The themed prose and poems here are a small sample of what's on offer in the bookshop. And please do click on the link for each title below to enjoy more work by the same writer, along with information and reviews about the book or pamphlet.
Obviously, we love V. Press titles - we also think they're the perfect gift not just for reading and loving, but sharing too! For Valentine's Day and the rest of the year!
Seeking Miss Aether
“To the woman of my dreams:
I’m a mature, single male
who enjoys the pleasures
of classical physics.”
You’re out there somewhere,
everywhere. I need you
to make sense of my world.
I accept I’m old-fashioned,
viewpoint unchanging.
It was good enough for Newton.
Young Albert insists
that you’re past it
but what does he know.
Forget about relativity,
the expanding universe.
This is bigger.
Darling, I’ve seen the light
bend, space contort
and I worry.
Where are you, lover?
Invisible siren, sing to me;
there’s still time.
Martin Zarrop, from Making Waves
A version of Seeking Miss Aether appeared in The Journal (2018)
Slaked
Their flesh meets like a wolf nearing water
just before dusk, its breath unmuzzled musk
as it nuzzle-greets its shape, then falters…
Eyes dip, its jaw unhooks, muscles tauten,
back arches, as fur sleeks to fluid lust.
Their flesh meets like a wolf nearing water.
The parched beast drinks deep, wide-throated, alters
stance to uncloak her taste from its red husk,
nuzzle-greets her warm-blooded shape, falters,
as nature’s leafy-scented young daughter
lays out her earth bed with its moist wood crust.
Their flesh meets like a wolf nearing water.
And so she blends, just as nature’s taught her:
two forest torsos, soft-mossed and fern-brushed.
As they nuzzle-greet, their wild shape falters –
a raindrop slides from its red-leaf altar,
a wolf’s tongue laps up the soft-falling dusk.
Their flesh meets like ripples across water,
nuzzle-greets its wild shape, doesn’t falter.
Sarah James, from The Vaginellas
at the door
he leans to the sound
of his own hand
tapping the dusk
skimming the music
just within reach
of her tinting her eyes
with blue shadow
he leans to the sound
of his own hand
tapping the dusk
skimming the music
just within reach
of her tinting her eyes
with blue shadow
Alex Reed, from These nights at home, with photos by Keren Banning
UnBreaking
i)
Sometimes a heart can break.
Not dropped on an unyielding tile-hard floor
to shatter into gem-sized fragments
Not splintered into the knife-blade-thickness
of rifts in unseasoned kindling
Not like the unearthing of a pit of bones
all with fractures from soldiers’ rifle-butts
Not bread broken into mass-sized pieces
for a line of Sunday half-believers
Not the clean snap of a KitKat bar
between the V of ungloved hands
Not the cracking of a pensioner’s skull
with a baseball bat from JD Sports
Not the curtain of night-cloud parting
for a glimpse of the moon’s borrowed sunlight
Not the unisoned break-down of black-clad mourners
as their loved one finishes dying.
ii)
Sometimes a heart can break, but no,
not suddenly like that – a heart can break
like the crazing lines on a fire-glazed vase,
where the ping of the creeping fractures
goes on and on for ever. A muttered no,
a lingering so what, a flicker of hate
in a sideways glance, the unworn ridge
in the middle of the bed, the days
of making-do and the nights of fake-believe;
two trapped half-lives, no longer a whole.
iii)
Maybe, sometimes, things can unbreak –
the kindling and the rifle-butts and the baseball bat
are restored to a tree and the dead wake back to life
and in my dream of all dreams you can’t wait
to break the silence with an i-love-you;
yes, I want more of you and you want more of me
and in every crazy day together
there’s a carnival of things unbroken.
Sometimes, a heart can unbreak. Maybe.
John Lawrence, from The boy who couldn't say his name
UnBreaking
i)
Sometimes a heart can break.
Not dropped on an unyielding tile-hard floor
to shatter into gem-sized fragments
Not splintered into the knife-blade-thickness
of rifts in unseasoned kindling
Not like the unearthing of a pit of bones
all with fractures from soldiers’ rifle-butts
Not bread broken into mass-sized pieces
for a line of Sunday half-believers
Not the clean snap of a KitKat bar
between the V of ungloved hands
Not the cracking of a pensioner’s skull
with a baseball bat from JD Sports
Not the curtain of night-cloud parting
for a glimpse of the moon’s borrowed sunlight
Not the unisoned break-down of black-clad mourners
as their loved one finishes dying.
ii)
Sometimes a heart can break, but no,
not suddenly like that – a heart can break
like the crazing lines on a fire-glazed vase,
where the ping of the creeping fractures
goes on and on for ever. A muttered no,
a lingering so what, a flicker of hate
in a sideways glance, the unworn ridge
in the middle of the bed, the days
of making-do and the nights of fake-believe;
two trapped half-lives, no longer a whole.
iii)
Maybe, sometimes, things can unbreak –
the kindling and the rifle-butts and the baseball bat
are restored to a tree and the dead wake back to life
and in my dream of all dreams you can’t wait
to break the silence with an i-love-you;
yes, I want more of you and you want more of me
and in every crazy day together
there’s a carnival of things unbroken.
Sometimes, a heart can unbreak. Maybe.
John Lawrence, from The boy who couldn't say his name
