Two Such Muckle Border Haunters†
By Zoë Green
Granny Dods had a soft spot for wanderers,
brought tea to her door for the tinsmiths
who fixed her pans – stopped short
though of inviting them in. This one thing
she always said at the end of her phone calls:
be good to your mum, good understood
as a curse that might never be undone.
What about you, Ur-Grandmother, would you
have welcomed the muckle wanderers
of the moor, mearcstapa, borderhaunters,
ellorgæstas‡, to warm themselves at your fire?
Did you consider it wise, to pity outlaws?
Or yet wiser not to? You are not alone. We,
border haunters, eye each other yellowly –
won’t be forced together just because our tongues
sing the same music as they flap in the wind.
We have no intent on you: we move like the sea,
restless, unhoused, yet not homeless. Grateful,
of course, but we can never be still nor good
to our mothers whom we left behind in the storm,
whose hope kindles at every knock on the door.
† Beowulf 1347-8, swylce twegen / micle mearcstapan. my translation
‡ ‘spirits from otherwhere’ (my translation).
The Ill-Met
by Victoria Spires
Minced oaths: a minced oath is a euphemistic expression formed by deliberately misspelling, mispronouncing, or replacing a part of a profane, blasphemous, or taboo word or phrase to reduce the original term’s objectionable characteristics. (Wikipedia)
Zounds (God’s wounds)
The simplest methods are typically the most effective: the snare, the crucifix. It is a sly creature – find its runs, its desire lines. It will be undone by its own energy, or not at all.
Gadslids (God’s eyelids)
It is advised not to get into a staring competition with the sly one. It possesses a third eyelid, and does not blink.
Ods bodkins (God’s body)
Like a ripple through sand, almost, or the moment after the moment before a seizure.
‘Sblood (God’s blood)
Remove the entrails, hang it by its hind legs. Once jugged, it resembles nothing so much as a prayer, folding in on itself – all our wishes, made sticky with concentration.
‘Sheart (God’s heart)
Is exceptionally large, for His size, and highly susceptible to stress. This is His burden.
‘Sfoot (God’s foot)
Pity the rabbit. Suggestible of a key-chain relic; something cute and cuddly. Pretty little tchotchke. Meanwhile, God is silent, shifty, nothing enviable.
‘Sdeath (God’s death)
The sly one tires of our japes. To be cas’d, and cas’d, and cas’d again. An entire existence spent inside-out, skinless. The sly one waits for the end of all our frames of reference; waits for true death.
Worms Can Say
by Jess Richardson
Zoë Green is a poet from Angus, who has worked in Colombo, Vienna, Berlin, London and the Engadine valley in Switzerland. Nominated for the Forward Prize, she has appeared in numerous leading journals (Carmen et Error, the London Magazine, Poetry Wales, New Writing Scotland, Southword, berlin lit, the Interpreter’s House, Alchemy Spoon, Under the Radar, Atrium, Scottish PEN and others) , the Scottish Poetry Library’s Best Scottish Poems of 2023, and been placed, shortlisted or commended in major competitions including the London Magazine Poetry Prize, Manchester Poetry Prize, McClellan Prize in Scots, Alpine Fellowship, Gregory O’Donoghue Prize and Winchester Poetry Prize. She is currently writing a PhD on the use of Old English in contemporary poetry to explore edges and boundaries.
Victoria Spires lives in Northampton with her family. Her work has been published widely, including in Berlin Lit, Dust, The London Magazine, iamb, The Interpreter’s House & Atrium. Her poems have been commended/shortlisted in various prizes including Ledbury Poetry Competition & The Plough Prize. She came Third in the Rialto Nature and Place Competition 2025 & won the Alpine Fellowship Poetry Prize 2025. Her pamphlet Soi-même is available from Salo Press.
Jess Richardson teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art and is the author of It Had Been Planned and There Were Guides, an FC2 Sukenick prizewinner that was longlisted for a PEN/Bingham award. Poems have appeared in Bending Genres, Sundog Lit, Willow Springs and other places. More can be found at www.jessicaleerichardson.com.
Issue 14.0 was edited and selected by Elizabeth Chadwick Pywell. Elizabeth has a Northern Writers’ Award and was an Out-Spoken Press Emerging Poet. She’s been widely published in journals including Magma, The North, Fourteen Poems and Poetry Wales, won the Poetry Society’s Stanza competition, and has been commended in the Winchester Poetry Prize and shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. She co-hosts Rise Up! in York, and a Sampler of her work is available with Mariscat Press.