The Colour of Spring by Tzu-Chun Chang Welcome to Issue 9 of Dust Poetry Magazine, which features 23 poems by 22 poets and cover illustration by Tzu-Chun Chang. Peaceful by Georgia Hilton Tundra by Mary Ford Neal Caldo Verde (Soup with Collard Greens) by Paul Stephenson On Doubt / A Pair of Blue Eyes by JLM Morton Will You Be Short As Spring by Morouje Sherif He Asks Her If She Wants Pretty Little Things by Shikha S. Lamba Lump by Bex Hainsworth Prayer by Andy Stager Banditry by Glenis Moore Nocturnal by Eva Eliav The Gardener by Melissa Sutaris Bob by John Newton Webb Splinter-Voice Echo by ..read more

Peaceful We sit down, root ourselves to the ground. As tree-roots’ fine capillaries lace the soil, becoming mesh, a net, absorbing strength – nerve fibres pulsing signals from brain to leg – as carbon fibre cables on the ocean bed, we are interconnected, drawing sustenance. So – we sit down – root ourselves to the ground. No kick, no tear, no bite, no swear, no punch, no shout, no belt, no stick, no gun, no pick. We. Just. Sit. Down. Lock arms, cross legs & then we sing the song of sundown and leaf-fall, of first frost and dove’s call – a foal’s first tottering steps – a bud – a stem. Geor ..read more

Tundra The glow in the windows is unexpected, as is the presence of a car in the driveway. In school, we heard only of permafrost. In a house in the tundra, a woman loosens a scarf, shakes her body out of a coat, and slows as she passes a mirror. Music is playing. Arms encircle her waist. She turns, lets lips meet lips. This, too, is wilderness. Mary Ford Neal is a writer and academic from the West of Scotland and the author of two recent poetry collections, ‘Dawning’ (Indigo Dreams, 2021) and ‘Relativism’ (Taproot Press, 2022). Her poetry has appeared in magazines and anthologies including Ba ..read more

Caldo Verde (Soup with Collard Greens) Remember stepping off that bus in São Martinho do Porto? The old lady at the stop, her leading us up the hill to her house, how she took our passports and euros, moved in with her mother. Our dinners on the roof, sheltered by stars, the silence of the sea. Remember always starting with your caldo verde? Dark green like seaweed. How on that last evening we poured the rest away, watched it block the sink. And how we couldn’t find a plunger so bought a product to shift it, emptied the lot, headed out for a drink. Remember getting back, going to the kitchen t ..read more

On Doubt / A Pair of Blue Eyes after Thomas Hardy and Emma Gifford Meeting changed our strata, the way only a storm at the edge of an ocean can do. The way a slump of salt water in a black cliff hole is a wet metronome for desire and regret. Blue milk sea and yellow gorse - it is possible to be ambivalent and beautiful at the same time. Everything becomes an image of our disharmonic foldings. You hanging from the clifftop in search of my jewels. I should have guessed the houses were crappy behind the waterfront where the old lanes run deep, away from the wind, under the pines. Stacked tyres, f ..read more

Will you be short as spring same crazy glory and then I habituate, walk under your trails raining with green light and after a block it’ll be a great deal, like here’s my name. here are your Goldfish. Morouje Sherif is an Egyptian-Canadian writer and artist from Cairo, Egypt, but now resides in Ontario, Canada, with her houseplants and homegrown lemon tree. Growing up in the Mediterranean, she has a vicarious thrill for feel-good compositions and the traverse of truth. Her work has appeared in the international Minds Shine Bright prize, The Poetry Society of UK, Foyle Young Poets of the Year ..read more

He asks her if she wants pretty little things in sweet packages, and she tells him of another winter they must survive. Perseverance is necessary, he says, as he wraps her up in another of his prescribed therapies for life. She listens patiently, maybe more so today than on most days, silently wondering what it is about the winter freeze that solidifies the fluidity of a verbal exchange, constraining most conversations. The cardamom swims invisible in her hands, as she warms the dialogue sitting on her tongue, each mahogany sip evaporating the thaw and waking her words from hibernation. We cou ..read more

Lump I found it whilst showering. Soapy fingers stalled over an unexpected hump. Wrapped in a towel, I sent a photo to my doctor friend in New Zealand. Kept quiet for all of two hours, then asked you to put the big light on and have a look. You, who knows all my lines by heart, frowned as your gently cupped, prodded, but assured me you weren’t worried. I booked an appointment, then we stuck to ‘Scottish Play’ rules. Didn’t ask about your auntie, the bruise. After two nights of it growing between us, villain, volcanic, there was the clinic, examination: abscess, antibiotics, relief. The lump dr ..read more

Prayer after Tracy K Smith For Tires. For Tread that tires after many miles. For Turrets and spires, for glass stained to see, to illumine, to be seen through. For buttresses. For an altar in every town. For the knees of priests that bend when ours can’t. For Toblerone at the duty free when we’ve no memento in tow. For Taxis to the terminal and dragging us across the tarmac. For Tarmac. For in-flight snacks, then taxis again. For Time and to make home, and love, after travel. For Tomaso, our robot vacuum. For Together, whatever weather. Andy Stager is from Akron, Ohio, USA. He has lived with h ..read more

Banditry Fluffs of blue and yellow, chattering like children let out early from school, the Blue Tits mob the feeder, looting it of seed and peanuts. Then they are off to burgle another garden with their smash and grab technique. Glenis Moore has been writing poetry since the first Covid lockdown and does her writing at night as she suffers from severe insomnia. When she is not writing poetry she makes beaded jewellery, reads, cycles and sometimes runs 10K races slowly. She lives just outside Cambridge in the flat expanse of the Fens ..read more