orgy of tulle, dreamy organza with appliqué flowers hanging from wire strung between palm trees. One is short, a shift with a tulip skirt, the sort of dress picked in a hurry to satisfy a shotgun or Article 522. The breeze breathes through them, bullies the dresses into ghosts, brides with no substance, angels bereft of their voices. What the Dust Left Uncovered After art installation The Fading Afterglow of Creation by Dave Briggs and Jack Squires 00:00 / 01:10 A screen sculpts a crumpled mass in an empty house, a 3-D image that takes the shape of what could be a heart. A sci-fi trope: machines outliving us. We all hope what will survive of us is not the pile of admin, worthless warranties, the embarrassing tweet, the spilt coffee, but our Insta life, our filtered wishes. The sculpture is not the easy outline of an emoji, but the complexity of valves, veins, a possibility of an organ, a human's engine. Here, what's left is our digital footprint, the avatar we taught to fight, scavenge, collect. Playerless it repeats the same responses, contact only from bots, a drift of binary lint. It's the unedited part of us that decided who we touched. The digital heart waits for us to breathe emotion into it, sculpting the memory of what it most wanted. The Wrapped Hedges 00:00 / 01:26 It looks as if a fog has whirled around the hedges, wrapping them in a swirl of candy floss like a fleece protecting them from frost. The implication is the hedges will be unwrapped to show a healthy growth, firm stems, perfectly green leaves, branches stretched in welcome. The covering takes on the texture of a regular weave, as if a team of spiders had worked solidly for months, but the structure is too crude to be natural, too regular to constructed by anything but a programmed machine. It reflects a grid of lines running from left to right with rectangular holes. If laid flat, it would represent a map of a housing estate, plans made by those seeking to enrich themselves on the grounds councils cannot demonstrate they have an adequate housing supply, that somehow executive, four bedroom homes, beyond the pockets of those on waiting lists, will meet and it’s fine to build in the country out of reach of public transport and amenities but it’s just these birds who will prevent building during the nesting season that are the problem. So man-made webs are their suggested solution; mimic nature to prevent it. Publishing credits The Wedding Dresses in Beruit: The Significance of a Dress (Arachne Press) What the Dust Left Uncovered: After... (December 8th 2022) The Wrapped Hedges: exclusive first publication by iamb

Hear poet Conor Kelly read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Conor Kelly back next the poet Conor Kelly was born in Dublin where he spent his working life teaching in a school. He now lives in Nova Scotia's Western Shore, Canada, from where he runs his Twitter (now X) site, @poemtoday , which is dedicated to short-form poetry. Conor has had poems published in literary magazines in Ireland, Britain, America, Canada and Mexico. the poems The Immaculate Conception 00:00 / 00:53 (Mary speaks) It happened at a feast in Palestine. When the meal was over and the remains were being cleared, somebody slipped on grains and spilled onto my lap enough red wine to make a patch of dress incarnadine. I’ve cleaned it often since, but it retains the faintest shadow of those crimson stains picked up some years ago in Palestine. And when my earthy father sent his seed surging with love into my mother’s womb to match and merge and predispose my fate, why should it, then, from Adam’s stain be freed and not from Eve’s distress at Abel’s tomb? Sometimes it’s hard to understand my faith. Through The Medium 00:00 / 01:27 It is quieter than I had supposed. Often I hear what may be a river, the sound of water infiltrating stone, but I can see nothing at all clearly. It is, if you will pardon the irony, like looking through a glass darkly. Perhaps there is nothing to see. I do not know any more than what I can discover in what is not quite darkness, nor yet light, but a kind of fog in which the dispersed vapours flow past me, continually. There is a faint sweet odour in the air, one which I find hard to identify although it reminds me of aniseed. But there is nothing there to taste, nor any object that feels tangible. I doubt this is either Heaven or Hell. It is far too cold, and there is no one with whom I can share happiness or pain. Not that either emotion excites me. Sometimes I can feel the mild dejection, a kind of post-flu depression. Occasionally, the desolation of unrequited conversation grates. And there are times, times I used to call night, when I crave the consolation of sleep. Most of the time, though, I just want to die. The Writing Spider Argiope aurantia 00:00 / 01:44 They left the poet's desk the way it was the night before he slept and never woke, the night before his final heart attack left one last sheet of paper on that desk half-filled with spider-like and scribbled words with some encircled and with zigzag lines leading to changes in the margins where his latest words were fatally ensnared. There are no spiders in the poet's house. A woman cleans and dusts it every day before it opens to the few who come to visit, for a modest entrance fee, and see the poet's desk the way it was the night before he slept and never woke; and see, also, the view from where he wrote of sunflowers wilting in the summer sun. There is, for those who wander round the back, behind the trash cans, near the café door, between a freshly painted metal bench and the next door garden's large camellia bush, a writing spider busily at work, its stabilimenta (those zigzag lines) catching the sunlight as it shines beneath the black and muted yellow banded legs. Desolation and determination: the poet and the writing spider both weave and unweave their patterns day by day. While every evanescent word evokes the emendation of essential loss, the ritual rebuilding of the web affirms a zest for life. Nevertheless, we all zigzag our way to certain death. Publishing credits The Immaculate Conception: The Irish Times (December 1992) Through the Medium: exclusive first publication by iamb The Writing Spider: The Rotary Dial (August 2016)

Hear poet Robin Helweg-Larsen read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Robin Helweg-Larsen back next the poet Anglo-Danish but raised in the Bahamas, Robin Helweg-Larsen was educated in Jamaica and at Stowe. He's lived and worked in the Bahamas, Denmark, Canada, Australia and the USA. Robin has had more than 400 poems published in various literary journals, including the Alabama Literary Review , Allegro , Ambit and Amsterdam Quarterly. His chapbook, Calling the Poem – on the art of summoning and working with 'The Muse' – is available to read online. the poems Camelot at Dusk 00:00 / 01:44 From under low clouds spreading from the south The red sun drops slow to night’s waiting mouth. Rush lamps are lit; the guards changed on the walls; Supper will not be served in the Great Halls With Arthur still away. Each in their room, The members of the Court leave books or loom To say their Vespers in the encroaching gloom. Lancelot, up in his tower, Sees the sunset storm clouds glower, Feels his blood’s full tidal power, Knows he has to go. In her bower, Gwenivere Puts a ruby to her ear, Brushes firelight through her hair, Feels her heartbeat grow. Guard, guard, watch well: For the daylight thickens And the low cloud blackens And the hot heart quickens To rebel. From his tower, caring not For consequences, Lancelot Crosses courts of Camelot, Pitying his King. In her bower, Gwenivere Feels his presence coming near, Waits for footfalls on the stair, Lets her will take wing. Guard, guard, watch well: If attention slackens When the deep bond beckons, Evil knows Pendragon’s In its spell. And as the storm clouds, rubbing out the stars, Deafened the castle and carved lightning scars, Drenched Arthur rode for flash-lit Camelot Where he, by Queen and Knight, was all forgot. Old Sailors 00:00 / 00:54 Two tars talked of sealing and sailing; one said with a sigh 'Remember gulls wheeling and wailing, we wondering why, and noting bells pealing, sun paling — it vanished like pie! And then the boat heeling, sky hailing, the wind getting high, and that drunken Yank reeling to railing and retching his rye, John missing his Darjeeling jailing, and calling for chai? While we battened, all kneeling and nailing, the hurricane nigh, and me longing for Ealing, and ailing?' His mate said 'Aye-aye; I could stand the odd stealing, food staling, not fit for a sty, and forget any feeling of failing, too vast to defy – home-leaving your peeling-paint paling too far to espy – all because of the healing friend-hailing, the hello! and hi! and, with the gulls squealing, quick-scaling the mast to the sky.' This Ape I Am 00:00 / 01:48 Under our armoured mirrors of the mind where eyes watch eyes, trying to pierce disguise, an ape, incapable of doubt, looks out, insists this world he sees is trees, and tries to find the scenes his genes have predefined. This ape I am who counts 'One, two, more, more' has lived three million years in empty lands where all the members of the roving bands he’s ever met have totalled some ten score; so all these hundred thousands in the street with voided eyes and quick avoiding feet must be the mere two hundred known before. This ape I am believes they know me too. I’m free to stare, smile, challenge, talk to you. This ape I am thinks every female mine, at least as much as any other male’s; if she’s with someone else, she can defect – her choice, and she becomes mine to protect; just as each child must be kept safe and hale for no one knows but that it could be mine. This ape I am feels drugged, ecstatic, doped, hallucination-torn, kaleidoscoped, that Earth’s two hundred people includes swirls of limitless and ever-varied girls. This ape I am does not look at myself doesn’t know about mirrors, lack of health, doesn’t know fear of death, only of cold; mirrorless can’t be ugly, can’t be old. Publishing credits Camelot at Dusk: The HyperTexts (2015) Old Sailors: Snakeskin (No. 146) This Ape I Am: Better Than Starbucks (Vol. II, No. X)

Hear poet Ivor Daniel read poems exclusively for iamb. If you like The Poetry Archive, this poetry site is for you. Ivor Daniel back next the poet Ivor Daniel’s work has appeared in the Cheltenham Poetry Festival's wildfire words , Steel Jackdaw Magazine and Writeresque . He lives in Gloucestershire, where he works as an English tutor. the poems Perfect Bed 00:00 / 00:56 I dream I am at Bembom Brothers Dreamland funfair park with Tracey Emin. Hard by Margate sands. I know I shouldn’t drink that Vodka on the Helter Skelter. Apart from that, a Day as Perfect as the Lou Reed song. We Kiss with Fish and Chips Lips, Join Hips. A Turner Sunset Going Down. I guess it is the Golden Hour. Blair’s Babes and even some of his men MPs are busy Changing a whole heap of things for the Better. Back in your room we remember that we even Changed the Bed this morning. The linen soft and cool next to our Optimistic skin. Questions & Starlings 00:00 / 03:01 Wow! Can the sun set blue azure and flame at the same time? How do starlings twist and turn as one? Who decided this is called a murmuration ? And who was that, going behind that awesome tree? No...It couldn’t be.. sweeping turning swooping......soon arriving from all directions. swelling then melting then swelling. streamlining safe in such numbers. pirouetting protection from predators. twist turn swoop swirl your genie is out of the bottle. shape-shifting unsolid sculpture of starling. you spinning top you sundown twister. a magic carpet has slipped its cave. . ...a cloud of iron filings .. ... dancing from... ..and to .. . . ..an ecstatic magnet. if we could cast the ashes........ of our loved ones as elegantly as your silken swirl then that would be the perfect way to go. intuiting when to turn in complex shifting patterns through a liminal space between remarkable and miracle. flying like no one is watching or maybe like God could be watching. oblivious of compass points and rocket science yet also knowing more than this. murmuration motion poetry in motion your swarm is the truth. black mustard seed beauty. then in the last of daylight at the secret signal a final funneling collective swoop down an unseen chimney to land on your roosting grounds. I labour with my leaden words, and muse on whether starlings know how spellbinding they are. And God. Is that you behind that awesome tree? Is this the last, the only, evidence that you exist? Was this your hobby all along: the choreography of sunset starlings? And is that just the slightest hint of disappointment on your face at how the human cohort of Creation has performed? Tread Lightly 00:00 / 01:31 I navigate the micro fathom ocean charts of flat portal ice puddles on a January farm track With their trapped air bubbles whorling patterns coils gyres spirals curls Trapped otherworldly whirls Secret as fingerprints coiled like intestines mysterious as a foetal scan marbled as the white fat in Spanish ham Iced lava lamps but underfoot Liquid light shows behind psychedelic bands but monochrome The frozen surface flat as frosted glass The patterns captive Zany This is the cat ice So named because it can only bear the weight of a cat Cold-pawed agile Although I am yet to meet the cat who would leave the warmth of the hearth to test ice puddles with its paws or fret on other scientific laws as hydrostatic pressure capillary action et cetera I make a resolution to tread lightly Publishing credits All poems: Exclusive first publication by iamb