Our joke ran
that I would hand him the ladybird kite,
him in his little black windbreaker,
and I’d plead with him to hold on,
and he’d smile like all the world wasn’t enough,
Author: Porridge Magazine
ONE POEM – Gaynor Kane
My weight is
three black labradors lazing
a mummy moon bear
or a black and white ostrich
The Season of Dying Birds — Harriet Sandilands
In the courtyard, at the entrance to the bookshop, an egg smashed on the cobbled ground – albumen, yolk and the bald outline and bulging eye of an almost-bird.
ONE POEM – D. Parker
stick your worm-like head
to the surface of muddy waters
will yourself into existence
TWO POEMS – John Kefala Kerr
I grab the deck rail,
expecting a disturbance
—a pitching and yawing—
but the ferry glides smoothly
over the sea’s fleecy crimp,
like a brush through kid fibre.
ONE POEM – Andrej Bilovsky
They don’t make
houses pink and white
like coconut ice-cream.
They’re always plain, dull colors.
It’s all so easy
when it should be exhilarating.
ONE POEM – Ben Nardolilli
The body wants to do the dropout boogie,
a way to just slowly spiral out
of reality and not include my self with its accessories
TWO POEMS – Adam Stokell
I see the cat before the cat sees me.
White with black splotches, a longhair.
Leaving the law behind it,
stealing easily as light fails
ONE POEM – Andrew Button
Everybody called her ‘a character’,
a regular in the library
in her shabby Barbour jacket
and crumpled hat perched
on hair dishevelled as a bird’s nest.
ONE POEM – Paul Brucker
When I bent down to give her a kiss,
she quacked
Then exploded with loud report
into hundreds of pieces.
Hoop — Harriet Sandilands
There is an unspoken rule in a therapy group that you are not going to go out for a beer afterwards. It’s the same way that no-one actually tells you that you shouldn’t have sex with someone you just met on the third day of a meditation retreat, but you still know it isn’t a very good idea.
Porridge Books of the Year 2022
Discover the books that the Porridge team enjoyed reading this year.