Tag: writing

orange juice by Rachel Deyis (Lucent Dreaming Issue 12)

To write poetry is to wring truth from an orangefurl your hands so tightly into rind they turn blue,hear the thudded fall of each kerneled pip into glasswhile its juice catches on the lips between thosegreedy molecules of air-perhaps a single drop, turgid and oilywill break out of the tangled pith in slow motiondetonate into twelve, glittering tearsand you might

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An Ode to the Scarecrow by Caitlin Tina Jones (Lucent Dreaming Issue 12)

There are times that I double-takeA split-second’s slow thinking, the staggeredNavigation, transgressions melting away When flesh drips from me I lose myself, entirelyThe waxy reds, wet pomegranate seeds slickingMy dresses. I remember distantly I am sentientA living, a breathing something. I materialise from obscurityEchoing limbs pulling fingers from faraway piesStapling together this misty body to remind meOf my greatest vice:

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Automaton by Mathew Gostelow (Lucent Dreaming Issue 12)

In the knee-graze days of bikes and black ant tickles, my mum gave me a comfort snuggle hug. That’s when I heard a click-tick sound inside her, where her boomy-womby heart once thumped its beat.The furniture at home was on the ceiling now. This change made me cry and she wrapped me in that clicking, ticking cuddle. She softly told

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Ode to my toddler by Li-Li Nectar Bennett (Lucent Dreaming Issue 12)

All we are is snacks and bonesCream cracker corpsesRaisin rainbows risingI am swept in a black currantOf flapjack flashbacksAnd breadstick blues.We have no mealtime, no time at allWe surf the currant from hour to hourOurs is a tasty one, without crustsWe are so empty yet so full. A born and bred Londoner, Li-Li Nectar is an avid houmous-maker and life-long

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Woman Moon by Sidrah Zubair (Lucent Dreaming Issue 12)

I watched your hands find their way to marbled kitchens—a sorcerer of pots and pans—you found it hard to stand so you would sit—sinking in the velvet of our dinner chairs—casting culinary magic—humming Noor Jehan slightly out of tune—I look at our photograph—the one in Aga Khan hospital—you enshrouded in sky blue comfort—butterflies etched on your purse—me at 5 or

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Air by Rafiat Lamidi (Lucent Dreaming Issue 12)

laughter is vulnerability. i have given out all of my aching. the way you attach sunflowers to your name. i love you but i won’t tell you. i will let you call me beautiful today and tomorrow. i will hold your hand reaching out to me across the window of a moving bus. i will travel for you. i will

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Mo(u)rning Sacrament by Zaynab Bobi (Lucent Dreaming Issue 12)

the marrow curbed in my bones has turnedinventor of dreams in the dark vegetation of night.say, every night comes with the nomenclatureof the dead (c)louding our dreams.or the names that will even/t(u)ally snug/ snugbullets in our skull as we lay on the duvet of the dark,unpaved street, eternal bedding.will my mother’s eyes swell with the sun or the sea?will i

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Cadaver of Red Roses by Zaynab Bobi (Lucent Dreaming Issue 12)

Due to restrictions this poem has modified formatting. let’s say there is an eye above the cheekbone of the sky.though, not shaped like a star,but like a mouth that sneaks light into our bodies—sterilises us from the trenches of night.like a creep. like a seed. like hope.or let’s say there is a cracked wallon the navel of the earth. underneath,everything

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