It leaned in and out, it twisted and turned. It was raw, unyielding, it was cavernous—but it was always hard to catch it in the act. Bennie and Dexter drifted through it as though they were sculpted into it, as though they could negate time itself. “I feel like we know more about this building than the people who work in it,” Dexter said. He pulled his bicycle along a bridge that cut straight through the towering facade, its windowed surfaces molded into a box-like shape arou

Dreamt of a beach that was covered in dead sharks, each one planted upright in the sand, tails buried, bodies shrivelled and grey, fins flopped and useless in the sun. My brother and I walked among them, looking for one particular species (I could not remember its name). We were both crying. The day was very close and still. We were there for hours but neither of us ever saw the sea. We were looking for one particular species. I could not remember its name but I knew that whe

Rate and review you once said my snoring sounded like hopping unicorns - I turned to cloud. We ride the carousel in the May drizzle & whoever named it Galloping Horses would have said just call a spade a spade. Add selfie to Google maps next to birdseye view lockdown hair blurs with lights image split by accidental finger or could it be a horn? Self-raising? don’t care if you leave the seat up the world is ending we run out of toilet paper cardboard binoculars queue on radiat

(after Babe Rainbow (1967) by Sir Peter Blake) The tunnel explodes with light. Blocks of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet ripple towards you, radiating from the gold curtains obscuring the exit. The pattern repeats every ten seconds. Pulled off balance, you sway forwards, then back; hypnotised by the psychedelic motion. Snatches of music leak into the air. The tune’s unfamiliar, but reminiscent of the brass bands that opened the summer fetes of your childh

the many men so beautiful my ten to fifty sexual partners ghosts of orchiectomies singing fairytale of new york in 2009 justifying the lie no one on the coast sails boats are an illusion conjured fantasies of grandeur sage sails whickering everyone here gets fingered in the train station at dusk we love it! proud tradition nobody enjoys it but you do what you must no exceptions everyone here writes isn’t that enough shitty stories therapy on an oriental r

Blooms of rumours ripen on the vine. I decide this time we’re through and pen you a letter. You tell me I’m your muse, your lover, your first reader. Never do you acknowledge that I break and reshape your words until they grow and blossom into something more beautiful than you could ever write. Only then are those words published – under your name alone. I rant and rage on the page; this my masterpiece. Tears fall, ink spreading like foxglove bells and I know – like I know yo

I turn the blue estuary ruby as you watch me from your writing shed the water is peony up close a mix of blood clots like jelly fish and semen crests, red edged I heat the water on impact which sets the blood permanently on the inside of my thighs you wrap a wool cardigan bandage onto the wrong part of me with hands that don’t understand Wendy Allen has had poems published in Brunel Writer and Re-Side and came third in the Cheltenham Poetry Festival competition 2021. Her firs

c/w: attempted suicide, medical issues The weekend following my surgery, a nurse stomped her foot on the metal break. My first steps after the doctor carved a tumour out of my leg came as a monumental break. My lecturer encouraged me to invest in a hobby. I did a poetry course and quit radiography, a Bachelor of Peace hanging on the wall. What a rebel break! I visited my dentist with a pulsating tooth. The nerve was a raging beast he examined with his tools. His eyesight, wor

Leaving the Grounded Feather Untouched The birds are yet to wake when I collect my tools: kitchen scissors, nail clippers, secateurs, garden shears, an axe. Before I open the door, I gently snip a single popcorn with the tip of the shears for a puff of sweetness. In the garden, I secateur a finger of the hedgerow to release the scent of sap. I shear the morning air to breathe the bleached newness. Then to the sea. On the shoreline I scissor a wave for salt swing my axe to hal

Free Spirit How often we wish to become the birds—happy and free, baptizing ourselves with the rays of the sun. So we subscribe to rapturing our spirit from within and basking in the energy it brings. This is how we take flight. A Nigerian by birth and Studying Science Laboratory Technology at University of Calabar. Joshua Effiong is a lover of poetry & here he finds freedom. His literary works has appeared/forthcoming in Eboquills, Kalahari Review, Shallow Tales Review, Roug