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desire

‘How I pine…’ - by Tom Leonard

{ Poem }

How I pine for a hawdy,
/ yir really beautiful body,
/ ahm right besotten,
/ ah fancy yi rotten;
/ let’s huvva tet-a-tet
/ – stoap playn…

Echo: Dropt Sapphics - by Heather H. Yeung

{ Poem }

Handscroll

Approaching Sixty - by John Burnside

{ Poem }

In the Central Café
/ in Innsbruck,
/ a girl in a dark-blue dress
/ unlooses her hair from its clasp
/ so it falls to her waist,…

The First Kiss - by Russell Jones

{ Poem }

What a disappointment. Nothing like the movies,
/ nothing like the mind. A mass of muscles writhing,
/ an awkward hand on a tightened…

And Yet Again - by Esther Phillips

{ Poem }

Tonight I want to offer you
/ this moonlight cupped in a purple
/ flower; this chorus of crickets
/ holding no grudge…

Youth - by Henri Thomas

{ Poem }

On the boulevards of the Opéra
/ where the girls pace up and down
/ turning this way, and turning that
/ their svelte and lovely…

The Peasant Declares His Love - by Émile Roumer

{ Poem }

High-yellow of my heart, with breasts like tangerines,
/ you taste better to me than eggplant stuffed with crab,
/ you are the tripe…

from My Dreams Often Humble Themselves - by Saadiah Mufarreh

{ Poem }

1
/ I want nothing more than wings
/ or my soul to cease yearning for flight.
/
/ 2
/ I want to cry out with all…

The Sunlit Surfaces - by D. M. Black

{ Poem }

Ein Bild des Glaubens ist das schöne Weib:
/ Sie ist ein ja, und sie ist grenzenlos.
/ …

She Walks in Beauty - by George Gordon, Lord Byron

{ Poem }

She walks in beauty, like the night
/ Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
/ And all that’s best of dark…

Strawberries - by Edwin Morgan

{ Poem }

There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon

The Queen of Sheba - by Kathleen Jamie

{ Poem }

an extract
/
/ she wants to strip the willow
/ she desires the keys
/ …

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