Akademicheskaya Metro Station Sixty-four meters underground: vaulted ceilings whiter than eggshells, chrome shinier than any American diner. Pride of Lenin, who, mummified, did not see it open but extolled its nominal achievement by plaque five meters tall. On the escalator, my hand in a grey fingerless glove finds yours. A second couple kiss…
Tag: porridge magazine
Walking, Encumbered: Dispatches – Nicola Sayers
For the longest time, I walked alone. I walked to think. I walked to see. I walked to be seen. I see them, now. They wear pretty summer dresses, or jeans. In winter, brightly coloured scarves. Their light backpacks sit squarely on both shoulders; inside each, I imagine, is a book, a notepad and a…
ONE POEM – Alexandra Corrin-Tachibana
Hamamatsu: home of unagi pie –– a biscuit made of eel.
Iwakuni: bridge of Samurai –– beer with strangers under blossom.
Diamonds or Snow – T.S.J. Harling
Image by Alex Avalos, via Unsplash This is the place you go to bury or burn the person you love. – You are in a cinema with friends, or a boyfriend, or your family. No-one is ill, no-one is cross, and you have enough money to waste on a cinema ticket and popcorn and fizzy…
An Ode to Cross-Dressing – Clara Schwarz
I tightly pull back my hair into a slick, low bun, parted far on the right side of my skull. With a several pumps of hairspray, I even out the edges and create a stiff look. I squeeze the top button through its hole and stand up straight as I clip the bow into its…
ONE POEM – Sarah Degner Riveros
Mama hugs
her son. Can we get
horchata? No. Not today.
It’s Tuesday. Treinta tacos?
De asada? Para llevar.
The wait’s worth it.
You die if you worry – Robert Scott
You die if you worry, die if you don’t. I laughed the first time he said it. I hadn’t heard it before.
Pero’s Promise – Tamara Lazaroff
At the village bus stand, with my packed bags, I’m crying my eyes out as I kiss the faces of the row of relatives—Uncle Mitko, Beti, Verka, Tanja, Mirka, even Baba Slobodanka who Branko has carried on his back. Others, too. They’ve all come to say goodbye before I go back home to Australia. And…
ONE POEM – SJ Valiquette
writing a love letter to the ocean is as singing an aria to a hurricane:
there is nothing in language for this.
One Book: What Would You Save From Being Destroyed for Ever? – Hunter Liguore
If all the books in the world were being burned in a fire and you had the chance to save just one, what book would you save? For some this might be an easy answer; for others, this question might need the utmost consideration—as an avid book reader, with piles of books lining all corners…
TWO POEMS – Elizabeth Stott
We made the heads of Styrofoam
so not to be too heavy on their frail necks.
Hearts? Simply-fashioned, from lumps of stone.
ONE POEM – Katherine Fallon
Finding them dead on returning from vacation,
she flushed her six African Cichlids.
