because what else were you supposed to dowait for her to check-in at the pearly gates just because she was your one cigarette per day that summer because she grinned like a slinkycould unbutton your jeans without breaking eye contact you’re supposed to wait – some sailor’sghost in your desk chair – the distant creeping…
Year: 2014
Neon Literary Magazine Issue 37
[ Digital Edition Available On Request | Print Edition SOLD OUT ] Issue 37, Neon‘s first issue of 2014, features the work of Paul Bavister, Shanalee Smith, Noel Williams, Christopher Owen, Tracey S Rosenberg, Erric Emerson, Meg Eden, and Joe Evans. The cover image is by Timur Cetintas. In its pages you will find guns and…
Playing With Guns
I could never remember what had riled us uplike a nest of snakesshaking our rattles andsinking venom into tissue.Just the intensesensation of my ownblood, jackhammeringthrough my pulse points.We were born and bred for malice, tossed to the familial oubliette,taught to eagerly eradicatesoftness or axiom. Unexpectedly, you boltedabandoning our altercationin favour of the dark chambers offering…
Red Limbs
I see them coming from behind the layer of mesh glass being lead by a white coat to the table of pastels and crayons where us fuck ups scribble serenity onto a blank page. They’re not not my friends or family, it’s the emaciated late teen’s next to me, the one who’s too lost to…
Assessment Day
Sometimes I look from the classroomto the low grey building by the car park and remember I have photocopying to do so run down then run back before the class starts. Last week I got locked in the copier room. I rang security but no one answered.I could see the students gathering for the last…
An Instance of the Scientific Method
Find a pot of nail varnish: “ConfidentCoral”, by Jessica, perhaps. Fetchthe stainless steel nail scissors and walkbeneath the flying March shadows. Lie on the grass; adjust your scaleof focus to the miniscule. The cat, hull-downamong the crocuses, observes with mildinterest. Select and mark your snail. A scarlet shell-top will allow no laterconfusion of identity. Now…
2014 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem Nominations
We’ve now sent in Neon’s four nominations for the Forward Arts Foundation’s 2014 poetry prize. Each of the below have been entered into the Best Single Poem category – congratulations and best of luck to all of them…