For this issue we invited your response to the following:
Instantly he felt the breath sucked from his mouth as if it were a tangible thing and the storm had the fingers to be able to do it. His hair whipped across his eyes. Water was already trickling down the back of his neck. The trees were up in arms, perhaps aghast at the storm's ferocity. They shook as if in indignation, or fear. There were no edges to the great bank of cloud above; an endless wet grey skin had grown across the sky. Water enclosed him, more completely even than his clothes. He felt it rilling along his arms where it had soaked through his jumper and shirt, coursing from his fingertips as if it were blood freed from a vein. Light from the torch danced frantically across the skin of the house, punching through the rain but unable to pierce the furthest corners of the garden. They drew the light into them, miniature black holes hungry for anything that strayed too near. He fought a way through the vegetation to the rear of the house, where a jumble of interconnecting outbuildings sat squat beneath the weather like disgruntled children cheated of their playtime. He swung open the massive wooden door of the barn and moved inside. The swift escape from the rain was as much of a shock as it had been to step into it. For a moment the stillness was so great that he thought the storm had spent itself, but no, here was another roll of thunder. Now he could hear that rhythmic slamming again, coming from deep within the warren of buildings.
Extract from Rain by Conrad Williams
A Gray Matter Novella: £8
www.grayfriarpress.com
ISBN 978-1-906331-00-9
Ben and his family move to France.
There is an accident.
There is death.
There is rain.
Much rain.
Page(s) 45
magazine list
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- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- Dream Catcher
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- French Literary Review, The
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- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
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- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
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- Neon Highway
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- North, The
- Oasis
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- Orbis
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- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The