STORYCIRCLE

Cordite Poetry Review

Home Hogar

Where my heart sings, Donde mi corazon canta. It could be kin, then places, country, town, street. Finally, a dwelling place with floor, ceiling, doors and windows. Through those windows, I see the outside world. Despues podrian ser los familiares, …

Published
Cordite Poetry Review

Mother Ganga

From the shores of the holy Ganges The sadhu squats low on the ghat. Ochre robes lull in your water as he scoops. Three times bending and three times scooping. Just before dawn. Day brings rich paradox. Crowds come alone …

Published
Cordite Poetry Review

The Dress

Not white, but close; cream a spiral of soap in water the colour of teeth. Yours had a gap. We waited for a gap in the night. Not silence, but close; breath teasing heat from our mouths until our feet …

Published
Cordite Poetry Review

Kosa: Hair

‘I had very long hair … but I was a cleaner, there were the children … so I had to cut it, and the German hairdresser said, “Are you sure?” … So she tied a band around my hair, looked …

Published
Cordite Poetry Review

Tools

The story they tell here says that the river was formed when the god who made everything squeezed it from his wet hair. I want to believe in this but you scoff; you are the builder and I am the …

Published
Cordite Poetry Review

Document of Identity

Remove the ID, remove the person – Mikhail Bulgakov Grey coat sleeves at the border— We’ll all know about the second world one day. A passport takes us through the doorway To reach for what’s in his heart, his dented …

Published
Cordite Poetry Review

Banknotes

A few words, numbers, a portrait always Each the same, but different Reich mark, Zloty, Franc, Pound, Dollar Hope? Or maps of misery with funny names Always held so tightly For some, keys to unlock the gate From the grey …

Published
Cordite Poetry Review

Tectonics

200 million years ago you could have walked from Hungary to Australia on a trail of plates across Pangaea, sprawling humanless and wild: before continental drift fractured the landmass, before the ocean’s shifting surface hid the skeletons of ships and …

Published