Jordan Stead

Antediluvian

Prose Hand and hand we make our last pilgrimage. I remember you traced the silver scars on my fingers with your thumb. You smelled of your bed and lavender, flashing your teeth as you laughed. We talked of life and death, of prayers and old religion; the difference in thoughts and the way we spoke, …

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Gomorrah

Poetry The apocalyptic old testament destruction of the mythical city of Gomorrah becomes a hedonistic mimesis of a sexual encounter in this poem. It hurts as we unpeel; This incendiary, this spitfire. Chaos rumbles from the clouds And swallows the entire city In bleach, in arsenic. Kissed lips dowsed in whiteness, Erupt outward from the …

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Lillith

Poetry By evoking Lillith, the first wife of Adam in Judaic and Babylonian mythology Stead offers an imaginative depiction of this classical figure. Spat from the tomb In wily procession – Angel hair And twelve heads. Levitate, hungry With the stench of Poison Darkness stirs In her throat, Out with a flame. Teeth bared – …

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Doe

Poetry Jordan Stead uses natural imagery and a Romantic idealism in this poem from our launch to depict a turbulent emotional period in Doe. Immolate Like a dying star In his darkness – Moonlight stings This opened gash. I wander The back-garden woods Like some white pilgrim That you haunt The redness marks my skin; …

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November

Poetry Depicting a particularly bleak part of the year and mirroring it to a bleak time in the life of the protagonist, November is short and dark. Stitched wrists And kerosene lips, Born from this death I plunge and sink In grey streets And strange bedrooms, Haunting like a ghost. I writhe. The November moon …

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Hollow Bell

Poetry Hollow Bell describes a dream or vision lying dead in the desert and watching predatory and growing life spring from one’s own carcass. With sticky fingers he devoured And picked away – the vultures Bleached the bones. I was nothing Until flowers Grew from my ribcage. Yesterday I died And then I woke up. …

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Myxomatosis

Poetry Reflecting on finding the carcass of a rabbit fallen victim to Myxomatosis, Jordan Stead uses classical imagery to ruminate on death. The moths have began To lay claim to this White Polypheme, A pale opus Gentle and quiet. This little beast Is now diseased and beat With soft kisses From a fetishizing God. She, …

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Antigone

Poetry Jordan Stead returns to our digital pages with a brand new poem with intimate boundaries and epic proportions. ‘Antigone’ evokes the image of the mythic gravedigger to play with ideas of symbolic death and tragedy but, through a juxtaposition of images, Stead creates a bleak space which is fringed with intimations of possibility.  Here …

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