AFTERFEATHER - EDITION 2022
Briony Collins - Guest Editor
Alex Stevens - Artist
Welcome to the 'Afterfeather' edition, guest edited by Briony Collins, featuring the artwork of Cardiff-based Alex Stevens and the poetry of John McCullough, Zoe Brigley and Rhona Greene.
'Afterfeather' includes a dazzling array of poets from across the world, such as Ankh Spice, Ali Lock, Anna Saunders, Helen Laycock, Lee Potts and Roger Hare. Our edition reached no. 2 on the Amazon Poetry chart in September 2022 and we had a great launch night. Make sure you get a copy of this spirited, vivid and visionary collection.
Click on the links to buy the book; also see our special online version!
AMAZON UK AMAZON USA AMAZON EU AMAZON AUSTRALIA FREE ONLINE VERSION
The original poster with contributor list.
The Sky Road Home
Walked up the long gone
avenue to my old gone
long-ago school. Found myself – there – under
the chestnut tree, behind the bicycle shed – rusty, skeletal remains
fallen horse chestnut brown time-forgotten deep buried
relics. Resurrected a little russet-red conker-headbanger girl.
‘Whose child is this?’ wheezed the unsettled
breeze that rattled and shook the shivering leaves still
clinging to an imperceptible line of invisible
trees uncast at last from their long dark shadows.
‘She’s mine!’ I exclaimed and reclaimed myself. Light
as a feather unfalling to bird, we took the sky
road home - together. Feather, afterfeather.
--Rhona Greene
minimum viable product 2 - by Alex Stevens
Horses
Now I’m a cricket, I hide in Gertrude Stein’s cuckoo clock, waiting to sing.
I’m a deviant falling from the roof of a car park.
Lonely, I get bladdered with Sappho and dance.
I’m the plumber who leaves a floater in Thatcher’s toilet.
Clubbed in a police cell, my sandcastle face crumbles.
A handkerchief in Claude McKay’s breast pocket, I thrill beside his riotous heart.
I can never express all of myself at once, the hole of me.
I hunt my scattered names but the past wears ice skates, keeps curving about.
When I die on Brighton Pier, the carousel organ will stop, the gilded horse I’m slumped on will vanish.
Secretly, I’ll still be riding full pelt.
John McCullough