it would be nice

it would be nice
after Frank O’Hara

it would be nice
to be sat here, having a beer with you.
the sun is splurging orange over the sky, and the
horizon is doing that thing where it blurs
so that you can’t tell where sea starts and sky stops.
I can hear the rushing seething heaving of the waves
as they smack and slurp at the shore,
sand-speckled pebbles whispering in a language
that you can’t quite understand –
but also, you can?
because my heart pumps with the rhythms of these
tides –
salt water seaweed in the depths of me.
and I think you can see that?
and I think maybe, for the first time in a while
I feel myself unfurling.
and I think maybe, for the first time in a while
that might be okay?
but I need you to lean into this,
to lose yourself in my landscapes,
or at least to look up at the crescent moon with me as I
curl into your luminous warm soft,
blackberry bruises on my thighs
blooming as I kiss the milky way speckle of your clavicle.
anyway.
it’s now dusk.
there’s a velvet hush falling, and the boundaries between
bleed through & into each other.
I think these are the spaces that you and me could be.
anyway.
it would be nice
to be sat here, having a beer with you.

Alice is a dramaturg, script supervisor, poet and performer. As a script writer, reader and supervisor, she has worked with Theatre503, Finborough Theatre, Katzpace, The Delta Collective and Big Broad Productions, and has performed her spoken word/poetry at venues including Watford Palace Theatre and Finborough Arms. She is collaborating with The Actor’s Box on performance-poetry workshops, devising a performance on queerness and liminality, and studying for her MA at Goldsmiths.

Hair, Cigarette burns on her heart, In Bloom.

Leah Coughlan is an MA Cultural Studies student at Goldsmiths – “I believe poetry should make you think, make you feel or both. As inspired by the heartache I have experienced and the anger I continue to experience, I write to process these feelings and I am currently sharing poetry on @wordsofleah. I think writing is really important because of its immense capacity for vocalising those who are familiar with being silenced”

Resisting the urge to pull away

It casts no shadow deep in outer space:
A lone comet drifts and finds its place.
Seldomly two comets burnt on different oil,
Lock close into orbit together unstable.
 
And they’re spinning, spinning...
Looking for easier paths 'cause defeat ain't worth thinking about:
Remember tender souls in strong armour can't lose!
 
Whizzing, whizzing, whizzing around, 
Because stupid grins are held prisoner behind the beauty of sealed lips
And intentions are hidden ‘til BANG! Two objects collide deep in spacetime– 
where the most improbable of events happen–
Neither deigns to crash but they both do, a rapid change in fortune...
 
With an explosion to match the wonder of rare and incidental beauty
Trillions of stardust fragments for a moment pretend to be different:
Shined by cosmic waves, energy in radiation, lighting lanterns to new paths,
Ones never before seen by us, let alone even conjured in our dreams.

by Callum James

This poem came from a place of not knowing where we are going, recognising that free will has a bearing on our fate but ultimately to say we are all at the mercy of fortune. Impossibly huge and complex forces are always at play so when something blows up it might not be a bad thing after all: just look for the new paths, for possibilities you either didn't see before or only just now realise are plausible. With this in mind, how could you ever be afraid?I think it's common nowadays for people to resist and suppress their feelings, especially when they are at their strongest. What this poem says is to let go, try to embrace your nature and think less about your control over the circumstances. There are times where you need to let yourself be guided by your emotions and environment rather than logical thinking.

Callum is studying for his MA in Journalism at Goldsmiths and enjoys writing poetry and prose in his spare time, usually for personal pleasure and seldom with the aim of being published. He takes a keen interest in local issues such as activism against gentrification in south-east London and supports this in a journalistic capacity. You can find him on Instagram @callum.james.t

Sun shines

Sun shines over the rails. 







Brighter than you know. There are no reasons for it. You go to sleep at midday. Again. I take the couch this time. A single week after 9 months it is silence that we give birth to. 




Whatever happens, I think of an oasis, of being illiterate, of shadows. Of coasts where the sun shines over the rails.  Brighter than you know. Snips of colors.
Breaking through, piercing me, you.

And you are the only ‘you’ that will never leave. Fiction. The one who’s on paper. Mentioned here and there.
You are dream material. 







If what I am is what I have (habere)
The more I possess, the more Things invade my land.

Defne is a 1 st year on the BA Fine Art and History of Art course. She spends her time trying to write and make/sculpt things that trouble the notion of inhabitance. She wishes she was an active Instagram user with an impressive profile showing her works but that is not really the case.